I’m out of the bush, and hours later I get to Gulu, the most important town in northern Uganda. I have covered Gulu and its more recent history and contribution to literature elsewhere, so I shall skip it here. I liked the place, went out to a club, did my first photo tour around the market. It was here that my idea for a photo series was born – African Women at Work.
Gulu is also the town where Okot p’Bitek was born. A friend from Zambia (hey there!, you know who you are 😉 ) recently introduced me to his best-known book, The Song of Lawino (1966). It’s a wonderful lament of a wife about her all-too European husband. He, Ocol, will respond later, in The Song of Ocol (1970). Very interesting author and scholar – read more here and here in German.
Settling in with hotel life
It started with Collins at the Red Chilli Camp in Murchison Falls Park. Collins told me about his desire to make a movie about an underdog guy who after a lot of fighting leaves the forest, a victor. He has it all in his mind, perhaps unsurprisingly. For he immediately went on to present a lively, if at times horrifying account of his brother, who had joined the UPDF to fight Joseph Kony‘s Lord’s Resistance Army.
Gulu, seen from my hotel, Free Zone