January 22, 20245:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageAnthropologist Carla Handley, center, meets with Wario Bala, right, to present the results of a DNA study she conducted seven years ago in his community in northern Kenya.
Rebecca Siford
hide caption
toggle caption
Rebecca Siford
Anthropologist Carla Handley, center, meets with Wario Bala, right, to present the results of a DNA study she conducted seven years ago in his community in northern Kenya.
Rebecca Siford
Anthropologist Carla Handley is sitting cross-legged in a mud-walled house in a Kenyan village called Merti. She’s meeting with a man dressed in a flowing blue robe and a woven cap of red and white. His name is Wario Bala and he’s a member of Kenya’s Borana ethnic group, a nomadic people who raise cattle across Kenya’s northern regions.
Handley introduces herself, then adds that she’s “known locally as Chaltu Jillo Hanti” – the Borana language name bestowed on her by elders in the community. An interpreter transl..