Day 7: Traditional Introduction, Church, and More Thoughts on the Road

Today was a big and long day. It started with church at All Saint's Cathedral at 8am. This is a vibrant community of believers in Kampala proper, the home church of our friend Bishop Zac Niringiye. The whole staff is delightful, and worship was good. There's an interesting facet to being a white visitor in Africa. It's not enough to stick out as a white person. Usually, you are called out. Sure enough, after they made all of the visitors stand and gave a welcome, Bishop Zac came up, asked both of us to stand again, and introduced us to the whole congregation. Lovely.

Then, we were hoping to fix the battery on Sarah's car with a borrowed multi-meter from the church, but we were amazingly picked up on time for the introduction ceremony. The man who 'picked us' (another one of those Ugandaisms), Gerald was a friend of the groom that sort of knew Hannington. The ceremony was great - but I don't want to get ahead of myself. Just getting there was a blog post on its own.

It is important to remember, and I say this for myself more than anyone else, that our culture is not the same as their culture. Time has a different value, logistics has a different logic, and the concept of 'bad roads' is relative.

We were 'picked' at 10am for what we believed was a 12pm event 30km away. We arrived at our friend's home 10km away at 11:30pm. We were there to pick up a sport coat to go with my borrowed Kanzu (traditional Ugandan male dress garment). We left at 12:05. Then we had to go 25 minutes out of our way, on the worst back roads we've ever seen at this point (more on this later) to get two plastic tarps. One of which was actually used.

So, we pull away from this place with our tarps and the decision to stop for food because everyone is hungry at 12:40. You remember Ugandan fast food? Same place. We stop and the car gets swarmed. We leave 5 minutes later with bananas wrapped in writing paper and 2 bottles of water. All for about $1.

We drive and drive, finally arriving around 1:15 at the turn-off to the farm where the ceremony will be held. We're thinking 'oh good, we're here.' Wrong.

15 minutes later, having crossed 2-3km of the single roughest road we've ever seen we turn onto the driveway. 'oh good we're he...' nope. 1/2km of driveway that makes the road look good.
(We're in a front-wheel-drive Toyota Corolla wagon by the way. Not a Land Cruiser...)

I guess now is probably the best time to talk about the roads. The road to the house with the tarps was rough. It was a narrow dirt two-track (no gravel) with deep gouges ripped out of it by flowing rainwater (it's the rainy season). A typical gouge is approx 8-10" wide, and crosses the whole road diagonally. Most cars can pass over but some bottom out at one end of the other. Also - these are just the things we have to drive through - I'm ignoring the 1' deep ruts and cutouts that are common on the edges but that can be avoided by dodging.

So, the road to the farm was bad - the turn off to the farm was really bad. Think the first road, but with deeper ruts, narrower roads, and thicker forests. This one had water canals on either side and large rocks that looked pretty sharp. All along the way local kids and even older people stood watching the goings-on. This is not a typical wedding venue, and you get the sense that white people don't usually come through here.

If the turn off to the farm was really bad, the driveway was unbelievably bad. It was narrower than the turn-off, with deeper ruts (I was blown away that normal cars dared to pass here regularly.) It was maybe 1/2km long, but covered almost half as much distance vertically. We climbed maybe 250m vertically in this Corolla wagon. At one point we didn't quite have enough momentum and stopped with our wheels spinning on the rocks and mud. We had to back up and try a second time on a different line to get past that section. (Remember, this is normal here. Wow...)

Anyway - the farm was beautiful. It was at the top of a hill (obviously) and had a view that a camera just can't capture (though we tried, I assure you.) We arrived at maybe 1:30? At 2pm the traditional band was firing up and the dancers were lining up. Carrie was in her Gomesi (traditional women's dress - a strange dress with pointy shoulders) and I had my Kanzu on complete with sport-coat and dress shoes.

The event itself is almost too much to narrate. Its is an elaborate role-play with two clans. The MC is the home clan's father (not always, but they pretend to be) and the visiting clan's spokesman pretends to be the father for their side. The Bride's clan/family (home clan) gets invaded by the Groom's clan (visiting). Here are the highlights.

1. Mock clan meeting.
2. Visiting clan arrives and negotiates entrance.
3. Requests audience with home clan, justify their lateness by admitting that they got lost on the way. This way they aren't technically late, they're simply 'delayed'. They bring a large container of local brew (a wine made from bananas - almost tasty) as a gift.
3.5 MC suggests home clan sing national anthem to identify themselves. (German, as the bride was a German). Then MC requires visitor's clan to sing their national anthem (Ugandan).
4. Visitor's spokesman explains the purpose of their visit (to find wives for their sons).
5. The MC consents to showing his daughters to the visiting clan, though the visiting spokesperson (we'll call them VS from now on I think...) is urged to 'look sparingly' so as not violate the girls or become too attached.
6. The first round of girls is brought out. The VS says that someone in the home clan knows someone from the visiting clan but that that woman is not there.
7. The MC requires the visiting clan to send the first round of single girls to Germany to find the 'other daughters.' He presents them with symbolic airline tickets and visas and they leave.
8. Second round doesn't suit. MC requires VC to send them back to Germany first-class.
9. In the third round, an 'aunt' recognises the visiting tribe and is made to identify the groom, who was hidden in the visiting clan's group.
10. The bride comes out.

The ceremony goes on in intricate detail but honestly, the story gets less relevant - the families that didn't know each other become introduced and joined and the couple is culturally married (they can move in together at that point), but they still tend to plan a church wedding afterwards.

It's interesting, but it goes on forever. Then there are speeches, the exchange of gifts (the brother of the bride, a German, received a live rooster, and the bride's family a live goat). Then there are speeches and the cutting of the cake. Finally a large meal with drinks and then everyone goes home. Really awesome.

Don't worry, we took pictures. I think I've even figured out how to resize them so I have a chance at uploading them from here. Maybe on the next post?

The drive home was not to be outdone. We hit traffic on the way into Kampala, where our driver decided to take us onto the shoulder to pass some slow cars. Then the traffic stopped and we were on the shoulder. We went onto the shoulder's shoulder to get around the other traffic on the shoulder. By the time we got to the traffic circle where the actual jam was, we were driving inches from the edge of a water canal. Our driver, distracted by something else, went to swerve around something and if I hadn't said 'actually, you're going to fall off the road there,' we would have.

As a side note, passing on the shoulder's shoulder is actually kind of dangerous as that's where the pedestrians and bicycles are.

Home safe by 10pm.