Well it seems this weekend was all about God and family...

Well it seems this weekend was all about God and family...


On Saturday we spent about 3 hours in church at a double wedding in Jinja... It was quite sweet two brothers were getting married and decided to celebrate the occasion together. It was a Catholic ceremony so on the whole it was pretty familiar apart from some of the more African traditions such as;
• A lot of singing and cheering/screaming from the congregation in general
• For the offertory the two couples stood in the centre isle so the congregation could file by and give their offertory which the couples then presented to the priest
• There was no – “you may now kiss the bride” but instead there was a hug...
But on the other side the brides were dressed in white and the rest of the family were in their Sunday best a lot of which were traditional African dresses. The bride was given away by head of her family to much cheer and applause.

It was a very beautiful and enjoyable ceremony and everybody present seemed to enjoy themselves although energy levels dropped noticeable towards the latter end of the 3 hour ceremony!!!

The Reception was a very traditional affair with the choir in attendance to entertain the crowd (and promote their album!) while the wedding party took some time to prepare themselves. We were also treated to the performance of a traditional dance which our friend jumped up to join in the fun and display her immense talent. The cake, again as is the norm with many Ugandan functions, was served before dinner and not a moment too soon as some of us were on the verge of passing out from hunger!!!


Later as the last of us got our dinner, traditional Ugandan style we ate with our fingers which was an interesting challenge as I am a messy eater at the best of times, but I think I pulled it off quite well... Before heading home we all filed up to give the couples their presents where glasses, flasks, wall clocks and generally any household items are typical gifts. It interesting though that the couples had 6 meeting on the lead up to the wedding to seek assistance from family and friends to fund the wedding celebrations. It is common where a family member is a dress maker he/she will offer to make the dresses, or if someone is a photographer they will offer to provide this service or alternatively where the person does not have a particular skill they will pledge XXX USH to the event so it is really a community project. It was a fantastic day and an exhausting day so I was glad to finally get back to my bed at the respectable hour of 11.30pm – Ugandan wedding tend to wrap up around 10pm without any drunk relatives strutting their moves on the dance floor and this is probable the most obvious difference to Irish wedding...




Sunday found us spending another 2hours in church but this time it was a Born Again Christian service which we had been invited to by one of our students. Hi as his mother is the pastor. At the end of a long busy week and having been listening to the sound of heavy rainfall since the early hours of the morning I was less than enthusiastic to drag myself out of bed and face the flooded streets and taxi conductors. None the less we persevered at our students’ insistence and arrived at the service a little early. The setting was in a barn basically in one of the slum areas of Kampala. The seats were a mixture of armchairs, garden chairs and kitchen chairs. The congregation was quite small with the Pastors family (5 adopted children) making up the choir, and bulk of the attendees although to be fair the weather would not intice anybody out of their homes. We were welcomed warmly and repeatedly and even went onto the alter to introduce ourselves and say where we were from...As the rain continued to fall heavily for the duration of the service we found ourselves hostage to the high flood waters when the time came to leave the church and so we had to take off our shoes and walk through the flood waters to the street which was slightly less flooded...

After the service we were unexpectantly invited back to the Pastors home to have lunch with her and her family. Although the Pastor had appeared a very strict vocal woman during her service in the home she was very calm and sweet, while her husband was rather quiet and reserved.

After a good meal and a few pictures with the family we headed to town to try and get some of the shopping out of the way but I didn’t last long as exhaustion was setting in once again and so we bought some chocolate and headed for home and enjoyed a cat nap in the afternoon...

It was a great weekend but sadly my time is drawing near to its end and now I’m starting my last week with the beautiful people of Ugandan in particular the ladies in Bwaise and the students of Masoli as well as all the staff of UDYEL.