In 2006, I went back to my old fieldwork site on the Omo river. I hadn't been in some time. I was driving the old white Land Cruiser short base, and my friend Steffen was with me. He had always said, "one day, I will come to Ethiopia with you", but so had several other people. So, big city kid Steffen, ever been to Africa only like once (in Ghana of all places), is touring the Savannah with me. He is a film-maker, though, so he brought his big-ass Sony camera, and later we ended up... but that's not the story of this trip. This trip, coming down from the Hamar hills, we first went to Korcho, beloved by all ye tourists for its pretty river loop; at any rate, we were cordially yet calmly received, got some news, got some coffee, and as the wind picked up, we drove on to my little village. Young Terbi, the son of Wujo came with us; I'd known him since 2003. Shifty-eyed, and sometimes plain shift, but he'd always done right by me. He promised to show us the currently best and shortest route through the bush. Circling around the flood plain, we ran right into the craziest storm of my life. Horizontal lightning was flashing all up and down the river, as the sky turn yellow, green, and purple, and a howling wind came from all sides at once. As is wont down there, darkness followed quickly - by that time, however, I felt I recognized the track, and was confident about us reaching the village safely. Approaching a mud hole, I asked, shouting over the storm, "Terbi, can we cross this?" "Yes yes, just keep going", he assured me with the recklessness of youth. This is when we got stuck, and when the rain started coming down for real. After just some minutes, we were soaked through, and our attempts to give the tires some traction by shoving sticks underneath them in the mud had failed. We needed manpower. "Terbi", I said, "run ahead and get like everyone. And make haste." Off he went, leaving Steffen and me for our selves in the Savannah, not even trying to begin conversation rendered prematurely pointless by our situation. Then, dark shapes emerged from the brush - I lit up the headlights again, and despite the apocalyptic weather, people were laughing and shouting, and already the first ones were rattling the chassis, checking whether they might not magically free the car. Foregoing greeting my old friends even, I sent Steffen back outside, and issued some quick commands about how many people should be cutting sticks, and how many should be pushing the car. Every thirty seconds or so, I stepped on the gas, hoping for traction, yet it took easily five minutes until the car lurched forward. Not wanting to risk getting stuck again, I maintained the momentum and, accompanied by the younger of our ground crew, hooting and hollering, drove the final kilometer to the palisade of the village. That's when I realized I had left Steffen behind in the bush, among a score of people with whom he had no single word in common in any language, and without his shoes, which he had -maybe prudently, at the time- carefully taken off when trudging through the mud. He arrived twenty minutes later, wet, flithy, half-stunned, but all along the way, old Ameriken had been holding his hand, leading him to shelter, and so, he had at least found a friend.