Well, it’s nearly a week later and I’m finally getting
around to writing more about Kobwin!
On Friday morning, I got started taking pictures of the
students there for the prayer cards we were planning to have them do for
sending to prayer supporters in the U.S. I was a bit unsure of myself at first,
but the family parents (our staff members) welcomed me in and encouraged me “be
free!” and to not be afraid.
Soon their young twin boys and one of the younger students
from the family group were helping me by pulling in the students I hadn’t
gotten pictures of, finding them on my list, and even copying what I told them
to write as the description so I would know who was who later! I really appreciated
those three young fellas helping make me feel more at home :)
Around lunch time, Constance and a couple of the staff
members got busy mixing lemon juice and powdered sugar to make the typical
Ugandan cake frosting. One of the ladies had amazingly baked the cakes on a
sigeri (charcoal-burning small round stove) since ovens are not common
household appliances. (As I think I mentioned in my previous post, there was a
wedding coming up the next day!).
We had fun frosting the cakes, wrapping them in ribbon, and
then trying to add more frosting since we had a lot of extra. The problem with
the latter was that we didn’t go slowly, letting one layer of frosting harden
before putting on the next layer. So it ran all over and we spent some time
frantically trying to shore up the “dams” of the ribbons….and pretty nearly
just ended up with a big mess! But it all worked out :)
After we had got that straightened out, I went down to the
school to start helping prepare food for the wedding. We peeled matooke, sorted/winnowed
pounded ground nuts (peanuts), and chopped up several cabbages. The first two
were new experiences for me! The ladies also had some young men gather large
rocks to build fire pits of sorts for cooking the food. By then it was dark,
and so lack of electricity sent us all home.
The next morning, the day of the wedding, at least a couple
of the ladies woke up at 2:30 a.m. to start preparing the meal for the wedding.
By the time I got there around 3:30 or 4, there were about a dozen people
working by flashlight, and five or six fires going under massive pots (I’m
talking two to three feet in diameter!). At first most of them were butchering
the meat (cow and chicken) that I think had been slaughtered the night before.
I thankfully missed the slaughtering bit! But the rest about the wedding feast
will need a blog post of its own.
By 7 or so most of us went home and showered to try and get
the smoke smell off before getting dressed up for the wedding. The ceremony was
scheduled to start around 9—and I think it did start pretty close to that. The
first hour or so was taken up by the two processionals of groomsmen/groom and
bridesmaids/bride. It is evidently the tradition at least in that part of
Uganda for the processional to be very very slow. I guess it helps make sure
people arrive before things really get started?
Anyway, we had the school’s end of year ceremony, complete
with speeches, musical numbers, etc. The crowd steadily increased as time went
on, and between every couple of pieces of the program the MC would again
welcome those who were just arriving. That’s just part of the “African time”
culture here…..(my friends’ youngest son slept in my lap for an hour).
Then we went straight into the wedding, including more
singing and dancing. Vows and rings were exchanged, a culturally acceptable
(though exuberant) hug took place instead of a Western-style kiss. Then Uncle
Jonnes preached a short wedding message that even I as a single
appreciated…about how 50-50 isn’t sufficient for a marriage…God calls a husband
and wife to give 100% to one another as an example of how Christ held nothing
back but gave 100% of Himself for us!
Finally, at 3:30 I think? It was time to serve the wedding
meal. I was helping with that also….and as I said above that will be the
subject of another blogpost. Quite a bit later, a threatening rainstorm blew
in, putting an end to the wedding festivities. We enjoyed simple rice &
beans for dinner, and I went to bed early!
Sunday was a very chill day, everyone just needed to recover
from the wedding! Church that morning was an interesting experience. Lots of
dancing and clapping from the worship leader…he had to have two handkerchiefs
to try and keep up with the sweat of his exuberance! Also, here at Kasana, we
do the service in English and it is translated into Luganda. But in Kobwin, the
service is carried out in Ateso and then translated into English sentence by
sentence. So it was my first time here to be understanding the translated
sermon rather than as originally spoken.
In the afternoon I worked on sharpening three gallon bags of
colored pencils for kids to use the next day on the prayer cards. Thankfully
the three little musketeers, my friends from the day before, showed up and
pitched in to help me with that!
That evening we attended devotions with the first family
group at Kobwin, and then had dinner with the family parents. Oh my, such a
feast she set before us! I really enjoyed getting to know them better and hear
bits of their story! A couple girls from the family had helped the mom cook, so
they ate with us as well.
Well, I am falling asleep here on Tuesday night as I try to
type this…so I think I better call it quits and finish another evening!
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