So this Sunday, I went to my first Ugandan wedding! First,
some background information.
Weddings here are notorious for being very long, starting in
the morning with a long religious service and with the reception starting in
the afternoon and going until the evening. There are three main types of
weddings – traditional, church wedding, and the Muslim wedding (niqa). A
traditional wedding includes the tradition of bride price, meaning that the
male relatives of the groom and male relatives of the bride get together to
decide what the bride is worth in terms of barter (mainly livestock but can
also include money or houses). A traditional wedding also may not be recognized
in the church or by the government, instead is just done by the villagers
between themselves. There may not be a big ceremony and dress code is probably
traditional African fabrics.
A bride price can even happen with more modern church
weddings. This was the kind of wedding I attended, but I didn’t ask about the
bride price. I believe the bride was Catholic and the groom was Anglican. This
type of wedding more closely resembles the American idea of a wedding – some
religious service to start, and then a reception for friends and family.
A Muslim wedding, called a niqa, is something I don’t know a
whole lot about, never having been to one. But from what my friends tell me
they are also long, with lots of people talking. It’s most common for Muslim
men to take multiple wives here versus other religions, so you may be attending
the wedding of the second or third wife while the first and second wives sit
looking on. Dress code is more conservative at these events.
General picture of the wedding.
So the wedding started at church, and this part I did not
attend. It was in the local language, Lugbara, and the neighbor I was attending
with was also not going until the reception. This worked out well for me
because I didn’t really like the idea of sitting in church for three hours
listening to something I couldn’t understand.
The reception was held at the primary school next to my
college, as the bride is a teacher at the school. They had sectioned off an
entrance way with mesh over most of it except for a small part for people to
enter through. They put down red carpet for people to walk on as well. The
bride and groom arrived in a car with lots of ribbons and balloons tied to it,
as well as a leading car (the college truck) honking and playing music.
The couple enters solemnly, making their way to their
provided tent, while the rest of the wedding party, including women whose sole
job it seemed to be to yip loudly and shake palm leaves, are dancing and
shouting behind the couple. All the guests are either seated in their own
tents, or up standing trying to get a view of the couple and take a picture or
video. They are also dancing and singing.
Bride and groom enter the reception.
This is one thing I love about this culture. Music is a part
of their daily life. It’s a part of the big and small occasions, for happiness
and sadness. At funerals they don’t even wear black, but they wear nice dress
up clothes and play loud dance music. I don’t think I’ve heard a Ugandan song
without a booming bass line to shake your booty to. It’s simply accepted as a
fact that you dance as a Ugandan, or that you sing as a Ugandan. For men it’s
not seen as feminine or emasculating, and for women it’s not seen as trying to be
a diva or show off your crazy dance moves. You’re all showing off together, as
a big family.
The bride was wearing a Western style wedding dress, large
and white with a veil and a large white necklace. All the bridesmaids, though
their dresses were handmade, no doubt were fashioned after Western style as
well. The groomsmen were also in tuxes and matching ties. It makes me wonder
what they wore 100 years ago to weddings. Most likely the traditional dresses
and kitenge (kah-TENG-gay or kih-TENG-gay).
You can sort of see the bridesmaids dresses here.
As everyone gets seated, the MC made some announcements
which I didn’t understand because they were in Lugbara, but I did catch the
part about “men’s bathrooms over here, women’s over there”. The best man and a
few other people made speeches, and there were a few rituals put on by the
bride and groom. They set out a chair and a woven mat on the ground in front of
it. The groom sat in the chair while the bride sat on the mat. She poured water
over his hands for washing and fed him food, then wiped his mouth. This is to
signify the women serving her husband. After this the groom also fed his bride,
but she remained seated on the ground with him in the chair. This is common
here. I noticed it with my host family as well. Whenever my dad was not home,
my mom would sit in a chair and the kids would sit on mats. When he came home,
my mom would sit on the mats with the kids.
Then it was time to
eat!
Just realized I didn’t take pictures of the food because I
have gotten used to it, but I will try to update this post with pics from daily life - since they eat it every day!
Enyasa, the staple of the West Nile region, is made of dried
cassava pound into a flour, mixed with water, and then stirred and cooked for a
long time. It doesn’t really have a taste other than starch, and the texture is
not really comparable to anything in the States. The closest thing I can think
of is if you took bread and made it the consistency of bread dough, but much
stickier and able to hold together more. Most people fill up half their plate
with this, much like Westerners do with rice or pasta.
There’s always some sort of meat at large events, usually
beef, but sometimes they’ll have fish. The beef comes in two pots, one for what
I would consider “regular chunks” like you’d make stew out of, and the other
pot has parts of the animal that I didn’t know were eaten. Intestines, mainly,
and I know because of the little bumps sticking up from the meat. Then there’s
beans, sometimes rice, and this time they had cabbage! They also usually have
pop (Pepsi, Fanta, Stoney – ginger ale, Sprite, Mountain Dew).
There’s no table service, in fact there’s no tables as we
are all seated in chairs squished together under tents. So each tent takes its
turn getting food, buffet style. We eat, and then a woman comes around to
collect the plates. I hear later from my neighbor Felista that the cooks were
supposed to bring out the bull’s head, and whichever woman dances with it on
her head is the next one to get married.
Then there’s the presentation of gifts! Unlike a wedding in
the States with a gift table, the gifts
are brought in the same way the wedding party is – with much pomp and
circumstance and of course, dancing!!! People bring money, goats, chickens,
tables, chairs, and at this wedding I saw them carry in a queen bed complete
with four posts, mattress, and mosquito net! Don’t forget the yipping ladies
and the shouting and the music. And the conga line of people bringing gifts.
Afore mentioned bed that was carried into the reception.
Entrance to the reception, including African conga line!
Felista was presenting a cash gift from the
local women’s savings group and asked me to go up with her and two other women
from the college. So we walked around to the entrance way and danced in – didn’t
take a video, sorry! One of my fellow teachers did take a video so I’ll try to
get it from him.
After this we left the wedding as it had started to rain a
little bit. The tent we were sitting under partially blew off the frame and the
wind kicked up like crazy. They were trying to wrap it up quickly actually
because they had predicted it was going to rain.
Overall I like the communal feel of events here, much like
daily life here. It’s like admitting that everyone is connected, and everyone
is welcome. The wedding was fun even if I didn’t understand most of it, because
I understood what was important – we are a large family, and we’re happy and
celebrating with you for the creation of your new family. Joyous day. Here's some more pictures.
Mainly I was trying to get a picture of all the cakes, but also got a picture of the woman who was dancing around with some animal part stuck on a stick. Or it's possibly enyasa. Who knows. Lots of the cakes were given as gifts to the groom's family and bride's family. Not many people bake here (wheat flour is expensive) so cake is kind of a big deal.
Children dressed as navy officers?? Super cute anyhow.
I just loved this woman's dress.
