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| The assembly is covered with dried grass, then set on fire to bake the bricks |
Gulu is populated by the ethnic group Acholi, who are originally Luo people from southern Sudan. Their traditional dwellings are circular in shape, literally one door/one room, low with no upper floors.
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| Foreground is the out-house |
Latrines and bathrooms are "out-houses" and shared. There are also rectangular structures consisting of several doors; each door is one dwelling. I understand that this housing used to be the workers' quarters during the colonial period. Bungalows and houses with upper floors are very few and some mid-rise buildings are currently under construction.
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| Houses in town |
Uganda has a decentralized form of local government with two parallel hierarchies - that of the politicians, and the technocrats or civil servants. The smallest unit is the village which belongs to a parish which in turn forms a sub-county. The sub-county (or division) belongs to a county (or town) which comprises a district.
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| Everyone belongs to a village |
Outside town, the dwellings are mostly circular huts. In some villages, tribal chiefs
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| Village of a prominent person |
still live and rule among their people.
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| Interior of a dwelling |
Compare the village huts to the wigwams of the American Indians, the igloos of the Eskimos, the boat houses and nipa huts in the Philippines.
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| Newly built hut |
They have their own unique designs and make - suitable to the weather conditions, the terrain, and the available building materials. I noticed though that none of these Acholi dwellings have make-shift walls or roofs made of scrap materials - a common sight in some areas back home.
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| A child in his home |
Isn't the world one global village where we live in our peculiar dwellings with our own tribes and rulers? Some people though in this modern age have the choice to live in recreational mobile homes, camping tents, luxurious yachts, high-tech mansions, and furnished tree-houses. They are, perhaps a new tribe..........
Arriving in Gulu after being reunited with my family for the holidays in places where capitalism is at work kept my right brain busy. It is my first experience of the dry season here (November to February) and Gulu is peppered with rust-colored dust. Nostrils 
first impression, is very much like the place where I grew up and until the 1970s when I would return for visits: small stores, oil lamps and candle lights, laid 
back attitude of the people, the quest of parents for better education for their children, garbage and poor sanitation, church festivities, presence of 
volunteers (we had a number of Peace Corps volunteers then in my town), thatched houses, bad roads. My living condition now has similarities too: 
unbalanced diet of basic food on the table, predictable wardrobe, limited entertainment and socializing, and most activities are at one's leisure. My right brain was flashing images of scenes of the city life I left behind: vibrant shopping 
malls, me at the steering wheel, ego-tripping and blue-skying with friends, sea foods and other random jpegs. 