Day 31:Ugandan “Wedding”

So I’m sure you’re wondering what’s the “ ” for? I’ll get to that in a little bit…. So we went to the “wedding” the guys’ sister from the guesthouse had on Saturday. Around 12:15 noon we leave with a driver and a few family members that live at the guest house gave us a ride at about 12:15 noon to the village about 20 mins away. When we get there we are clearly one of the few people that have arrived. Mind you the invitation says that it starts at 12 noon and they were expecting about 300 people. So we’re sitting around kinda just knowing that we will be sitting around for at least a couple more hours. We meet the bride and some other folks there and just kinda sit there. Here a few photos of the place:

There were at least 500 people there! See...we were the first people there lol

So here are the lovely restrooms. lol Its funny becasue there's not even a hole behind there. Its literally just grass behind them...I will never complain about a porta potty or public bathroom again!

So we’re waiting, waiting and waiting some more. Just chillin. Not getting mad or frustrated bc if you’ve read my previous entries you know that I have found it pointless to even get mad at stuff like that here. So around 2:30 I’m getting really hunry bc I only ate around 10 that morning (I knew I shoulda brought a granola bar or something). Still waiting. At about 4:30 the place is looking more packed people are waiting around (patiently might I add) for the ceremony to start. Most of the ceremony was in Luganda so I couldn’t understand some things. But long story short the whole thing was more like a play than weddings I’m used to. In fact, we found out by the end that it wasn’t even the wedding, this was just the introduction of the couple to the village. So it started off with the grrom’s family standing by the entrance and one of the bride’s family members (who was the MC on the mic) was giving him a hard time and asking him why it took so long for him to get there. Then there were several (and by several I mean at least 8 ) skits that were acted out that revolved around the man acting like he was going to pick from a group of girls who the bride should be to one of the bride’s aunt’s looking in the crowd for who the groom would be. It was cool because when the women came out they were dancing in a line and it reminded me of strolling lol. Imma try to post the video that I took of it at some point. So it was like a whole play acted out for the marrying couple. It was really interesting from what I could actually understand. But it was dragging on and on and on and I was getting hungrier and more lightheaded by the second.

These are the bride's maids coming through...strolling!

Another skit....They strollin it out...hard! Thats the bride towards the back in the teal outfit

So by the time the real bride and groom eventually “picked” each other out it was around 6:30 or so. Then the groom’s family presented the other family with gifts. Which was so cool. I have a video of that too. It was mad stuff!!

This was then followed by several other things like them introducing some people from each side of the family, exchanging engagement rings, feeding each other cake and taking bites from an apple. We ended up getting to eat at about 8 and I wish I wasn’t so hungry otherwise I woulda been able to enjoy the tail end of every thing better. But 10 hrs of not eating kinda got to me :-/

So we ended up eating in the house with the groom and he goes “You are most welcome and please come to the wedding. Its August 8th.” In my mind I was thinking I think I’ve had enough Ugandan weddings for a summer with this experience. I would love to go but I can’t sit through a 7 hr ceremony knowing I’m going to be starving. I’m glad to got to see the introduction ceremony though.


**DAMMIT THE VIDEOS WON'T LOAD :-( ...files are too big