Gulu

Northern Uganda and its people have been attacked throughout recent history, by the National Resistance Army (1986), the Lord’s Resistance Army (1990s), and by the Ugandan Government - in their setting up of ‘concentration camps’ or so called Internally Displaced Person camps (1996-2009). It was not until 2007 that Northern Uganda became relatively peaceful, but even still, the LRA continued to terrorise, killing 39 people in 2012.

Roadside boxing practice in Gulu

Two weekends ago, when a friend invited me to tag along on her all-expenses-paid work trip to Gulu, the capital city of Northern Uganda, I jumped at the opportunity to escape Kampala and visit what I knew would be a very different and interesting part of Uganda. I’ll have to be honest though, I didn’t really have a clue what the weekend would entail... I knew my friend worked for a contemporary visual arts project and that I was accompanying her as project assistant, but any further information kind of passed me by (sorry Laura – the excitement of a weekend away thoroughly distracted me in our conversation about my role in the project!) I did take note, however, of key instructions such as ‘bring you camera’ and ‘the bus leaves at 7am, be at the departure point for 6:30’.

Wall art, Gulu

That Friday, I awoke bright and early (well actually, it was still dark), to the distinctive early-morning sounds of Kampala – ‘call to prayer’ voices  from various surrounding mosques, clashing against super loud Luga flow music blaring out from the clubs (yes, still going even at 5:30am on a Friday morning!). As I waited for my boda-boda driver on the roadside, 6:30am getting ever closer, I began to feel somewhat anxious that I would not make the bus’ 7am departure... but then I remembered the African time rule - add an hour, or more if you fancy, and then set off. Funnily enough, or not so funny (at the time anyway), out of about 20 Ugandans, absolutely everyone was early and the bus was ready to depart at 6:50am. Except one person was missing – the project assistant, who didn’t even know what the project was - was still whizzing down the highway on a boda-boda at a terrifying (and probably illegal) speed. So for once, it was the idiot mzungu (yours truly) who was late and held everything up.

Luckily for me, Gulu is approximately 200 miles from Kampala, so I had plenty of time to catch my breath, calm down, and find out why we were all going there. Turns out Laura’s art project was part of a bigger music & arts festival - one that is very well known and popular in East Africa – Bayimba. I was already familiar with Bayimba Festival because back in September, on my 2^nd night in Uganda, I was taken out to enjoy the final night of Bayimba Kampala. So Laura, her two co-workers and I were on the way to Bayimba Gulu to facilitate a 2-day visual art workshop with the local artists of Gulu.

TAKS Art Centre, site for Bayimba Gulu

It was a long old journey, but it was quite nice to stare out the window for 6 hours and day-dream. The further away from Kampala we drove, the worse the potholes became, and for a prolonged stretch of particularly bad road, I couldn’t hear my ipod (or anything else for that matter) above the sounds of the bus juddering. We had one stop at Uganda’s answer to a service station – where a swarm of street-food sellers dressed in blue overalls come sprinting to your vehicle, shoving pork on a stick and smoked bananas through your windows, next to a few foul-smelling large bushes littered with toilet tissue.

Once we arrived in Gulu, I was struck by how un-City-ish it felt. In fact compared to Kampala, it felt like we were in a very small town. Most buildings looked rather run down, the streets were fairly deserted, and although it didn’t actually rain that much over the weekend, there was almost constant thunder and lighting, and strong winds picking up dust form the streets. Someone quite rightly likened it to the set of a Wild West horror film. 

We stayed in what most reviewers on Trip Advisor describe as ‘Upcountry at its finest!’ and ‘hands down the best hotel in Gulu’, which – as Laura inspected some blood stains on her sheets - did make me wonder what the bad hotels in Gulu are like... To be fair, apart from the dubious-looking sheets and lack of electricity, the hotel was basic but had a nice vibe, especially since most of the Bayimba crew were also staying there.

Visual art workshops at the Bayimba Festival

The visual art workshops themselves were a roaring success. The first day was more of an introduction; we met some of the locals (called the Acholi), discussed the struggles of being an artist in Gulu and Uganda, and explored the workshop theme of ‘unmapped’. Most attendees got stuck in and almost immediately started sketching plans for their main piece of work, of which 6 would be selected, mounted on to boda-bodas, and paraded around Gulu! The second workshop, on day 2 of the festival, was much more practical. We set up outside, under a mango tree, and spread out a mass of paints, canvas, glue, wire, fabric etc. The workshop welcomed not only bona fide artists, but anyone who wanted to get involved... we even attracted a group of police officers!

In fact the whole festival attracted a diverse array of people... Ancholi youths, artists and musicians, families, volunteers, NGO workers, tourists, and even a few real life Canadian hippies who I think must have got lost on their way to Woodstock.

By 5pm, the TAKS Art Centre site had completely transformed, and a huge stage fit for Glastonbury had been erected. The evening’s entertainment consisted of comedy, poetry, fashion parades, fire-dancing, film-screenings, break-dancing, and to conclude, some very popular local musicians. It was a fantastic evening that really celebrated the talents of Northern Uganda, and a very enjoyable weekend. Thank you Laura.

Boda-boda art parade

 

Evening entertainment