an Acholi wedding, part 2

All of the groom's side met outside the venue and were bussed over to the wedding site. As we arrived, there were dancers and singers who surrounded us, and we danced our way into the venue (an outdoor affair, obviously, with 5 lovely tents surrounding a circular ground - I was in the VIP tent. Believe it).
Then came the ushers - each new group of people is brought in on a white carpet, and they dance their way into the little arena. Each group is requested to search for the groom or the bride (depends), but no one can find him/her until the very end. Ushers are female, by the way. They wear traditional Acholi dress, which are called gomasis, and are quite intricate to put on. They have these huge shoulder poufs, which look hilarious. The goma is supposed to accentuate the woman's features - especially her bum. They will make you pad your bum if it doesn't look big enough. The gomasis also have a sash around the waist - as my friends tell me, "You cannot dance like an acholi unless you have something tied around your waist." They are a hundred colors, and look truly fabulous.

The ladies march their way in, and each participant is given a special envelope from the groom's side with money in it. So nice and, I imagine, so expensive! The MC asks the groom if he can find his bride among the ushers, no, no says the groom, my bride is not in that group. Then the flower girls march in - precious - but the groom cannot find his bride amonst the flower girls. Nevertheless, they are paid for their efforts. Next come the aunties, who are more splendid than any of the previous groups - in their gomasis. They search and search for the groom, but they cannot find him. The aunties are rewarded for their search.

Now I've written this in the course of 10 minutes, and it probably took you less time than that to read it, but these activities have taken place over the course of several hours. It's probably 5 p.m. by now, and we started around 2. There's dancing, MC chatter, and refreshments all along the way. Finally, finally comes the bridal party - the bride with her maids (their term not mine). They are all dressed alike - not in gomasi, but in beautiful red and gold under-dresses with a red sari on top. The bride - well, you're not supposed to know it's her - but her outfit has a lot more gold than anybody else's ;) So Bill's sisters come down out of the raised VIP tent to look for Joanna, and they make a whole game of trying to find her. When they finally find her, there's great rejoicing, ululating, and dancing! Bill's sisters made a sweet speech to welcome her into the family, and then all the VIPs were requested to bring in the family gifts. Each gift is symbolic - carrots, sim sim (sesame) seeds, onions, etc, and each is carried in a basket. For the ladies in the group, we carried them on our heads, and danced our way up to Joanna to present the gifts.
Then came the final moment - introducing the groom to the bride's family. Joanna's aunties came back down the aisle, and searched and searched for Bill in the VIP tent. Finally they found him, brought him down to the front, and presented Joanna to him. All his family was there to accept her, and her family was there to give her away (having already negotiated the dowry several days before).


Ok, introductions completed - then it was time for dinner! We ate delicious local food - chicken, beans, rice, bor, beef stew, and fresh fruits. Bill told me that the number of attendees kept changing - at first they expected 600, then the number dropped to 400, then increased to 1,000, but he insisted they would only cook for 800. Then, let's see - there were speeches by Bill's dad, Bill and then Joanna. (Joanna was wearing a black gomasi at this point, with beautiful patterned colors all over it).
Then I believe there was another break for Joanna to change again - her final outfit was this hot pink wrap dress that had gold sequins all over it. She looked stunning! Joanna and Bill cut their cakes, which were modeled after typical Gululian homes (little clay huts with straw roofs). Then it was the maids' job to serve the cake to the guests. Typically they would have to walk around on their knees to do this, but I guess this was a more forward-thinking couple :)
After dinner and cake, Bill and Joanna opened the dancing to all by making a full circuit around the mini-arena dancing in true Acholi style. At that point it was all over - you couldn't have keep us off the dance floor if you wanted to!

I think what I'll carry with me (in addition to the hugs and excitement of seeing my NUTI friends again), were Bill's words to Joanna: "It's taken me 43 years to find the love of my life, and I'll love you forever."

pictures to come!

an Acholi wedding

The first thing I heard when I arrived in Nairobi was P-I-M-P by 50 cent on the radio.  The second thing was Waterfalls by TLC.  Classic Nairobi.  I arrived at the Sankara at 9:30 p.m., had to run over to my friend's place and pick up a phone - but alas, we think it got stolen from her room.... So, back at the Sankara, no phone, had to be up in 4 hours to leave for Gulu.  ugh.  So, off to the airport, 5:30 a.m., 4 suitcases left at the Sankara, 1 backpack and a passport, and I was on my way.  My friend Sophia met me in Entebbe.

It's been 2 years since I've been to Gulu, and 2 years since I've seen any of my dear, dear friends from the Northern Uganda Transition Initiative (NUTI) program... the NUTIzens we called ourselves.  I came into town for a NUTI wedding - our operations manager, Bill, was marrying an Acholi lady named Joanna.  Bill is a delight if I ever met one, and Joanna is equally delightful.  So, 2 days of flying, 5 hours' drive to Gulu, and a minor car accident later... (our driver's fault, no one was hurt)...  Sophia and I arrived in Gulu town.  Gulu has changed quite a bit since I was there - there's a even an Uchumi Supermarket now!  big time.  We stayed with Sophie's cousin Joy, and her daughter Abby.  Friday, we went out for Ethiopian food - but the restaurant has moved twice since I lived there... so we had to do a little searching.  On the way there, we ran into Lydia, Patricia, and Lindah.  Lydia said her heart stopped beating when she saw me!  It was a great moment.  And a greater hug.

The next day I woke up with about 100 mosquito bites all over my arms & legs.  Way to not turn down the mosquito net, girls.  You would think we were n00bs.  Well, after a quick trip to the supermarket for breakfast (pizza, that's right) - we got ourselves all ready to go.  You should have seen us.  Actually, you will - I'll post pictures.  Now I knew a few things from my last Acholi wedding:
1. You always, always wear a long dress.
2. You wear as many colors as you can find.  Color blocking was invented by the acholis.
3. You never, ever, ever expect things to be on time.  There is a lot of waiting involved in Uganda in general, and even more so at weddings!  Eat in advance - dinner will certainly be later than you expect!
4. It's a bit confusing - but you first do the negotiation of the bride price, then the introduction, then the giving away of the bride to her husband's family - this can be several different events, or it can be one long ceremony, or a whole slew of mini-events.  Then there's a civil ceremony in a church (that can be a few months later - up to several years).
5. Dancing inevitably goes late into the night.  You can get involved in dancing at almost any point.  It's encouraged.

There are a lot more ins and outs than this, but for the mzungus - that's the basics.  So, we arrived on time, grabbed some lunch, and waited.  And waited... and you're going to have to wait too... for part 2 of this blog post and pictures!

back to the beginning.

tomorrow I'm going back to Gulu for the NUTI goodbye party. It's hard to explain how excited I am about this. This is the first place I ever went in Africa, my first and dearest friends (so far) in Africa, and the party of the year. I would trade Christmas to go to this party. So, I'm traveling 9 hours by car and plane and will hopefully make it. I will battle both Nairobi traffic - on a Friday, no less - and Kampala traffic. I'm not sure if I'll sleep tonight!

... update from Nairobi airport - I made it this far! My driver this morning was HILARIOUS. His name is Jao, and he owns 4 businesses: a car hire company in Nairobi, a mobile phone company in Kampala, a hospital equipment supply company in Kenya, and another one which I forgot. He told me that tomorrow, he will be presented to his tribe (the Kikuyus), to become one of the respected men of the clan. To do this, the family gives a goat. Then he will also have to give a goat to the community. I wish I could attend, as it will be a great festival!

I asked Jao about other ceremonies of the Kikuyus, and he said that when the male child is born - you give a goat, also at circumcision - goat. Then also when the man becomes an elder of the clan - you guessed it, another goat. I asked if poor families are able to have their male children gain respect in the tribe, and he said no - there's not a way unless you can provide all these goats.

Anyway - all for now, I will send updates after the weekend. Hopefully someone there will take pictures of the festivities, as I have not brought a camera.

Another N. Uganda video

I'm so proud of the team in Kitgum, Uganda - they did a fabulous job on the new market stalls that we built - take a look!

check it out--

My team in northern Uganda makes it to youtube!!

What you might not see in the video is that the kids & professional dancers sent messages of social change through the breakdance skits - talking about domestic violence, skipping school, peaceful coexistence between different religious groups - lots of topics selected by the kids. The grant is finished, but it remains controversial - even among our staff - because of the different (progressive) movements and the fact that girls were doing the dance moves.

workin here in Gulu

Maybe it's about time I explained more of what I do over here in Africa. I'm sure most people have heard the boring spiel I always give ('I work for a US government contractor and manage 3 of our international programs. What I do isn't glamorous, but the projects are really cool.') - but here are some fun facts:
-USAID is a government agency paid for by your tax dollars. (thank you) It's not allowed to advertise in any way, which is why you may not have heard of it.
-My organization is a private, for-profit contractor for USAID - not an NGO.
-In Uganda, we are trying to help increase people's confidence in the Government of Uganda (with the underlying theory that this will help bring stability to the war-torn region of northern Uganda). To do this, we have various types of projects based on our funding: media, infrastructure rehabilitation, & reconciliation.

Those are the basics - the program out here does everything from rebuilding schools to installing new water pumps, to reburial ceremonies, to break dance competitions, to hiring war affected youth to build furniture for government offices. Everything we do is purposeful & strategic - including the way we award grants, the timing, the locations where we work. Because of the way the program is set up, we are able to implement projects a lot faster than most other contractors - which makes us the favorite of the politicians, the darling of the local media and the envy of other programs.

In a typical day, I get to the office by 8, and already have a stack of papers to sign. Every thing that comes to my desk is urgent and should have been signed yesterday. Most days I don't know where to begin (don't tell my team!). By nature of my position out here (Operations Coordinator), I get asked a lot of advice: this afternoon I had my door shut to conduct a phone interview for an hour and was interrupted 6 times.

On fun days I get to go on field visits - to see what we are actually accomplishing and monitor progress. Two weeks ago, I went to a small town 3 hours away in order to do an assessment of timber suppliers in the area. Please somebody go find my diploma in timber. I have no expertise here, but I went and gave the program spiel and talked about anti-corruption. This is the kind of thing that I love - I get to see the local towns, learn about a new area of procurement, and be a part of the action.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit our the site where we are filming a documentary of traditional Acholi dance, then in the afternoon I have to interview two candidates, and of course a thousand approvals to sign.

My favorite field memory is this time in January we had a drama competition, and my team asked me to pick out a nice prize for the winners: a bull. I trekked out to the town corral with one of my team (literally over a stream, through long grass, and across a field). Lydia showed me the bull she thought was best, and then we proceeded to rank the bulls based on health, age, fatness, ability to pull an ox plow, and beauty. Lydia kept telling me, 'Abigail - that is not a male,' but by the end I was an expert.

Of course there are also days like today when I feel beaten down - I know so little, I am not a part of this culture, I can't keep up with the workload... such is life. I have to pull myself out of the weeds to appreciate the big picture again. Like I said - not glamorous, but awesome results.

I'm really grateful to be a small part of what we are doing out here - every day I can go home and say, 'today, I made northern Uganda a better place.' cheesy, but actually true.