Karamoja

Karamoja is the most remote region in the North Eastern corner of Uganda. The tribe living there are the Karamajong, strong, tall and dark people that would probably remind you of the Maasai in Kenya. It is also the least developed region in Uganda with low literacy rates, very low income per capita, high mother and infant mortality, high alcohol consumption and a lot of violence. Some years ago it still was not uncommon to see people walking around totally naked. Since the area is very dry cows are the most important property for the nomadic living Karamajong but things got out of hand when spears got replaced by AK 47 guns and relatively harmless raids turned into massive slaughters. It was not too uncommon that some father thought that it might be a good income generating activity to stop a few cars at the point of his AK 47 in order to raise school fees for his kids. Or if a white car driving on the road hit and killed his goat the next white car passing by could be sure to be shot at in an act of revenge. I was also told that instead of romantic proposals it could happen that a woman was raped first and then the parents were asked if she was available to be married. Above all, a man must be strong and tough, hygiene is for wimps - who could be scared of such ridiculously small beasts like bacteria?

We've travelled to Karamoja in order to assess relevance and opportunities to provide basic financial services in this area. The trip is long, beautiful, rough and at times a bit dangerous - though fortunately not due to bullets.


The major town in Karamoja is called Moroto and it is located at the foot of a large mountain that provides a magnificent view across the vast land. As we've traveled on a Sunday there is still some time to climb up Mount Moroto...

In Moroto a small bank branch provides practically just one type of service and only once a month: paying out the salaries of teachers and soldiers.

What appears to be filling the gap are simple and small-scale self-organised groups that provide possibilities to safely deposit money and give out small credits. Visiting one of these groups we find the typical rural setting of villagers gathering under a tree and holding their meeting like a small ritual.



The approach seems to be adequate and helpful, we'll look at this in more detail.
Then, I have to leave back to Kampala a few days before the others, so I'm hopping into a tiny prop airliner - uahhh...



Though the flight is a bit bumpy, I am rewarded with absolutely thrilling views as we fly half across Uganda.




My goodness, sometimes I can't believe that I'm actually getting paid doing this ;-)