Kwanjula

A few weeks ago, I went to a Kwanjula, or introduction ceremony, for one of the workers at Dwelling Places. “What is an introduction ceremony,” you ask? Well. Good question. But I don’t really have the best answer for you. The closest thing we could equate it to in the West is an engagement party. But it’s a very formal event, and everyone who gets married will have one, usually a few months before the wedding. The purpose of it is to introduce the groom’s family to the bride’s family. 

Uganda is somewhere sort of in between tradition and modernization if you ask me, and the area of courtship seems to be one of those areas that I’ve observed. Many people are happy to let their children date whomever they please and to choose their spouse for themselves, but tradition is that marriages are pre-arranged, and some people still hold onto that tradition. So part of this introduction ceremony carries the traditional sense of introducing the groom’s family to the bride’s family, bringing them gifts, and asking them to give over their daughter in marriage to the groom. While the whole thing seems to be a lot of pretense and whatnot, I’m told that the bride’s family can even say “no,” even after the whole charade of the ceremony and everything! 

So like any event here, it lasted all day, and even though we left around 9 pm, I was told the party went on well past midnight. We arranged to leave from the office at 10, which means everyone showed up around 10:30 to START getting ready. Both men and women wear traditional dress for these ceremonies—a gomesi for women, and a kanzu for men. It was kind of fun at first to play dress-up, but the dress is deceivingly uncomfortable. You start with an undergarment which is basically a thin blanket wrapped around your body, tied painfully tight at the waist, then folded down over the rope to give you a little extra umph in your caboose. Then the gomesi is buttoned and folded and scrunched and wrapped and draped and sent to China and back before being tied with a massive, cardboard-stuffed sash around the waist. Then voila, you’re ready to “fly away” with your “shoulder flaps” as my good friend Sarah put it. Aren’t the shoulders funny?

Anyway, so we probably left around 11:30 and arrived at 1:00, which is when the groom’s family was supposed to show up. Of course that means they showed up around 3:30. Everyone seemed to be appalled that the family was late… and I was only shocked that people were shocked that they were late. But I later learned more about how the groom’s family is actually there to convince the bride’s family to give her over in marriage, and it reflects poorly on them if they’re late. So that makes sense, but I’m still not shocked that anyone was late. While we were waiting for it to begin, there was entertainment of traditional music and dance, and a whole lot of a guy on a microphone talking for like 30 minutes at a time, all in Luganda of course, so that I couldn’t understand anything. So instead I went for playing Snake on my phone. (Oh yes, that’s right. Remember old-school snake, that eats the dots? I have a cheap phone here and while I usually miss my iPhone, the one redeeming factor of these phones is that they have the snake game!)

traditional Ugandan dance

Anyway, so the family did finally show up. Then there was about 2 hours of various parts of the ceremony, mostly greetings to the family. A group of people—friends or family members of the bride—would walk out of the house, parade around the courtyard a couple of times to music, kneel down in front of the family, then it was a whole lot of “Hello ladies and gentlemen.” “Hello.” “How are you?” “Fine, how are you? “Fine.” “Nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you too.” Then a little more something in Luganda, then they’d present them with gifts, then parade around the courtyard a few more times to the music, and go back in the house. 

The groom's family entering... and even better, one of my favorite aspects of Ugandan events: the action is clearly going on behind the cameraman, yet he is filming who? The audience. Every event I've ever been to has been like that-- they love taking hundreds of photos and hours of footage of the audience!! Isn't the event happening in the other direction? Not in the audience? haha

A group of relatives... parade, parade, kneel, greet, parade, parade, leave

A few groups of people did this, then there was a lot of other parading around very slowly to music… the bride, the bride and groom, the groom and an aunt… etc. 

Omugole-- the bride

Then we had dinner, then the groom’s family brought in all sorts of gifts. This part was pretty crazy! They brought in all sorts of baskets of food and various things, all on their heads. I couldn’t believe it—the gifts just kept coming! Basket after basket, and even things like a bunch of matoke bananas, and furniture! 

Then just as it got dark, the power went out. So they put on a generator. Which lasted for about 5 minutes, then went out. So we sat in the dark for about an hour, waiting for it to come back on. The DP crew eventually gave up and decided to go, and just as we were leaving, it came back on. But by then it was 9:00, we’d already changed clothes, and we had work the next day, so we left. After we left, they had other parts of the ceremony to do such as cutting the cake, exchanging engagement rings, and dancing, but alas I have nothing to tell you about those things because we were busy sitting in a traffic jam for an hour rather than being at the ceremony for those things. 

(I feel a disclaimer is somewhat necessary. I realize this is a very... outsider view of the ceremony. I'm just writing from my perspective, and don't intend any disrespect on the culture. It's a very curious tradition to me, and I really enjoyed it!)

I put together a little video of the event, but Blogger wouldn't upload it. So here's a link to it on Vimeo. It's not the best quality, but it will give you a taste of what the event was like!

Click here to go to the video!

Sprouting Wings

The kids have something called Friendship Club on Saturdays, where they go to a local church and sing some songs, pray, and have a message. About 20 or 30 kids from the community come, in addition to our kids. Normally when I go, I might be asked to share a little something—a short word, a song, a game, a memory verse, etc. But a couple of weeks ago when I showed up, the woman in charge basically asked me to run the show. 

I’m happy to pitch in, but I’m not in charge, and I’m also not expected to be there. I don’t make it every Saturday because sometimes I have other things going on, and I never tell anyone in advance whether I’ll be there or not, since I’m not actually required to be there. So to show up and be asked, “Do you have a message to preach to them? Ok now can you ask them questions about the story? Ok now do you have a game for them? Now do you have a memory verse for them? Now do you have a song to teach them?” 

My initial reaction? “What did YOU have planned today? Did you not plan anything? What kind of quality teaching are these kids getting if you show up without anything planned to teach them or lead them in? You can’t just expect me to show up and run the show without any advanced notice!!”

But I talked with a few of the other missionaries here, initially just venting, then learning about what was really going on. While my initial reaction is that the woman was unprepared and was very lazily putting the whole program on my shoulders with no advanced notice, the actual situation was the complete opposite. 

First of all, Africans seem to have this ability to “wing it.” At any given time, someone can give a sermon, lead people in worship songs, etc. At staff devotions, people fill in for these things all the time. To the Westerner, we feel we would need several days to prepare a thought-out sermon, whereas here, it’s just sharing what God’s teaching you. 

Secondly, talking about the instance at Friendship Club with our short-term coordinator here helped me to see that involving me in the program was probably this woman’s way of honoring me as a guest. Guests are a big deal here, and it’s important to make them feel honored and welcomed. She probably assumed that if I was there, it meant that I wanted to participate (not that I don’t—I just don’t have the “wing it” gene in me), and to leave me out would be rude. Moreover, if I had refused to participate, that would have also been rude because I was rejecting her attempt to honor me. 

So I’m learning how to grow wings. Not in the metaphorical sense of “flying away,” but of growing wings to learn how to “wing it.” It’s teaching me to think more about what God is doing in my life, what he is teaching me, what he is laying on my heart, and being able to talk about it at any given time. Or to just come to any event with a pocket full of mini-sermons, songs, games, memory verses, etc. so that I’m prepared! :)

This experience also reminded me how important it is to learn everything you can about different situations when working cross-culturally, especially when it’s something you have a negative initial reaction too. I was at first offended and was convinced that this woman was not doing her part with the kids. The reality of the situation, though, is that she was attempting to make me feel honored and like an important part of the team. If I had just left it at frustration and not asked questions, I never would have arrived at understanding, and I also would have offended her. 

What an important reminder of how to handle frustrations here… but isn’t it also a good reminder of how to handle situations even when I’m not working cross-culturally? It’s one thing when you’re in another country to remember “I’m in another culture. Things will happen differently than I assume is normal. I should ask questions and learn everything I can.” We don’t have this mindset when we’re working within our own cultural context, but how many times to we have frustrations over misunderstandings? Why can’t we take on this attitude no matter what culture we’re working in? “I should find out as much information before jumping to conclusions.” I hope I can take this attitude back to the States with me!

a birthday and a really long river

I had a great birthday a few weeks ago (yes it takes me that long to find time when the power is on and I’m not too exhausted to sit down and write an interesting post). Thanks to all who made it a special day! The staff and kids sang happy birthday to me and gave me sweet notes and gifts. I hadn’t expected anything, and it was so sweet of them to do that. In the evening, I went out for burgers and fries with some friends. Not a particularly African birthday! :) It was a good celebration though and I was happy to be surrounded by good friends.  

I have now celebrated a birthday on 4 continents! As much as I’d like to make it to all 7, I don’t think they do tours to Antarctica in July, since it’s winter there now :( Oh well, for now 4 in 25 years (really, all 4 in the last 5 years!) isn’t too bad!

I also recently took a day trip to Jinja, a town about 2 hours east of Kampala. It’s Uganda’s second largest city, but it’s a completely different world from Kampala. It’s much smaller, cleaner, and quieter. The countryside around the town is simply stunning. Hilly and green, covered in crops like sugar cane, tea, coffee, maize, and banana trees. 

I went with my friend Molly, who is another short-term missionary working at another ministry in Kampala. The source of the Nile is in Jinja, so we went there for a few touristy pictures, then met another short-term missionary, Sarah. She works at an orphanage outside of Jinja, and we wanted to go for a visit to see some of the other ministries in Uganda. 

The orphanage was about 45 minutes outside of Jinja, and there’s not really a taxi route that way. So our mode of transport? The ever-trusty boda boda. We somehow managed to squeeze all 3 of us onto the boda-- so 4 people total including the driver! We must have been quite a sight! 

The road there went through several small villages, and the scenery was by far the most beautiful I’ve seen in Uganda. Rolling hills of sugar can stretched for miles, and I couldn’t get enough of the view. 

It was really interesting to see the work that is being done out there. The work they’re doing is somewhat similar to Dwelling Places, but the setting was so different in that it was very secluded and rural. The compound is almost like its own village. All of the staff and volunteers live on the compound with the kids. So different from my life in Kampala, where I work normal business hours, then either head to my apartment or into the city center to run errands or socialize. 

Other than that, life is chugging along at a pretty steady pace. Learning lots at work and growing in a lot of different ways. Really starting to get attached to some of the kids here and not wanting to think that I’ll have to leave them in a few months!

I’ll write more about work soon. For now, enjoy some pictures, and I need to save my computer battery because the power is once again out!