Kotcho and a coffee ceremony in Gurage - On tour with our Ethiopia Specialists

Posted on Fri October 20, 2023.

Mark Chapman set up Tesfa Tours in 2010 to continue promoting the community tourism he'd been developing since 1999. "To us, community tourism means a sustainable partnership between philanthropic businesses and community-run enterprises", Mark underlines.

Recently, Mark and his Tesfa team were visiting a village looking to set up homestay tourism. He brought some photos back from his trip: In a field of ‘Enset’ trees - false banana - a team of women were labouring to scrape the pulp from the stems and to mash the thick bulb-like mass at the bottom to make the unique food called ‘kotcho’ (which comes in various forms).

"We were chatting and filming them as they sang and worked until a torrential downpour sent everyone into a local house for a cup of coffee", Mark remembers.

Thank you for these impressions, Mark!