Ask anyone their first impression when they hear “Karamoja” and the last thing you will hear is “Beautiful women” What you will hear, though, is hostility, backwardness, poverty, illegal guns, cattle rustling, forced marriages and the most absurd being people walking naked. When anything to the contrary is encountered, incredulity is expressed.
If the contradiction is embodied by a female, especially a young one, even more questions will be asked. Apparently, a female Karimojong medical doctor, beauty queen, veterinarian, social media influencer, makeup artist, community activist, lawyer, environmental scientist and politician are all unheard of. When beauty is thrown into the mix, decorum is completely flipped over its head and now they really want to know:
“Are you really a Karimojong?”
Whatever answer given, it is always followed by, “You don’t look like one.”
Which makes me wonder, what do Karimojongs look like? Or, what is a Karimojong supposed to look like? Who even decides this?
While young Karimojong women play superiorly well in the fields of fashion, business, agriculture, medicine, humanitarianism, entertainment, health and environment, the focus of this article is beauty and pageantry.
Pageantry and the tourism industry have worked hard to repair and heal the image of Karamoja by being the biggest marketers of Karamoja in positive light. With beauty as the fore-running force, the Karimojong culture is steadily moving from being just a fetish and a trend to an experience that is recognized as being human, lived and breathed by hundreds of thousands of people for hundreds of years, across generations.
The success of young Karimojong women in various beauty pageants locally and beyond dismantles social constructs surrounding what beauty is and dispossesses it of exclusivity to any particular group of people. Indeed beauty transcends origins, culture, and body shape or skin tone.
Miss Tourism is by far the most popular beauty pageant. Many Karimojong winners of this pageant have gone on to participate and fare quite well in bigger pageants outside of Uganda. Some of these young women have been signed to modelling agencies while others have gone on to build themselves fast-growing online social media brands. Many others have used their fame to address some of Karamoja’s many social needs in various campaigns through community based organizations that they have created or Non-governmental organizations that they have partnered with.
With that said, above are some few faces of what a Karimojong woman may look like; faces that, through beauty pageants, have held up the image of Karamoja and it’s culture in it’s truly rich light.
BONUS: BEAUTY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
1. EVELYN ATIM
Miss Evelyn Atim presents with a mix of all the antithesis of what used to be considered beautiful but that is now all the rage. Dark skin. Natural hair and not being skinny. A rising star in the beauty and make up industry, she is an influence to watch out for.
2. KOMOL MWANAKOMBO
Miss Komol Mwanakombo presents with a crisp, social media presence by which the image of Karamoja can be healed. She easily stood out on Facebook where I found her page.
Watch out for my future article on Karamoja and the Gig economy as a way to repair and heal Karamoja’s image.
Until next time.
Yours truly,
Anna Grace
Notes:
1. All images were sourced from individuals’ personal profiles
2. This is only a sample from a pool of very many beauty queens
3. I underestimated the enormity of this project. I choose to publish instead of worrying too much about the factual inaccuracies.
