Kwanjula Paul and Rose (134)
Originally uploaded by gablam

Last weekend I joined colleagues to celebrate the kwanjula of Rose and Paul, colleagues from IAVI who are getting married this spring. I followed along with the other ladies, trying to judge when I was supposed to kneel, etc. The ceremony was in Luganda, but you could follow along the context failry well. Being on the man's side at this traditional introduction (engagement) ceremony, we had a lot more work to do.

Somehow I managed to balance baskets on my head with one hand, while keeping my traditional dress together with the other. For the second round of gift-giving, I ended up at the front of the line. Since I wasn't sure where I was supposed to be going (or what I was supposed to be doing) I was a little nervous about the whole thing, but had fun dancing the group in. My colleagues tell me that I (the 'one who comes from far away'), the only foreigner at the kwanjula, was given a name. By the end, we'd given goats, chickens, a cow, heaps of baskets, crates of beer, a huge gourd of traditional brew, traveling clothes and who knows what else. And the bride-to-be wore no fewer than four different dresses. The Bugandans do love a costume change! More photos on flickr here.

Raw00696
Originally uploaded by gablam

My rescue was successful, so I've got a few more photos from India to share. I'm hoping to get more from my colleagues - including the Delhi debut of my hip hop duo with the lovely Maaza.

They're on flickr here.

Back-tracking a little bit

I had my first-ever kayaking experience with my friend Dorte on Lake Victoria.

We were a little worried that we would be trapped at the sailing club when we finished, because the road was closed off for a car rally. You could see the dust and hear the cheers from the lake! When we finished our fun by choppy kayak trip (I was covered in Lake Victoria by the end, and convinced that I'd contracted bilharzia), we had to enter the car rally in order to get home. The crowd loved Dorte's driving!

landing.JPG
Originally uploaded by glamourelle

Children at a fishing village landing site near my work in Entebbe

HAZA!!!!

I've managed to recover the vast majority of pictures and videos that I stupidly formatted over, using the miraculous program RescuePRO. I'll be uploading more photos from India when I return from a short trip to the field here in Uganda. For now, enjoy this one of some guy trying to sell my friend Skip a fake beard (and Skip trying to ditch him) in front of the Red
Fort in Old Delhi.

Back on the blog!

A lot has been going on in the last month, and I just haven't found the time to update the blog lately. In brief, all of Kampala went to see UB40 perform live (we don't get too many international acts here). Things are picking up on my cervical cancer vaccine project, and so I'm finally starting to travel out into the field more. I went to India (for work) for the first time last week, and stupidly deleted all of my photos. So the only proof I have is this photo of me at the Taj Mahal. The other 12 glamour shots won't go up online, but are available on request.

And most importantly, I'm counting the days until Kody moves to Uganda!