The Mzungu Diaries

Some Bonus Cat

Muzungu — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:36:00 +0000

I got up early today because the first rains of the new rainy season had come and the sunrise was spectacular. Then I went to check on the veg patch, and Peanut the cat came to assist me. These pics are for my sister Rachel, who seems interested in the cat. All I can say is try living with the little hooligan.

Waiting

And pouncing

And disrupting gardening.

Keko Live at Goethe Zentrum (And oh, I got Burgled)

Muzungu — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:59:03 +0000

Keko rocking out.

This blog has been very quiet for rather too long, and here’s why. I was burgled just after my birthday (yay!) and lost my laptop. This has meant a bit of a slow-down on several fronts, not least because I made the schoolboy error of formatting all of my backups for Mac and dammit it’s hard to find a Mac which I can use for as long as I need to sort this stuff out. So I’m in limbo at the moment- my images are safe, and I’m still working at my normal pace (if not a little faster!), but I don’t have much to put on the blog right now.

So for the next few days at least, this blog will again fall silent. But there are things going on at the moment (one of which is a continuation of my Northern Uganda Churches project and which I will be trying to crowd fund, for anybody who’s feeling generous) and there will be an avalanche of stuff coming as soon as I can get fully back on my feet. I’m sorry if you’ve been waiting for stuff, it’s coming I promise.

(By the way, I’m writing this on Steve Cresswell‘s laptop, which he has been kind enough to lend me for as long as I need it. Thank you Steve, you’re a saviour.

Change is Looming…

Muzungu — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:15:14 +0000

A woman works on a hand loom at Wawoto Kacel, Gulu. Wawoto Kacel, a small centre run by the Comboni Missionaries from Italy, has the purpose of teaching formerly vulnerable or homeless people skills so that they can make a living. Most of the products made are sold in Italy and the US, though there are also some stockists in Uganda.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been constantly wanting to do something on this blog. I’ve been in meetings with new clients, and been shooting pop stars, and been chuckling at this pie chart, and my work has been published in a few new places which is always good, but I haven’t taken many images which I can post on the blog yet. But they’re coming, and I’m going to do an investigation into Ugandan sculpture art. Brace yourselves for that, because it will include an image of the sculpture which, in my eyes at least, must take the title of “worst sculpture ever punched out of concrete”. I’ll be shooting the pics either today or tomorrow, so get ready. In the meantime, here’s some fun:

A Beginner’s Guide To Driving In Uganda

Merry Christmas

Muzungu — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:03:50 +0000

To all of my readers:

Thank you all.

The Faces Of This Is Uganda

Muzungu — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:43:38 +0000

During the This is Uganda festival last Saturday I put up a bit of cloth backstage and shot portraits of some of the performers (it was easier in the early afternoon when it was less busy, so there’s nobody featured from later on I’m afraid). I hope you like what you see!

What I was up to this weekend

Muzungu — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 08:13:19 +0000

Last week Anna curated the exhibition for the opening of the MishMash gallery and cafe on Acacia Avenue, Kololo, and I went along to bash nails into walls for her. It was great, and the day itself (though a little damp) was a lot of fun.

Another awesome creation out of the MishMash kitchen- these are mixed dips with bread.

So I’ve been a little quiet on the blog, but having a whale of a time and I got published four times (four!! Though on the Monitor article they gave my name as “Will Boasei”), as well as being told that one of my pictures is on the walls of the Ugandan Parliament! Most flattering. And to top it off, WordPress has named me as one of their bloggers who covered the biggest stories of 2011, so if you’re here because of that, it’s great to have you here. Busy week this week (off to Gulu for IPS, then Iganga for Raising Voices, then Kampala for the This Is Uganda Festival). Updates will follow.

Jobless Millionaires

Muzungu — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:00:05 +0000

From a photoessay I did about miraa (khat) chewers in Jinja:

A man lights a cigarette in a house popular with miraa chewers.

BIRDS.

Muzungu — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 09:39:59 +0000

I was in the Ssese Islands over the weekend to shoot something for a UN publication on the subject of the HIV/AIDS rate amongst the fishing communities there, and I did the work. However (as Andrew Green, the writer I was working with, put it), it also revealed me as a closet birder. I photographed a lot of birds, partly because there were a lot of birds around. Here are some of those pictures. There are more somewhere but I haven’t got around to editing them yet. I also haven’t the foggiest about the names of some of them, so suggestions in the comments box as usual please. Will Garforth (who I owe an email), I’m looking at you.

Some sort of wader. Name suggestions welcome.

Same wader, different pose.

Hornbill at dawn just beside the Hornbill Campsite.

The moon. Tell me you guessed that one.

A male sunbird showing off to his mate (she's out of shot and looking unimpressed).

I love the weaverbirds. The trees they colonise for their shouty little towns of hanging fibre nests get torn to shreds by these yellow clowns, but they seem to have so much fun.

Weaverbird vandalising a banana palm. The leaf fibres make for good nest-making material.

Weaverbird post-vandalism, preparing to become an architect. Or pretending to have a big fake moustache. Could be both.

Weaverbird at repose.

Then we went down to the fishing villages, and there were egrets everywhere, nicking the fish.

Egrets (I think) having a day at the beach.

Egret flying.

And kingfishers, though they seemed much more interested in fishing for themselves. Possibly betraying a leaning towards a morality the egrets haven’t developed.

Pied kingfisher, rather a long way away.

But back to the egrets.

Suspicious egret.

Then as we sat and ate lunch, these two came and sat on the wires nearby, reminding me that it’s winter at home.

A pair of baby swallows, I think.

It was a long but productive weekend, and I’ll share more of the shots when they’ve run in the magazine. There’s a lot of pictures of boats for you to look forward to.

No birds, just water.

I’m also slowly building on my Facebook fan page (it’s currently a bit empty but that WILL change) but if you’d like to like me more than you currently like me, please head to Facebook and hit ‘Like’ to like my page, like.

A Kite, Flying

Muzungu — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:16:12 +0000

A kite at a landing site in Ssese Islands

11/11/11

Muzungu — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:05:16 +0000

Today is Remembrance Day, which reminded me that these images had remained in my archive unseen. I shot these first two while working on a documentary project about the life of a politician, and as they didn’t fit with the project they fell, as so many do, into obscurity.

Soldiers wait amongst the columns of Sheffield Town Hall before the commencement of the Remembrance Sunday service in Barkers Pool, Sheffield.

A child puts his arm round his father's neck during the Remembrance Sunday service at Barkers Pool in Sheffield as rain gently falls.

The third image comes from Paris, where I was working on a project about tension in public spaces.

At the memorial to the Algerian war on the banks of the Seine in Paris, a soldier sits watching the names of the dead move along the three pillars.

The First World War produced some of the most powerful literature in history (‘Goodbye To All That’ by Robert Graves springs to mind). Here is part of the Ode of Remembrance from Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.