Jessica Nabongo

JESSICA NABONGO (Uganda, 1984)
"Balancing act", 2023.
Photograph taken in Juba , South Sudan, 2019.
Provenance: Christies, Exhibition 2023.
Measurements:

Jessica Nabongo is a Ugandan-born American travel blogger and writer who rose to fame in 2019 after visiting every country in the world. Her claim that she was the first black woman to make it was challenged. Nabongo was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Rose Mary Namubiru and Ephraim Mukasa Nabongo, Ugandans who settled in the United States in 1969; she is a dual citizen. Her mother is from Mbale, in eastern Uganda, and her father grew up on the outskirts of the Ugandan capital, Kampala. According to Nabongo, he received his first passport when he was four or five years old. He attended St. John's University in New York City, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English[citation needed] and then the London School of Economics, where he earned a master's degree in social science in international development. After college, she worked for two years at a pharmaceutical company, taught English in Japan, and worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. By 2016, she had already visited 60 countries. In February 2017, he decided to visit all 193 UN member countries and the world's two non-member observer states. He arrived in the 195th country on his list, Seychelles, on October 6, 2019, at the age of 35. He documented each of his visits to a new country on his blog. The informal certification group Nomad Mania accepted his claim after spot checks. Nabongo notes that there is some controversy over his record, as he was unable to enter Syria and instead chose to visit the Golan Heights, which the United Nations Security Council considers Israeli-occupied Syrian territory. Nabongo's claim to be the first black woman to visit every country was also challenged by Woni Spotts, an African-American woman who completed her own country tally in 2018. Nabongo founded a travel agency called Jet Black, which created itineraries for small group travel to Africa. She has also worked with hotel companies as a brand influencer. He wrote a book detailing his travels, titled The Catch Me If You Can.