The Ugandan capital of Kampala, on the north shore of Lake Victoria, is probably most famous for Operation Entebbe, the Israeli hostage-rescue raid at its international airport on the very day of America’s bicentennial. It was a daring commando operation led by Yonatan Netanyahu, the elder brother of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who became its only Israeli casualty.
There are other days than that, of course, and it is those other days which are the subject of Ugandan artist Jjuuko Hoods’s latest series of paintings, which depict daily life in Kampala in busy detail. If Hoods’s observations are precise, a significant portion of Kampalan traffic is composed of matatus, Toyota minivans which serve as a hydrid of a minibus and a taxi.
You can see more of Hoods’s paintings at Start, a journal of arts and culture dealing with East Africa.
Painting by Jjuuko Hoods. Hat tip to Marko Ferko, the Henry Morton Stanley of African-themed tumblrs.