Ugandan Wedding/Reception

February 15, 2009, Sunday

I think I mentioned before that I was going to a wedding on Valentines Day. To give some background, Ugandans are very communal and welcoming of everybody. Warning: be prepared to be slightly confused… One of my roommates, Kelsey, roomed with a girl named Lillian at a retreat in Jinja (the source of the Nile). Lillian invited Kelsey to invite Kelsey’s friends (that’s me) to come to Lillian’s boyfriend’s sister’s wedding. Confusing, I know. So we decided to go.

The day started out pretty dismally, we had had Ugandan dresses made for the occasion and had picked up the dresses the day before. My friend Kristen and I had dresses that were either way too tight or way too big. So, we had to walk into Mukono town early on Saturday morning to have the seamstress fix the dresses. We spent about two hours in town waiting on the dresses and were happier (though not thrilled) with the outcome. Just to give you an image of these dresses we wore. Ugandan fabric is not the comfy satin, polyester, silk, synthetics you may be thinking would be appropriate for a dress. How I would define the fabric of a Ugandan dress would be a plastic table cloth (also, it was about 85/90 degrees on Saturday).

So, there were five USP students going to this wedding, four of us snugly dressed in our table cloth dresses. Tim got to wear a suit. The plan was we were to meet Lillian and her two friends at her hostel in Mukono, than another of her friends would pick us up and drive us to Kampala to the wedding. Well, apparently Lillian’s friend is not that fond of church services so purposely was late so he wouldn’t have to go to the ceremony. When he finally pulled up to the hostel, two hours late, there were nine of us that needed to fit into his five passenger Volkswagen. Also, Lillian and her two friends were wearing black dresses that could be worn to prom while the Mzungus (white people) were dressed in bright and shiny Ugandan dresses (plastic table cloths). So we all climbed in, two in the front (Tim and the driver), five in the back seat, and two in the trunk (not an actual trunk). Needless to say, we bottomed out all the way to Kampala.

We reached the church just as the wedding party was leaving the church. Of course, we were directly in their path and were just the slightest bit obvious because of our white skin and bright Ugandan clothing. The photographers took pictures of us as they passed. I can imagine the bride and groom looking through their pictures later wondering who all the white strangers were. But, we were there, and were embracing the culture.

The wedding was actually very western. The bride and groom were wearing western wedding apparel, the bridesmaids were wearing western bridesmaid dresses, but there weren’t any groomsmen. They all climbed into their tastily decorated cars and drove to the reception.

The reception was worth all the problems making it to Kampala. It was the nicest and probably fanciest reception I have ever been too. It was outside under a huge white tent. There were servers for every table, we could have any drink we wanted, there was an open bar (which was really interesting, we had been told that Christians don’t drink in Uganda, but Lillian said the couple were Christians). There was a group of Africans dressed in traditional tribal dress that lead the wedding party into the reception. They played drums, sang songs, and danced tribal dances for the wedding party and guests sporadically throughout the reception, it was incredible.

The reception traditionally lasts for about 6-7 hours, often ending around 2 or 3 in the morning. We weren’t planning on staying that long; we were going to leave around 10:30 via Private Hire (Ugandan version of an American taxi). Dinner was served around 8:00 and tables were escorted to the buffet where we had a huge selection of wonderful food. There was matooke (mashed bananas), millet (brown tasteless loaves of starch), beef, goat meat, chicken, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, spaghetti noodles, white rice with veggies, brown rice, beans, chapati’s, and fruit. I’m writing out all this food because it’s so rare to eat something other than rice, beans, and matooke, it was like Thanksgiving.

While everyone ate, the bride and groom’s families would give speeches. This took a good 2-3 hours and was often in Lugandan or Rwandan. Thankfully we were on the outskirts of the tent and therefore didn’t have to pay as much attention to the speeches. Though, once one of the speakers told everyone to go home to their villages and tell the villagers that at this one wedding, there were Mzungu’s from all over the world. There were two med students from Denmark, an older couple from Scotland, and then five of us from the US. But we were made to feel very welcomed and everyone was so glad that we got to experience a Ugandan wedding. We left just as the dancing was starting. We needed to get back to UCU before the gates closed at midnight.

Well, I’m off to bed. I have a ritual of washing my feet before bed to keep my sheets as clean as possible for as long as possible. The sheets are a pain to wash by hand. Anyway, I have come to really appreciate the biblical teaching of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Feet are disgusting, especially after being in sandals all day in hot, dusty weather. My feet are so gross after walking around all day, I don’t even want to imagine what is on them. Then I think about Jesus and his disciples walking around camels, donkeys, and who knows what else, and then Jesus washing their dirty calloused feet. Tat definitely changes things from my visions of clean (though possibly smelly) feet coming out of their socks and tennis shoes. Yay Jesus.