My Ugandan Transformation and 'the Introduction'

Today at 7:30 am, my neighbour came round, flanked by my host mum and brother to see me put on a Gomez. I should at this point introduce the Gomez: it’s a traditional dress worn by women in East Africa. I actually think it predates the existence of Uganda as a country. It is long, has pointy shoulders, and a big bow around the waist. Although this sounds horrible, they are at least made from very nice material. I had blue one that felt like silk. When I was shown the neighbour's family collection and invited to choose one I couldn’t help but feel a little baffled as to how they got funded since the dresses are absolutely exquisite and the neighbour was of more modest means.

The reason We were planning to go to ‘an introduction’ later that day at which I would need to wear the Gomez but this early morning affair seemed to be more of a trial run, to see what happened. In all fairness, I’d tried on one yesterday too, so I kind of knew the drill. What was more troubling was the shoes that went with it. I seemed to be a little on the short side and so the most towering heals were dug out. In the end I settled on a pair of platforms. They seemed to be the best fit and they gave me the height, but at the same time I’ve never worn a pair of platforms outside a shoe shop before on the basis that I’m not safely mobile in them (let alone when there’s a long dress to trip over and an uneven road surface).

At this point in the day I actually had no idea what ‘an introduction’ entailed (so I won’t spoil the story for you by getting ahead of myself) but what I did know was that it was the time that the bridegroom met the bride’s parents for the first time. I figured it was pretty important that they get on.

Anyway, back to the day. I had planned to do a couple of jobs in town – I did ask if I was allowed to take the Gomez off in order to ride a bike in and this didn’t seem to be any problem at all provided I was back at 10am to get dressed. I therefore assumed, quite wrongly, that an introduction would be a lunch affair.

When I did dutifully present myself at just past the hour to visit Peace (my beautiful 23-year-old neighbour) we went out to make an advance payment on some transport to take us to the ceremony (this was fair enough as I wasn’t walking anywhere in the shoes that’d been lined up). At least, this was where I thought we were going but we actually ended up in a salon (the sort of salon with bare brick inside, bare mud outside, a corrugated roof and shoes removed on entry) where the owner greeted me with a disproportionate quantity of joy. There were laughter and hugs before I was seated and oil was worked through my hair by Peace, so that it was very soft, but also quite greasy. Then it was brushed, I gave them money for transport and I was sent on my way. It’s an odd sort of deal where a bus journey comes with an inclusive salon trip, but there we go.

Next stop was home where I was asked to retrieve my nail varnishes so that my nails could be done. By this time it was gone 12 and I was quite convinced that we were missing the ceremony. My host mum has a little shop outside our house and she often sits outside it on a wooden bench making mats. It often has the feel of a ‘women’s club’ as any number of local ladies can be found there, aged from 2-92. I’ve never seen a man sat there though, not even a toddler. Anyway, we joined the ladies on the benches, I took off my shoe, rested my foot on a convenient piece of brick and Peace painted my hands and toes. Then she sent me off to bathe (which was slightly impractical as the varnish hadn’t dried yet; also I’d already bathed once that day, but in a country where most people see deodorant as…well, a great unknown, such formalities must be observed). So I dutifully went off to get a shower, and tootled back down the track to Peace’s house to get dressed. I took with me my greatest asset: my mirror. We’ve bought it in the market and the ladies are always excited by it. Peace and her sisters were no exception and soon her eldest female sibling, Viola, was putting on my excessively pale foundation in the mirror while Peace’s mother (who is in her early 40s) was helping me get into my Gomez. Underneath the Gomez goes a large blanket, folded double, wrapped around the wearer, tied at the waist, and then folded down so that the waist has twice thickness of padding. This, I hoped, would give me a bit more of an African derriere. Next the Gomez goes over the top. It’s like a short-sleeved Japanese kaftan, but it fastens with just 2 buttons on the left breast. At this point there is about 2 meters of excess fabric that is pleated and held against the wearer with the help of an enormous belt which is tied to resemble a comedically sized bow which has come undone. I hope I’m describing all this well enough for you to imagine it.

After I was dressed up, it was the turn of the other girls. Peace put on a lovely yellow Gomez. It was a mild yellow with brighter detailing and looked gorgeous against her dark skin. Her younger sister (aged 20, not as beautiful as Peace, but with all the personality and more) put on a bright pink one. I enjoyed the fact that we were all in very different colours. It was very sweet seeing their mother help to dress them with the same love and affection she had shown me. It was Viola’s first time to wear a Gomez too, so she was quite excited. I really enjoyed the ‘girls are getting ready’ atmosphere and shared my make up around just as we did when we were 14. Peace put a French plait in my hair (which is still in now as it’s not something I get to model every day!) I felt like every aspect of my appearance had been spruced up ready for this ceremony. My dress, my shoes, my nails, my hair texture, my hair style, my makeup and my overall cleanliness. Eventually we were ready to go, so I put the shoes on and tried to negotiate the steps outside the bedroom door. Now, I should explain that these shoes were my host mama, she must have been a bit of a diva back in the day because they were silver spangly 1 inch platforms, with a suitably high heel to go with them. It’s the type of shoe I’ve never bought because when I’ve tried them on in shoe shops I’ve had to hold on to the shelving to stay upright. To don them now and have to walk down very steep steps (the first one is at least 2ft higher than the second) was challenging. Then, at the bottom of the steps was sun-baked hard mud; a difficult terrain because it’s shaped when the mud is wet and squishy and then sets hard in a lumpy pattern; a far cry from the shoe shop floor!

As we walked down the street we attracted a lot of attention. I only noticed it a shade or 2 more than usual, but the 2 sisters with me felt like A list celebrities (and well they should, when a girl’s spent the entire day getting ready, she deserves such a feeling). We sat ourselves down in a local house and waited for the car to come and pick us up. It was a mud floored but brick walled establishment. More and more women arrived, astonishingly no 2 were wearing the same colours and when the rainbow had been exhausted some polkadots showed up. I can only assume that this is simply fantastic coincidence, but it amazed me. Every woman who arrived remarked on how smart I looked in their traditional dress. I found it a bit hard to interact with the crowd since they were all speaking their local language (I’m not even sure which one – there are two locally!) but I had greater problems to worry about because (as I had predicted from the start) my current body temperature was somewhat hotter than the sun.

Eventually, after we’d sat in the house for the best part of an hour, a bus came to pick us up. It took us as far as a village water pump, where we got off, met more colourful women, and were presently assigned a new bus. It transpired that the reason for all the waiting and the reshuffling was that everyone had to be able to travel together so we would all arrive at once. The busses were gender segregated and just before we arrived, we all stopped again to wait for the latter vehicles to catch up. It sounds quite simple written down, but owing to the language barrier I had no idea what was going on at any point. When we arrived two queues were made, behind a decorative arch that would lead into the venue (which I shall introduce as a make-shift verandah lined courtyard. The verandah was made by gazebos filled with plastic chairs, they were arranged in a square shape so that there was clearing in the middle). The queues were sorted male and female, and much to my alarm the female queue was formed behind me. I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do with it, lead a conga? Then someone came to stand at the head of the 2 queues, I think he was fulfilling a compare role and presently Peace (who was standing directly behind me) whispered that he was telling the crowd I had come from the UK (true) and been in written correspondence with the family to ask if I could attend the ceremony (not true). After the speech I led the ladies to their seats (actually a very simple procedure) and was directed myself to sit down right next to the parents of the bride, a location I don’t think I very well deserved but at least I was on a plastic seat while they were on a sofa, which made things slightly better.

We watched a procession of people dance into the square, kneel in front of the parents of the bride, make some speeches (which I couldn’t understand a word of) and then dance off again. In between these, there were 2 men on opposite sides of the make-shift courtyard, each with microphones acting as compares. I think there was one representative from each family. I was perfectly happy not knowing what was going on until Peace lent over and whispered, “next they’re going to get you to talk”, I was a bit alarmed but sure I could manage to say the right words so I asked what sort of thing they wanted me to say. In response Peace just told me to try and keep calm, which unfortunately had the opposite effect, because I feared I would be required to give a speech to a couple of hundred people on an unknown subject. In the end I was passed the microphone but the compare closest to me and the other guy asked me a question in Luganda (or at least that’s the language I think it was in), Peace whispered an appropriate response in my ear, but since I didn’t know what either of them had said, I simply assumed he’d asked me how I was (it sounded a bit like he might have) and so I responded “wrunji” (I’m fine) and it must have been a good answer because he asked me another unintelligible question. To which I answered in English and told him I didn’t know what he was saying, which strangely enough amused the audience tremendously.

In the midst of all this there was a huge rainstorm. The show went on but someone held an umbrella over the bride and kept dabbing her dry with a tissue. Everyone sat watching was ok, as there were gazebos, unless they were in the front row or struggling to walk in platform heels in deep mud. Either of those scenarios could be problematic.

Just as I was sat back and beginning to think I could enjoy the show I was told that I’d be next required to go up and present the bride with a basket of flowers & fruit. I should tell her that they were from her husband-to-be and tell her what all the items in the basket represented. The problem is that it was expected that I would talk about the symbolism and colours of the items but I’m perfectly aware that colour imagery varies from country to country (in India they wear white at funerals). I had about 5 minutes to gaze and the basket and prepare this. When we went up, I took the microphone and explained that the flowers represented the way their love would grow and bloom, the Fanta was because her husband thought she was sweet, and the bananas were symbolic of the way that their marriage would bring fourth fruit in time. It seemed to go down well enough and, as Peace reminded me, only half the audience could understand me anyway.

Next we brought in the dowry items on our heads in baskets. The groom had everything delivered outside, including a soggy sofa set tied to the roof of a truck. I must have done 3 trips to and fro to pick these up from outside and lay them down in front of the bride’s family. I was worried that everyone would balance these baskets skillfully on their heads and I’d be the idiot holding on to the basket, but not so. Everyone was steadying their baskets with hands. It was a tricky task because there were low hanging power lines overhead, which were exactly the right height to knock off my basket, at least one hand was required to keep my long dress out of the mud, and if I’d had a 3^rd hand I’d have used it for balance as I was wearing the most challenging footwear of my life, while it was quite slippery underfoot.

With that the ceremony was over and we joined the queue for food. I was actually told on several occasions not to queue but to go to the front. Now I can see why I would get special treatment during the service: these people have rarely met a foreigner and here is one wearing their traditional dress; but there’s no need to get special treatment when it comes to queuing for food. I said as much and indeed repeated myself several times at intermittent stages because no one seemed to be able to fully comprehend my willingness to wait in line to eat, even though I did have white skin.

In time we were all given small mountains of food. We sat down on the arms of the sofa set (because the seats were too wet) and tucked in. The challenge was that there was no cutlery. I copied Viola who was quite skillfully eating it with her fingers. However, I didn’t feel equally skilled; it’s the transfer from hand to mouth that’s tricky and I felt a bit like a human vacuum cleaner inhaling it off my hands, simply hoping that my hands were clean (an abject impossibility, I hadn’t washed them since my midday shower and I had greeted countless people since then). Fortunately though I had a bit of flat bone on my plate that had come with some meat. I soon turned this into a makeshift spoon and was feeling rather pleased with myself until I heard a snatch of gleeful English over the loudspeakers “I like the way the muzungu eats”.

Next was the cutting and distribution of the cake. At this point I was shamelessly exploited by Viola to get extra cake. Every time a distributor came near she would wave and say that I hadn’t had any yet. In this way Viola and I both consumed 5 pieces each (luckily no piece is larger than 3cm squared and so that’s not gluttonous) and I hadn’t the heart to refuse (as I was holding out for a piece with icing – a rare treat if you chop an ordinary cake into enough small bits). It’s amazing what seems like a good idea when you’ve been missing all sorts of sweet treats for 6 weeks.

The Kenyan Wedding

Yesterday my good friend Jane got married to John (usually known by his surname, Miano). Both of them are Volunteers. Jane is from the Isle of Lewis in Scotland and Miano is from Nairobi. This pairing caused much excitement locally and I don’t think Njoro has ever seen anything like it. I was even stopped beforehand by locals who intercepted me on my way to the dairy to ask me about it. In these rural parts, they couldn’t believe that a white woman would marry a Kenyan.

To be honest they were right to be skeptical (not that I told them so) as the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. The couple, while good friends, were not really getting married.

Jane didn’t fly to Kenya with a wedding dress but she’s been to Nakuru this week and amazingly managed to get one for 100/= (which is less than 1 pound)!!!

She was to have 3 bridesmaids: her Kenyan counterpart (Mercy), the other female in her working group (Georgina) and me. 

I went over to Jane's house on the morning, carrying 20 hot chapattis in a plastic bag as a contribution to the wedding feast. Jane was very nervous, ironing her dress, and wondering why on earth she’d agreed to the whole thing. One of her main worries was that her parents, (who are a bit cautious about  Jane's adventures, having never left the UK), weren’t convinced that the wedding wasn’t real – they seemed to think that Jane was being hoodwinked into a union that she didn’t intend to make. It’s not easy having such unhappy parents on your wedding day. Luckily they were very safely on the other side of the world and so not in a position to intervene and had to limit themselves to distressing their daughter over text.

Once we were all dressed up and ready to go the Kenyan girls arrived and started getting ready. I was quite surprised by this. It’s the bride that’s meant to be late to the wedding, not the guests. It turned out that they’d been readying the venue all morning, they just hadn’t told us (otherwise we’d probably have been there to help). The other surprising thing was that they proceeded to put on nice dresses in shades of black and white. This is so obviously inappropriate in the UK that it barely needs saying. Luckily the maid of honour had been tipped off in advance and so was wearing blue. It's the opportunity to learn about these cultural differences that makes the whole thing fun!

We had quite a bit of time while waiting for everyone to get ready and so I popped out to visit one of my entrepreneurs, bedecked in full finery and low heals (which is significant when you consider the uneven road terrain), to get a mandazi for the bride. Joshua had sent me a text message to say he’d done a batch of coffee flavoured ones that morning and Jane is particularly partial to his creations so it seemed like the right thing to do. She is probably the only bride ever to be sat on a sofa in a wedding dress munching on a mandazi while waiting for her girls to get dressed.

When everyone was ready we walked to the wedding venue, leaving just Jane and her maid of honour behind. Despite the fact that the venue was about 2 mins away on foot, they were waiting for the car to pick them up, in traditional fashion.

The trouble was that certain details of the wedding hadn’t been organised yet, particularly who would be where, when. The other problem was that half our wedding guests were volunteers in Nakuru town along with the wedding cake. Unfortunately the president was visiting Nakuru to celebrate the fact that the vice president had been acquitted of the charge of inciting the post election violence and all the roads had been shut as a safety precaution, preventing them from coming. By 12noon, the wedding was 2 hours late, the guests had arrived, I was quite bored and had been teaching ‘I’m sorry I haven’t a clue’ games to the children. At long last I set off on foot to collect the bride.

At the home I found Jane and Mercy (the maid of honour) rather restless, perhaps unsurprisingly. It was funny to see a woman in white wedding dress and veil stomping impatiently round a dusty Kenyan yard with washing flapping on a line overhead. We contacted our Program Coordinater to come in his car (he’s the most senior figure here) and I convinced Jane to wait 10 minutes for him before stomping her off to the wedding on foot. Luckily he did arrive in time.

John (our program coordinator) was absolutely delighted by the scene. He’d got balloons attached to the car and once we were inside he drove while beeping the horn continuously. To introduce John, he's best described like the character of God in ‘Bruce Almighty’ – to see him laughing and whooping was a very different experience. I wanted to ask if the volunteers had ever staged a wedding before, but seeing John’s reaction I no longer needed to – he’d definitely not ever had a team of volunteers do anything of the sort. I wasn’t sure whether he was s-bending in the road out of celebration or to avoid the potholes. From my seat in the back of the car it was hard to tell. When we got there they opened the field gates and all the guests crowded round singing. We hadn’t had a wedding rehearsal, choosing instead to have a hen night and so we didn’t actually know what to do. An Usher rushed over to the car when it stopped to tell us to get out when the music started playing, this was good, we at least had some sort of idea what to do. After what felt like a very long wait we heard ‘Isabella’ playing. It made me smile because it was inappropriately romantic for a fake wedding. The other thing that made me smile was the difficulty we had walking up the isle. We had to go very very slowly. Mercy and Jane had been practising this at home, but I hadn’t and rather struggled to go at the ridiculous pace. Worse still, it’s all caught on camera. The isle was flanked on each side by large white gazebo style tents full of wedding guests. They were decorated with tinsel, fake flowers and were populated by Kenyans and UK volunteers as well as a few locals. At the front of the isle was a Matt wearing a priest’s collar and his mama's sun glasses and ready to give a short sermon on the nature of love, Arman was summoned as best man to take a reading from the gospel of entrepreneurship. Matt had written some wedding vows which made everyone laugh and then announced that John may kiss the bride. To our absolute amazement the loving couple then proceeded to do just that.

Next the couple left the ‘church’ followed by best man, maid of honour and me to enjoy their first dance together which was very sweet and extremely well documented by the many cameras. The following step was the cake ceremony. This is very important in Kenyan ceremonies (because they don’t traditionally ‘kiss the bride’, they feed her cake instead. Our wedding was a hybrid so that's why we had both). So Jane fed Miano cake, Miano fed Jane cake. Then Jane fed the best man. Miano fed Mercy and me. Then the cake was cut up and all the guests were fed. Once everyone had eaten cake they went up to the buffet (which had tragically run out of plates when I got there, so I ended up eating off a second hand plate, using my hands instead of cutlery - classy). The entertainment of the afternoon was music and dancing as well as an enormous waterfight.

Glad I crashed the wedding

I put on my most scruffy clothes in order to do some laundry in the garden and then I accidentally crashed a wedding instead.

This all came about when I came across a number of brides maids in the house and asked where the bride was. Instead of telling me, they decided to show me. The bridesmaids were an impressive sight. They wore floor length yellow dresses and to protect themselves against the chilly African summer they also wore 3/4 length blue jackets. I tried to apologise at this point for my own scruffy attire (the Velcro on my trousers was long gone and the flies wouldn't stay closed!) but they brushed off my excuses and said that white people always dressed as I had. Which I received with mixed feelings as the most inadvertently backhanded complement I'd ever heard.

The bride (who was the youngest of 14 children) was at home in the neighbouring street in her white dress. Unlike British brides, she didn't appear to be wearing any make up. She also wasn't particularly interested in having her photo taken and kept saying that she just wanted to see the groom. In this way we ran half an hour early, which would also never happen in England. By the time I had met the bride, the bridesmaids had already invited me to the wedding and seemed quite offended when I asked the bride if this really was ok. It's very hard to explain how much it's not ok in the UK to turn up to a wedding in the UK without an invite from the bride, groom or their parents. They were a lovely group of girls, largely with a good grasp of English. I asked the one sat next to me how the bride and groom had met and to my amazement she didn't know. No way would this happen at home! To my surprise I was invited to join the bride and bridesmaids for a photo, which I was flattered by (although I suspect it may have something to do with my skin colour) but I was glad to oblige (at this point mama came unexpectedly surging into the room to also get in shot before totally disappearing again.) After this there were some speeches. I couldn't understand what was going on as it was in Swahili so I just stood in the background. The speeches were being filmed and about 75% of the way through I realised that 'in the background' was actually a highly inappropriate place to stand because it meant that I was in shot, unlike the regular audience members.

Once this was over we went outside and I was amazed to find that the yard was full of people including mama. I realised then that the bridesmaids I'd been chatting to on arrival had escorted me into the VIP zone without me having realised it. I felt very unworthy but greeted mum and tagged along with her in the wedding convoy (everyone who had a car appeared to have lent it and allowed them to be bedecked with ribbons) so we drove off to church. Almost the entirety of the bride's reception had been females and at the church we were greeted by the men. Then the whole congregation clapped, cheered, shrieked and whistled the loving couple in through the doors. Mama hung back as the crowd danced after them and I stayed with her but once she was reassured that there would indeed be enough seats inside, we followed on. The service resumed and I came to regret my decision to attend as the sermon alone lasted hours. It was delivered in English by a preacher who had to pause after every sentence for someone else to translate into Swahili. This disjointed speech sounded even more unnatural because he bellowed the whole thing, as if every sentence was a punch line. This even included bible references such as,
"THE BOOK OF JOHN!"
        "kitabu cha john"
"CHAPTER SEVEN!"
        "sura ya saba"
"VERSE THIRTEEN!"
        "aya kumi na tatu"

While all this shouting was irritating me, it didn't seem to have captured the attention of the audience very well either as mama next to me sent a couple of texts.

Eventually the wedding reached it's climax. The audience was delighted, we were shouting and whooping and someone had brought a whistle to give a bit of extra gravitas to the vows. To my surprise, instead of saying "you may kiss the bride" the pastor said something along the lines of "you may feed the bride wedding cake" and a cake feeding ceremony commenced that involved a good chunk of the audience (sadly it ran out before it reached me). This ensured that good cheer was restored again before we were released from the church. I quickly decided that I'd had enough ceremony for one day and much to the disappointment of the bridesmaids I trotted off to be reunited with the rest of the volunteers, who were busy painting a children's home.