Home (part II)

After one crazy week back in the states, there are bound to be a few things besides food to comment on. For instance, how do I sum up my first trip to Africa? How can I characterize Uganda? What's weird about being back? While I'll spare you my verbal diarreah on all of the various in sundry topics of my first week back in the U.S., here are a few interesting tidbits:

1) Americans are bogged down with a lot of stuff. Even before I arrived at home, my poor wife was having trouble with both of our cars and as a result I had to ride a Greyhound for the last leg of the trip. Wait, poor? Two cars? Those don't belong in the same sentence. Also, for those of you who have never ridden a Greyhound or a Ugandan taxi, let me just say that the former beats the latter in legroom by about a mile. I never thought the cheapest possible mode of transportation in the country (short of skateboards and bicycles) could feel so luxurious. The frigid air-conditioning and the smooth ride (i.e. absence of potholes) reminded me that even the low-end realities of a rich country are poignantly and almost laughably posh even compared to the high-end realities of the third world.

2) Stuff is expensive in rich countries. I spent 24 hours in Gatwick airport, and the 60 dollars I spent there just to call my wife and stay nourished were cautious reminders of the 100 painful bucks I spent last time I passed through London . . . and that was just getting from place to place and eating some lunch! Another 50 bucks worth of cab ride from the Orlando airport to the Greyhound station reminded me that I could have gone back and forth from Orlando to Tallahassee 10 or 12 times for that much money in a Ugandan economy. This is going to take me a while. Shillings, how I miss you.

3) Ugandans are fearless. Even when my neighbors' kids there had no money for transport to and from school, their mum decided to bite the bullet and educate her children at home. People routinely go about their lives not knowing how they will foot the bill, faithful that it will all work out somehow, and with the generosity of friends and neighbors, they get through . . . which brings me to my next point.

4) I have never met so many ridiculously hospitable people. A Ugandan proverb states, "Mu nju temuba kkubo," or, "in the house there is no road." Visitors in the home are blessings upon that home, and people treat them as such. By extension, visitors to Uganda are within the confines of a collective Ugandan home, a reality that any traveler can feel in his everyday interactions with people in Uganda. My American friend in Kampala calls it "embarassing hospitality"; it's that kind of hospitality that makes you wonder what people think when they visit our country. It's not that we're unhospitable, but I was made a part of someone's family and of so many communities in Uganda. Of all the stories I could tell about my travels there, that's the one that touched me most.

5) No matter where home is, it's always good to be back. I'm happy to be home, to spend time with Jenn, to see my friends again, and to know that the meager student wage I receive has little to do with my quality of life because I live in a rich nation. I'm not a person who has a whole lot of guilt about living in the U.S. now that I have seen some places that aren't so filthy stinking rich. However, I do think that we have a lot to learn when we witness smiling people whose disposition doesn't match the balance in their bank account. We should be so bold as to find those reasons to be happy if for no other reason than just another day above ground.

Home, Home At the Table

Well, I've been home a week now and I gotta tell ya: while I generally enjoy Ugandan food and I'm always willing to be adventurous, there are a few things that I'm happy to be eating back in the good ol' US of A. First, the vast majority of restaurants in the Kampala metro area have no idea what the word "ketchup" means. You don't know what you have until it's gone. How I longed for the thick, tasty goodness of Heinz on so many occasions where the chips were so good but so lacking a proper dipping sauce. Can't settle for "tomato sauce," either. That crap is such a piss poor excuse for ketchup that it brings my taste buds pain to describe its thin, runny, tasteless, unfortunate existence to you. Yes, Heinz ketchup is available in Uganda if you look in the right places, but here I don't have to look farther than the center of the table to dress my burger properly.

Okay, I don't eat burgers and chips all the time and I have thoroughly enjoyed being at home in the kitchen with my dear wife. My first meal back home, we made a summer feast on the grill with flank steak (a medium-rare concept foreign to Ugandans, who generally prefer their beef thoroughly cooked in some sort of stew or sauce--nice, but just not my scene with the grill sitting out back). We had fresh corn on the cob, a tasty change of pace from the late-night roasted kasooli to which I had become accustomed and a softer reminder of summers in Iowa. The grilled green beans and garden salad topped off a meal with more fresh vegetables than I'd eaten all summer. Above all, enjoying a meal and a nice bottle of wine with Jenn was a wonderful (if belated) way to celebrate our third anniversary.

It's not that I don't like Ugandan food. In fact, I found most things very tasty. My only dislike, papaya, had nothing to do with the way anyone cooked. But my stomach knows where I came from. Some things just taste like home. I will say this: even in Florida, the fresh fruit can't compare with Equatorial Africa. Pineapple, mangoes, and the best variety of bananas anywhere, you will be missed. Until next time, I'll have to stick to the summer favorites here and just know it's good to be in America, home of Heinz, of sweet corn, of cookin' cow on the grill with beers nearby and home of the backyard barbecue. Yum.

The (mis)Adventures of Kigozi: Land of the Many Strange Foods
"Don't Knock It 'til You've Tried It"

In all honesty, travelling is eating what you don't normally eat. There's no way you can avoid it. In my book if you're even trying to eat normally, you need to either get your head checked or stay home. I have a long history in gastrointestinal adventures in travel. I'm sure at least some of you can relate. For instance, when you eat plantains for days on end in the Caribbean, you begin to reap the benefits of a high-potassium diet. For me it was about endurance in playing highly repetitive percussion rhythms (yes, I actually believe the bananas help), but the beans and rice on the side don't hurt your fiber intake either. Japan and China: leave all your inhibitions behind, close your eyes in case something is still squirming on your plate, and enjoy! Easy as pie . . . or squid . . . or whatever.

Uganda is pretty tame in regards to adventurous foods, especially considering that all of their edible insects are out of season right now. Too bad. I could really use some nice enswa (ants) or ensenene (grasshoppers). But everyday food is pretty normal: matooke (another form of banana, so the potassium thing applies again), beans and rice, cassava, sweet potatoes, etc. However, this Monday I had a rare opportunity to try something new (begin flashback sequence).

So I'm "up-country" with a friend and we're on our way to a musicians house, but we get hungry on the way and stop for breakfast. As I go to the "short call" (see previous post on graduation parties for an overview), my friend orders us up some breakfast. I return to a nice plate of chapati and caayi (tea). One drink of the tea and I know the place can't be bad--it was lightly flavored with ginger--yum. But he's got an extra plate with an unrecognizable meat product. I ask him what this delectable dish is, and he responds, "it's, you know, the insides." Now most people are thinking this can't be good, right?
"Intestines?"
"Yes, that."
"Cow?"
"This one is of goat." The waitress brings that extra bowl for me, but my friend hesitates, saying that his last research buddy "got problems" when she tried everything he put in front of her. But for me, I'm pretty brave, so I jump in with both feet. Turns out goat guts with chapati and caayi are pretty tasty. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it, friends. Breakfast, anyone?

Well friends, wedding week is over. I have successfully participated in a beautiful chain of ceremonies as the best man in Damascus Kafumbe and Betty Nayiga's wedding. If I recounted every last detail for you, you'd never read my blog again, so I'll try to hit the high points of the week in this week's segment: Matrimony in Uganda (a Liberated Man's Perspective). Disclaimer: this is a long blog by my standards and it contains personal opinions; if you are unfamiliar with Ugandan culture, beware of reading it as fact. Enjoy.

So there were basically three main ceremonies that made up the chain of parties: kwanjula (the introduction ceremony), kasiki (the "bachelor party," and mbaga (the wedding). I think a briefing on each process will suffice, but I need to vent some commentary here, people.

Okwanjula is the verb for "to introduce." Although the two families were already acquainted, this was an opportunity for the groom to offer his dowry and the bride's family to either accept or reject it as they decided whether to allow their daughter to enter the Holy Bonds. As promised, I observed this dowry situation closely since we're not really used to that. Although the bride's family had threatened to demand 70 cows, this groom was free to bring whatever he wanted as long as it included several essential items: ennyama (meat), omwenge (banana beer), mutwalo (ten thousand--I'll explain), and a gift of appreciation to the family. Everything else is bonus that the family shares with their extended family. The representatives from the groom's family (not his parents; they musn't interfere) drove to Masaka, about 3 hours south of Kampala, with this dowry. We brought about thirty or forty baskets with assorted items (bread, butter, sugar, tea, groundnuts, etc.), two "cows" (one being equivalent to either a side of beef or a thigh), three large gourds of mwenge (about sixty litres). Along the way, we picked up a live cock, which must be given to the muko or eldest brother of the bride, who gives her away from the family to the groom. We also picked up a live goat, which is a symbol of virginity (more on that later), and we kindly stuffed it in the trunk together with the chicken. Nice. We also got some containers to serve the mwenge in so that people wouldn't be drinking out of fifty-pound gourds. That would be messy. And difficult.

Now the only people who can really speak at these things are the omwogezi, who are family representatives that the families hire to negotiate for them. These dudes argue politely and use very complicated Luganda proverbs and metaphors to do so. They are masters of the language, which is why they are chosen for this, a situation in which so much is at stake. You know how easy it is to offend your in-laws? If someone else takes the heat off for you, it's easier to deal with that one difficult in-law that you swear wants to kill you. (I'm lucky, my in-laws are cool, but I know that's not true for everyone.)

So much for the kwanjula. There's a lot more to it, but in the interest of your continued healthy eyesight, let's move on to the kasiki. You know how American bachelor parties are characterized by drunken debauchery, raunchy humor, and women of questionable virtue? Ugandan bachelor parties are basically the complete opposite. The kasiki is an opportunity for a person's village and family to usher the bagole (bride and groom) into married life, and in this case, say goodbye. I am closely associated with the groom, so I was not allowed to attend the bride's kasiki. This was a party like any other with the obligatory food, drink, and music, but in a word, it was one thing: church. That's right, we couldn't even start until two hours late because the pastors weren't there to preside over the blessed event yet.

Now to wedding day. This was perhaps the least foreign to me and my faithful readers. Just a church wedding (though a fairly conservative one in terms of theology if you care to know) followed by a reception. The reception featured traditional dancers, however, and these people get right in front of the head table and do mbaga dance. This is a sex education dance that has been used in Buganda for years. It's explicit about the how-tos and everything. Whoa. I had been learning how to play ngoma for this dance, among others, but the musicians there blew my mind. They are among the best Baganda musicians in the world. It was pretty rad.

Now to some general commentary. There are a few things about events in Uganda that remain relatively consistent:
Food and Drink: As Steven the security guard in my apartment compound put it, "without those things there is no function."
Music: Duh.
Cake: essential, but rarely avoiding extreme staleness.
Speeches: Long, long, speeches. Hours of them.
Photographers and videographers: So many that you can't get a picture in before one of them steps in front of you to get the shot.
MCs: You'd be surprised what a good one can do for an event and how bad things are with a bad one.

Now food and drink are fun, because at most events you're allowed to eat with your hands even if they give you silverware. What's not fun about that? Music is varied: sometimes dodgy keyboards, other times Christian music that should never be recorded in the way you're hearing it (imagine "Amazing Grace" or "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" only in a discotheque). The music at this particular set of events was generally very good, however, so that was refreshing. Even better, both kwanjula and kasiki featured traditional musicians of the highest calibur.

Cake. Where do I start. Non-descript pumpkin or carrot or brown spice cake, always with raisins and a hard sugar frosting is the order of the day for any Ugandan event, no matter how formal. Usually stale, though I had some of the best Ugandan cake I've tasted anywhere at this mbaga. These are above average people. They can't settle for crappy cake. Right on, Mwami ne Mukyala Kafumbe.

Speeches: now kwanjula and kasiki are really nothing but series of long speeches with breaks for food, drink, and a bit of music. However, I must again commend this couple on their ability to keep the speaking to only one hour at the wedding. This is an unusually short amount of time for speeches at a mbaga.

Photographers and Videographers: these guys are ridiculous. They filmed us changing into our tuxes. They are everywhere, at all times, and they do not relent with thier warm lights and close lenses. I will say this. The professional photography that I've seen so far has been extremely high quality. At least if I can't take my own pictures, somebody else can take them better.

MC: Let's just put it this way. If the MC is good, it can cut hours out of boring or offensive or just plain inappropriate uses of time. If he's bad, he personofies all of those things. If only we had MCs at weddings in the US to curb the drunken best-man speech before he offends the entire county or the bandleader strangles him with a microphone cord (this is no reflection on my own best man, who touched everyone deeply with a classy and brief toast at our wedding--thanks, Josh).

Now the character of all of this was very conservative, which in principle I think is the couple's prerogative. I will keep my theological issues to myself, but I must add this: the place of women in all of these ceremonies constitutes a telling microcosm of their wider social status. Women must get on their knees to greet men or other women. Baganda women are generally very shy and submissive, and that's just the norm here. They can have careers (though the glass ceiling is not strictly American), they can be outside the home (though the verb that a woman uses when she is going to marry is okufumbirwa, from the verb okufumba: "to cook"), and she can wear trousers (but not when she goes to see her grandparents). Very interesting. It's not that a Muganda woman can't be her own person and have her own life or anything like that, but her disposition is generally that of a quiet, submissive cook. I am strictly not a practitioner or supporter of cultural hegemony, but I am pleased to be married to the boisterous, opinionated, loud, beautiful person that I call my wife, and I like it that it's okay for her to be like that.