Bodi woman going to market

The Omo River is an important river of southern Ethiopia. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia, and empties into Lake Turkana on the border with Kenya. It is the principal stream of an endorheic drainage basin; the part that the Omo drains includes part of the western Oromia Region and the middle of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region.

During his second expedition (1895–1897), Vittorio Bottego was the first European explorer to follow the course of the lower Omo River to its confluence with Lake Turkana.

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With 1.0 billion people (as of 2009, see table), it accounts for about 14.72% of the world's human population.

The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagoes. It has 54 fully recognized sovereign states ("countries"), 9 territories and three de facto states with limited recognition.

Africa, particularly central Eastern Africa, is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes), as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago – including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago.

The Mekan or Me'en are a Nilotic ethnic minority group inhabiting southwestern Ethiopia. The 1998 census lists them as consisting of 56,585 individuals.

The Mekan or Me'en speak the Me'en language, which is a member of the Surmic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The population is subdivided into two groups: the highland Tishena, who are agriculturalists, and the lowland Bodi, who are pastoralists.