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.
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