Wedding à la Uganda!

Time for some news from Uganda!

The highlight since last time has definitely been the introduction ceremony/engagement party yesterday, an essential part of a wedding in Uganda. Before getting married, the groom and his family have to go to the house of the bride and ask for her hand. And we were invited to such an event by Cotilda, as her brother is getting married on Saturday. Our preparations began on Tuesday when we went to town with Cotilda to pick out fabric for our dresses.


Picking out fabric with Cotilda's help

Thursday we picked them up and after a few adjustments, brought them back to the house a tried everything on. It was hilarious! We looked like the fairies from Sleeping Beauty. However, when we arrived at the festivities, we kind of fitted in with all the others wearing beautiful colourful dresses.

We left our house at 9am, went to Cotilda's before starting our journey to Mbarara. It took about 3 hours.

The ceremony itself took about 7 hours, just sitting on our behinds watching the traditions unfold. Our team on one side, the brides on another and the bride and her brides maides in the middle, a total of about 150 people!

I think both families are upperclass as the event must have cost a fortune and they have not even had the wedding yet! A few times we had to get up and help bring the presents from the cars to the brides family or to go out to another tent (just the groom's team) to eat.

Standing in line for the buffet which was delicious!


Cotilda, me, Sophie and Sara at the ceremony just before heading home.

Other than discovering Ugandan traditions we have been working on our first project for school in collaboration with the organisation and it's going pretty well. We'll have our first field trip on Wednesday to attend a farmer's group meeting and interview members. Exiting!...


Discussing with one of the staff members, Ivan,,at the office. This is the room we spend most of our time in whn working at the office. You can see the Project Manager, Wilfred, being busy in the background.

And here we are having lunch at the Banana Chick who 'cures hunger'! This is where we go most days when not eating at home.
Until next time:
Bera bulungi! (Be well)

Photos!!

Hello again!!
It's Tuesday and we're sitting at a Danish(!) café/shop/NGO eating lunch (Danish pancakes with vegetables!). It's delicious, a bit expensive, but free wireless internet and the surplus goes to Ugandan children ;o)
Here are some of the photos from the first couple of days in Uganda.


Sophie and Sara. On our way from the airport to Masaka, we had to stop to change a flat tire in the middle of nowhere when taking a "short cut".



Our house and pavilion in Masaka.



View from the house of Sophie studying and the valley



One of our new hobbies: Joggling! We're going to be champs by the time we have to go home. The same goes for playing hacky sack ;o)



Studying hard!


And here is Fanta!

In the last few days we have been: Exploring the town a little bit more, been to the market, started our internship/data collection period at SCC-Vi, been invited to a wedding which we have to get dresses made for (!), eating great food, watched Topgun, been to the town pool at the Tropic Inn hotel and met a lot of friendly people. This afternoon we have to study to prepare for a meeting tomorrow with a staff member of the Monitoring & Evaluation unit, but at 5pm we have to meet Cotilda (our supervisor at SCC-Vi) to decide what fabric we want our dresses to be made from ;o)
All in all, things are great so far! September and October are going to be busy, but fun and giving as well I think. Hope to have more news fro you soon!
Take care!

By the way, here are my contact info:
Tel: +256 783 86 66 23 (my cell)
Adr: SCC-Vi Agroforestry, Hill road, Masaka municipality Counsil, Uganda
See map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=115227106680888221375.000471f65e2133ddd71a5&doflg=ptm&ie=UTF8&ll=-0.337248,31.737957&spn=0.002865,0.004801&t=h&z=18

Uganda!!

Hi everyone!
Just want to let you know that we have arrived safely to Masaka and everything is perfect! We live in a big house on the top of a hill a few minutes away from the office and overlooking the city and valley. The house has everything we need, but despite having a room each, we spent the first night together in my huge bed just to feel safe. Not that we have any reasons not to feel safe, we have a fence all around the garden and a guard and dog (Fanta) 24/7. But we lost power and beeing in a new house in total darkness on our first night was too much!
I'd planned to but some photos here, but forgot to bring my USB so maybe tomorrow or Monday.
The plan so far is to prepare ourselves a little bit for Monday morning where we are supposed to be at the office at 8am and start our internship/data collection. We are all really exited and looking forward to getting our hands dirty, learn a lot and experience the work of an organisation and its impact. Great!!...
Enough for this time, but I'll be back!
Maria