Karamojong Hair styles

In Karamoja, events and seasons can be communicated using dress, hairstyles and body marks.  Girls communicate their ages by what they wear.  The hair style in the picture is of A karamojong teenage girl.  Usually this hairstyle is for the ages between 14-19 years old.  This hair style shows that they girl is not yet ready for marriage.  When the girls is ready for marriage, she will start wearing most of the beads around her waist. The ones won around the waist will usually comprise of the favourite pastoralist colours such as: navy blue, red, orange, green and yellow.  For now this girl is only putting a few lines of sky-blue beads on her neck.  Anyone out there in search of this bride, please hold on.

Beautiful Karamoja!

Where is it? 

Karamoja is located in North Eastern Uganda. It is bordering the Republic of South Sudan in the North, Kenya to the East, Acholi sub-region to the north-west and Teso sub-region to the south-west.  It is also bordered by Sironko, Kapchorwa and Bukwa to the south.

Karamoja is now made up of 7 districts, namely: kaabong, Kotido, Abim, Moroto, Nakapiripirit, Amudat and Napak.  (It is hoped that there is another nabilatuk District in the offing in the not too distant future, come the financial year 2011/ 12).  The Karamoja region is approximately 27, 200 square kilometers (10, 500 square mile) of land, with as estimated population of 1.5 million people.

Karamoja is home to different ethnic groups of: Dodoth ,Jie, Karamojong and Pokot. Other ethnic minorities found in the region incluse: Ethur, Ik, and Tepeth.  The ethnic groups who are populary reffered to as karamojong comprise of the Matheniko (in Moroto), The Bokora (in Napak) and the Pian (in Nakapiripirit,
Outsiders’ view of karamoja is that it is a land full or normadic warriors spraying bullets here and there and shooting up arrows at each other’s future. It also known by outsiders, as a place of no rule of law; desert type of climate, with no possibility of a good life.  The ‘outsiders’ we are talking about here are Ugandans themselves who many times depend on the negative new reported in the media about Karamoja. But the coin always has two side.  Karamoja too had its second side: the Beautiful Karamoja!  The beautiful side has breath-taking landscapes, beautiful trees, sunsets, Sunrises, beautiful mountains, enormous wealth of minerals.
This blog site will be dedicated to brining out the beautiful side of Karamoja.  We shall not close our eyes to the challenges that the people in this region live with, but we shall also show how these heroes of the sort have survived through all their challenges and have kept their heads up in spite of little support from duty bearers.
The picture in the blog is the beautiful Karamoja Epye tree.  It is also medicinal for treating diarrhoea, skin diseases and for de-worming.  Its wood is superb for building as it is resistant to termites. 
If ‘seeing, is believing’ for most of us, then please come to Karamoja and see for yourself, the other side of the coin.