Saturday, April 4, 2009

arua countryside from the air

arua from the air philip bowen photographer kampala uganda

1 comment:

  1. looking down from a couple hundred feet. very typical northwestern ugandan countryside. some things to note.

    the red piles are baked mud bricks. there is an unbaked pile just above the lower clothes line. you can see the three holes where they build the fire. i don't know how long it burns to fire the whole stack of bricks.

    the clusters of homes tend to belong to one family. the big man is usually in the middle and biggest, his sons' homes around the perimeter. i don't know how a son breaks away to start his own cluster. maybe the eldest takes it over when dad dies? i also don't know whether the multiple wives also live in the cluster and how that all works. i listen a lot, but i don't ask too many questions.

    common perception of africa is barren, dry... well, arua has seen 3 days of rain since the new year, but you can see how green it still is. and the cultivation going on. the rains will begin any day now hopefully. they've already begun in kampala (a little late). for the most part, uganda is overwhelmingly green.

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