"Su Yao's Dazzling Counterattack Chapter 53"
The sun hung high over the Ethiopian Highlands, casting a golden glow over rolling grasslands where herds of cattle grazed and clusters of acacia trees dotted the landscape. Su Yao's vehicle bounced along a dirt road, passing Oromo villages with thatched-roof huts and women in brightly colored dresses carrying bundles of firewood on their backs. Near the town of Adama, in a clearing surrounded by eucalyptus trees, a group of weavers sat on animal hides, their hands moving rhythmically as they wove wool into thick, warm cloaks. Their leader, a woman with a headscarf of red and green and arms adorned with beaded bracelets named Adisu, When they approached, they saw that they were holding a samah (a traditional woolen cloak, with a color of earthy brown). red, and black. "You've come for the shamma," she said, her Oromo language rich and resonant, gesturing to the piles of woven cloaks stacked nearby.
The Oromo people of Ethiopia have crafted shamma for centuries, a craft deeply intertwined with their pastoral way of life and cultural identity. The shamma—a large, The rectangular cloak was draped over the shoulders - serving to protect against the severe cold of the highlands.a blanket for sleeping under the stars, and a symbol of status: the quality of wool and complexity of patterns indicate a family's wealth and reputation. Woven on simple horizontal looms, shamma are made from wool sheared from the Oromo's prized sheep, which graze on nutrient-rich grasses that give the fleece its softness and warmth. Dyes are derived from local plants and minerals: gesho bark for brown, indigo for blue, and ochre for red, with each color carrying meaning—red for courage, black for mourning, and white for purity. The dyeing process is a communal activity, with women gathering to crush pigments and soak the wool, singing songs that honor Waaqa (the supreme god) and the ancestors. Su Yao's team had traveled here to merge this time-honored craft with their seaweed-metal blend, hoping to create a textile that honored Oromo traditions while adding durability to the wool fibers. But from the first conversation, it was clear that their understanding of "heritage" and "innovation" was as different as the highlands' crisp air and the ocean's salt spray.
Adisu's daughter, Amina, a 23-year-old who balanced weaving with attending a local agricultural school, held up a shamma with bold red stripes. "This is for a gada ceremony," she said, tracing the stripes that represent the stages of a man's life in Oromo society. "My mother wove it for my brother's initiation into adulthood. Each thread is spun with a prayer to Waaqa for strength and wisdom. You don't just make a shamma—you weave a life's journey."
Su Yao's team had brought mechanical looms and synthetic dyes, intending to mass-produce simplified shamma patterns using their seaweed-metal blend for a "tribal luxury" clothing line. When Lin displayed a prototype with machine-woven stripes, the women froze, their wooden spindles hanging mid-air. Adisu's husband, Kebede, an elder with a long beard and a staff carved with symbols of cattle, stood and scowled. "You think machines can capture the spirit of our sheep?" he said, his voice booming across the clearing. "Shamma carries the breath of our animals and the sweat of our labor. Your metal has no breath, no sweat—it is a rock."
Cultural friction deepened over materials and rituals. Oromo weavers shear their sheep by hand during the dry season, singing to the animals to "give their warmth freely" and leaving offerings of tej (honey wine) to thank them. The wool is cleaned with water from mountain streams, where women perform a small ritual to honor the water spirits. Dyes are prepared in large earthen pots over open fires, with each batch stirred counterclockwise to "align with Waaqa's will." The seaweed-metal blend, despite its organic origins, was viewed as an outsider. "Your thread comes from the salt sea, which is far from our mountains," Adisu said, dropping a sample on the ground. "It will never protect our children from the cold nights."
A practical crisis emerged when the metal threads reacted with the gesho bark dye, turning it a dull gray and causing the wool fibers to become brittle. "It angers Waaqa," Amina said, holding up a ruined swatch where the red stripes had faded. "Our shamma grow softer with each year, like a well-loved story. This will scratch and tear, like a bad memory."
Then disaster struck: a swarm of locusts descended on the highlands, devouring the grass that fed the sheep and leaving the animals thin and weak, their wool sparse and poor quality. The stored wool, kept in a thatched hut, was also infested, and the dye plants—carefully tended in small gardens—were destroyed. With the rainy season approaching and no materials to weave warm shamma, the village faced hardship. Kebede, performing a ritual to drive away the locusts by burning incense and reciting prayers, blamed the team for disturbing the natural balance. "You brought something from the sea to our land," he chanted, as smoke curled toward the sky. "Now Waaqa sends these pests to test us."
That night, Su Yao sat with Adisu in her hut, where a fire crackled in the center and a pot of doro wat (spiced chicken stew) simmered over the flames. The air smelled of berbere (chili powder) and roasted barley, and outside, the sound of drums and singing drifted from a nearby celebration. "I'm sorry," Su Yao said, sipping a cup of coffee brewed in the traditional Oromo way. "We came here thinking we could help, but we've only shown we don't understand your ways."
Adisu smiled, passing Su Yao a piece of injera (sourdough flatbread). "The locusts are not your fault," she said. "Waaqa tests those he loves. My grandmother used to say that hardship makes our weaving tighter, like the bonds of our community. But your thread—maybe it's a gift, if we learn to use it with our hands. The young people leave for the cities. We need to show them our shamma can go with them, without losing its soul."
Su Yao nodded, hope stirring like a breeze through the grasslands. "What if we start over? We'll help you find new pastures for the sheep, replant the dye plants, and clean the infested wool. We'll learn to weave shamma by hand, using your looms. We won't copy your sacred patterns. Instead, we'll create new ones together—designs that merge your stripes with our ocean waves, honoring both your highlands and the sea. And we'll let Kebede bless the metal thread with a prayer, so it carries Waaqa's favor."
Amina, who had been listening from the doorway, stepped inside, her beaded necklace clicking. "You'd really learn to spin wool in the cold? Your fingers will freeze, and the wool is coarse at first."
"However long it takes," Su Yao said. "And we'll learn the songs you sing while working. Respect means joining your chorus."
Over the next two months, the team immersed themselves in Oromo life. They helped Kebede and the other herders drive the surviving sheep to higher pastures where the locusts hadn't reached, their legs aching from walking miles over rough terrain. They trekked into the mountains with Adisu to collect new dye plants, learning to identify gesho bark by its bitter smell and indigo by the way it stains the fingers blue. They sat on animal hides in the clearing, spinning wool until their fingers were raw, as the women sang work songs about cattle and courage. "The wool must be spun evenly, like the steps of a dance," Adisu said, showing Su Yao how to twist the fibers. "Too loose, and the thread breaks; too tight, and it loses its warmth."
They learned to dye the wool in large pots over open fires, their clothes stained red and brown as Amina taught them to add a handful of barley to the dye to "make the color last like a story told for generations." "You have to crush the gesho bark with a stone from the sacred hill," she said, pounding the pigment into a paste. "Rushing it makes the color weak, and weak color can't protect us." They practiced the simple weave that creates the shamma's characteristic texture, their progress slow but steady as Adisu's mother, an elderly woman named Eleni, corrected their tension with a sharp eye. "The weave must be tight enough to keep out the rain," she said, her gnarled fingers brushing the fabric. "But loose enough to let the skin breathe."
To solve the reaction between the metal threads and gesho dye, Lin experimented with coating the metal in a solution of shea butter and honey, a mixture Oromo use to condition both skin and wool. The butter sealed the metal, preventing discoloration, while the honey added a subtle sweetness that Kebede declared "pleasing to Waaqa." "It's like giving the thread an Oromo soul," she said, showing Adisu a swatch where the brown now glowed against the metal's shimmer.
Fiona, inspired by the way the Ethiopian Highlands' rivers flow to the Red Sea, designed a new pattern called bahr weyina (river and sea), merging Oromo stripes with wave motifs in seaweed-metal thread. The stripes gradually transform into waves, symbolizing the connection between the highlands and the ocean. "It honors your cattle and our fish," she said, and Kebede nodded, running his hand over the design. "Waaqa made both land and sea," he said. "This cloth tells the truth of his creation."
As the sheep regained their strength and the new dye plants began to grow, the village held a festival to celebrate the end of the locust crisis, with dancing, feasting, and a ceremony where Kebede blessed the new textiles. They unveiled their first collaborative piece: a shamma with the bahr weyina pattern, its wool fibers strengthened by seaweed-metal thread that caught the sunlight like dewdrops on grass, and traditional red and brown stripes that glowed against the green of new pastures.
Adisu draped the shamma over Su Yao's shoulders during the celebration, as warriors chanted and children danced. "This cloth has two hearts," she said, her eyes shining. "One from our highlands, one from your sea. But both beat with the same courage."
As the team's vehicle drove away from the village, Amina ran alongside, waving a small package. Su Yao rolled down the window, and she tossed it in: a scrap of shamma dyed brown, stitched with a tiny stripe and wave in seaweed-metal, wrapped in a sheepskin. "To remember us by," read a note in Oromo and Amharic. "Remember that the highlands and sea are both children of Waaqa—like your thread and our wool."
Su Yao clutched the package as the Ethiopian Highlands faded into the distance, their peaks wreathed in mist. She thought of the hours spent spinning wool by the fire, the work songs sung under the stars, the way the metal thread had finally learned to dance with the wool. The Oromo had taught her that tradition isn't a relic—it's a living, breathing part of identity, one that can grow new threads without breaking the old.
Her phone buzzed with a message from the Bengali team: photos of Ayesha holding their collaborative Muslin sari at a festival. Su Yao smiled, typing back: "We've added a new stripe—Ethiopian highlands and your sea, woven as one."
Somewhere in the distance, a shepherd's call echoed across the grasslands, a haunting melody that seemed to carry the weight of centuries. Su Yao knew their journey was far from over. There were still countless cultures to learn from, countless threads to weave into the tapestry of their work. And as long as they approached each new place with humility—listening more than speaking, learning more than teaching—the tapestry would only grow more vibrant, a testament to the beauty of human connection across every landscape.