Cattle Jam & Traditional Wedding

The other morning I was walking to work when all of a sudden traffic came to a halt. Now to understand how strange this is you have to first understand that traffic never, ever stops here. There is constantly Jam as the Ugandans call it. There are no stop signs and one working/obeyed traffic light in the whole city. Did I mention that this is the largest city in Uganda? Anyways what had caused the taxi's to stop was some cows had wandered into the road. For a second I was like what the heck? They don't even stop for people! Who are waiting at crosswalks! But then I remembered something my friend Amanda had said to me years ago "In Kenya who ever has the biggest vehicle has the right of way" She had just finished complaining about how annoying it was that pedestrians have the right of way in Canda. I think by default the cows won the biggest vehicle contest, in large part due to their long horns.

On to a completely different topic but still involving livestock. This Saturday I attended a traditional wedding. Also known as an introduction. Geoffry and Katherine were nice enough to invite me. I found that there were numerous similarities to our traditional weddings. Both families had designated speakers. The bride's family told the grooms family to go away numerous times. The grooms family had to give the bride's family a large amount of gifts; including two chickens, hence the livestock comment (and normally there would have been a cow too but I think the fridge was the replacement). Anyways the process started with the speakers bantering back and forth for a while, making jokes and such. Then the young girls in the family came out and welcomed the visitors. There were several groups of girls who came out dancing and then knelt down to speak. The groom's speaker gave each girl a small gift. The bride's family said these are all our girls, pick your bride. Of course the bride wasn't among the girls. The bride's family then told the groom's family to go home because they didn't know them and they had no bride for the groom. The grooms speaker then got of his knees and said "Please the bride's aunty knows us. Please let her aunties come." Katherine explained that this is because in Bugandan culture that aunties usually act as the matchmakers. The bride's speaker agreed but said "If the aunty doesn't know you must leave and we don't want you to be a diehard" to much laughter. A group of aunties came out and of course none of them knew the grooms family. The grooms speaker said "There are other aunties please bring them out". The bride's speaker responded that Of course there were more aunties, and that she had aunties from all over the country and if he wanted to meet them all he would have to pay for their transport. Anyways after a more jokes and talking another group of aunties came out dancing. One aunt was particularily happy. She was the one who was asked if she knew the visitors by the bride's speaker. She responded "Yes, I know the visitors". She was then asked to identify the groom. She danced through the grooms family for a while and eventually identified the groom, who was sitting in the very back in a corner. She brought him to the front. The grooms speaker then introduced him and his family. The bride's speaker said "Okay so you should have something to eat and then go away". The groom then got up and his speaker spoke for him to ask for the girls hand in marriage. The bride's family agreed to bring out the bride. A group of ladies came dancing out. Of course though the family had to identify the bride. This seemd to be a process of elimination with a different lady sitting down one at a time (A bit of this was lost in translation. The whole ceremony was in Buganda. Katherine was kind enough to translate and explain things to me). Finally just the bride was standing there. The speakers then teased her a bit (it wouldn't be a wedding without a lot of jokes and teasing). Anyways she was then introduced and her family was introduced. Then she was given gifts by the grooms sisters. Eventually she cross the area between her female relatives and the grooms family with his sister to sit beside the groom. Katherine said that was the main part of the traditional wedding. After this she went back inside with her family.

The grooms family then brought a ton of gifts out. Some of them were baskets filled with produce, sacks of rice and sugar, matoke, a large fridge, gift bags, two chickens (one of which escaped), and various other thing. After the gifts were all laid out the bride was brought out again and asked by her family's speaker if they should accept these gifts. She agreed that they should accept them. She then went inside again. The gifts were transfered inside by the grooms male realtives. The groom then tranfered one of the chickens over to the bride's brother and the the brother offically gave away the bride. After this they cut the cake and sprayed champange everywhere and that was the end of the ceremony. I should mention that this was a 4.5 hour ceremony. So another thing in common with our wedding ceremony. They're long!