I forgot my high heels

When a marriage takes place here, there is an event before the wedding day called a “kaseki” (pronounced “cas-key”). It is a party for the groom, with a ceremony of hymns and prayer led by the priest, followed by dinner and dancing. The bride doesn’t attend, but many friends and relatives are present to offer speeches and congratulations.

We were invited to attend a kaseki on Saturday but were a little nervous about what we would wear. We have brought skirts, which is appropriate clothing here, but our clothes are causal and women dress very, very nicely in Uganda. Our hosts, however, arranged for us to borrow traditional Ugandan clothing: the women wore basutis (baa-soo-tea) and Steve wore a kanzu (can-zoo). What a delight!

Of course, we needed help to get dressed properly. Several of the women here helped us first put on a kikoyi (chick-oy-ee), which is a colourful wrap skirt that functions as a petticoat. Then the dress goes overtop, but has only shoulders and a neckline; the rest is fabric carefully wrapped, folded and secured with a large fabric belt. Anne wore blue, Karin wore green, and I wore purple. We were also given the loan of beaded necklaces. We looked fabulous—except that we had only plain brown leather sandals, and all the other women would be wearing high heeled shoes. Drat. We should have known to pack those!

As we were preparing to go, the women decided that we couldn’t wear traditional clothing without traditional names. So we were each given Ugandan names by Joyce’s sister Catherine, and Joyce’s niece Teddie:

Karin: Namoli (Constance) of the monkey clan
Steve: Mukibi (Marvin) of the clan
Anne: Namayanja (Elizabath) of the heart clan
Kristine: Nambi (Eve) of the fish clan

As soon as we arrived at the kaseki we knew that basungas (white people) wearing basutis was a very big deal. People stared at us, and smiled, and giggled, and obviously talked about us as we sat down under one of the three tents in the family’s grassy yard. After the service led by the parish priest, there were speeches and then we were asked to go first to the buffet dinner. Initially Steve refused, but they insisted that these guest buzungas must lead the way. All eyes were on us as we sat down with our plates of rice, meat stew and matoki (a starchy staple the consistency of stiff porridge). We were so glad that, although forks had been provided, we had already been eating the Ugandan way, with our hands. We were equipped to look completely comfortable!

After supper the MC had a difficult time encouraging the guests to dance, despite the music playing on loud speakers. He hard a hard time, that is, until he noticed the silly buzungas who were swaying to the music. Through the microphone he called the four of us to the centre of the gathering to dance with the groom and the best man. How could we refuse? The only problem was that they were laughing at the silly white people, and we were laughing so hard at ourselves, that it was almost impossible to dance.

The night was not all fun and games, however. We were delighted when we were introduced, because the MC took care to draw attention to the Learning Centre. He explained where it was and what it was all about for anyone who didn’t already know. It was such good publicity that one of the parents sought Steve our afterward to ask questions, and ended the conversation telling Steve that his older children would visit, because they really needed a quiet place to study.

What a privilege to be welcomed by the groom (Ronnie) and his family at such an important celebration. Ronnie seemed genuinely glad that we were there, and we had some time to talk with him at length. He is a pilot who works for Mission Aviation Fellowship (Anne was excite about that for you, Claire!) and his wife is an accountant for Ernst & Young. He even invited us to come to the wedding next week!