Art Photos People Pictures of the Karamajong Water Well. The photos of drilling a well in Karamoja Uganda were taken in 1989 when Karamojo was still a remote area of Uganda with no tarmac road into the region. Photos by Paul E Williams
Art Photos People Pictures of the Karamajong Villages 2 -Uganda 1989
The Karamojong or Karimojong, a Nilotic ethnic group. Photos by photographer Paul E Williams. They are agro-pastoral herders living mainly in the north-east of Uganda.
“ I visited the Karamajong over 40 years ago when I agreed to take some photos for a friend, Nigel Nicholson. Nigel was heading up the LWF well drilling and development program in the area. It was an experience I will never forget and was like going back 1000 years or longer. It was incredible to meet people whose life style had changed very little. Most were hidden away at the end of a tortuous dirt track that led into remote regions.
Many people had some western clothes from development agencies. The lucky ones had new water wells. Apart from that they lived in mud huts with thatch roofs and tended their cattle in the bush as they had done for millennia.
Moroto Karamoja
One thing that had changed for them though that they had guns !! There was an army barracks in Moroto, the main town of Karamoja, and when Idi Amin was ousted the solders deserted. The barracks was left empty giving the Karamajong warriers a chance to grab all the guns left behind. They carry them off into the bush and hid them.
Large Format Camera
I took most of these photos on a 6×7 Mamyia. I took a polaroid back so I could give out prints out. I remember giving the girl in one of the photos with a baby, beating sunflower head, a polaroid of her and the baby. She was very happy and gave it to a local nurse who was accompanying us. I asked if there was a problem and she told me that the girl had asked her to keep the polarod. She had said that rodents would eat it if she put it in her hut. That brought me down to earth with a huge crash.
The Big Gulf
The gulf between Africa and the west has widened even more since then which is very sad. I have a load of stories from that trip which I will write up sometime. In the mean time this collection is dedicated to a intelligent hospitable fun people known as the Karamajong” Paul E Williams
