New Homestay, My Weekend, and a Ugandan Wedding!

I am now two weeks old in Uganda and learning so much I cannot seem to write it all down. The biggest change this week is that I had to move my homestay on Thursday. I am allergic to bananas and my old homestay was next to a banana chip smoking and packaging factory. It got too difficult to stay so my director suggested I leave the home.
I am now about fifteen minutes further from Kampala in a village called Kasangati. There are about twelve people who are consistently at this house, and many more family members who stop by to visit for a meal. I have two grandmothers that live here. We call them both Jaja. One of whom is 102, blind, and bed-bound. When she met me she danced in her bed and sang a welcome song for me in Luganda! My other Jaja loves to sit outside on her mat and enjoy the sun. Here is a picture of her with her friend peeling some corn. She is on the left.

I also have seven siblings between 15 and 32 all with names beginning with J. It kind of feels like I live with the Duggars. Only my sister Juliet (23) and brother John (31) live at home right now because the others are either away at boarding school (a very common way for kids to get educated here) or living away. I also have three younger cousins named Jemima (3),  George (5), and Maria (14) who live here.  My mother is a primary school principle, and my dad is a property evaluation officer. I do miss my other family and was sad to leave but this house is very kind as well and I am happy.

Jemima and George playing

I also had a very eventful weekend. On Friday, the other four students and I were able to go out to bars in Kampala. I will be honest and say that I was a little afraid to go out in a city where I stick out so much, but I am happy to say my hesitations were not supported. We danced a lot, by ourselves, and with other Ugandans. The only uncomfortable situation we encountered was the amount of men asking us where our husbands were. It was interesting to be assumed to be married at just 21. While many Ugandans are not married at this age, there are definitely a greater portion here who are compared to the number in the US. I think that the younger generation is slowly changing the standards and getting married later and later so there is a big diversity of the age at which women currently marry. Thankfully, there is one boy in our program who had to act as our protector. Our program director had warned us of this, saying that most men are regarded as the keepers of women and must guard them. Even though we are in a city there are still strongly ingrained gender roles in Kampala. 

In general there is a big culture of hierarchy here. Children kneel to their parents to show respect, women kneel to men, and men kneel to the kind. My younger siblings even kneel to me when greeting me! At first I was disturbed by this, but it has begun to appear more normal to me. Respect for elders is very important here and it is very nice to see. It is also very important to respect the person who cooked the meal. A man can go to court for not thanking his wife for the dinner she cooked him. It is strange to me that these things disturbed me so much at first and in two weeks have become easy to understand. It just goes to show how important it is to have cultural sensitivity in situations that are so foreign. 

I was able to go to a Ugandan Introduction ceremony on Saturday. This is the ceremony that comes before a wedding in Ugandan culture. It is where the bridewealth is presented and where the parents officially meet their in-laws. It is seen as a bigger deal that the traditional Western-influenced wedding. All the attendees wear traditional clothing to the Introduction. Women wear either Gomesis or Busuutis, and men wear Kanzus.

Kanzus

Krissy and me in Busuutis

The bride (in orange and green) wearing a Gomesi

The biggest struggle I am having now is communicating in Luganda. My younger cousins and my Jajas do not speak English, so I have a very hard time communicating with them. Gemima went up to John yesterday and started crying because she could not speak english and talk to me. It was so sweet to hear and motivating for me to improve my Luganda.

That's it for now! My next post will detail my first trip to The Brain Tree School!