An Introduction

The other day I agreed to go to "an introduction"-a celebration where a girl is introduced to the family of the guy she is going to marry. Due to language barriers, trying to understand exactly what an introduction was, I assumed it was just a brief get together among the two families; however, what I didn't realize was that I was getting myself into a predicament where I had to be dressed in a gomas (the traditional Ugandan dress) and dance around in front of hundreds of people- and of course not being able to dance was quite embarrassing. And dancing multiple times mind you!

It first began with our car not being able to make it through the construction of new roads. We all had to get out of the car and have the workers push the car through because it was just completely sliding on the loose dirt. Constructing of new roads consists of filling in pot holes with red earth.

While the workers where pushing the car through, I stole some photos of the village surrounding us.

The girl wearing the purple gomas is the girl getting married. A British girl to a Ugandan guy. It was really interested hearing her father's speech, him being British and this being his first time to Africa. The celebration consists of groups of girls going out in front of everyone and doing a dance in the center of the tents. Then after doing the dance, you kneel down with the other girls while people examine you to see if they can find the girl who is going to be wed. So I had to go out multiple times dancing even though no one actually explained to me what I was supposed to be doing, I don't even think the girl being wed knew what she was in for with this celebration.

Two lovely girls kept me company due to the fact that I only knew one person at this entire celebration- a lady working at TASO.

Boys hanging out next to the DJ.

Here is a picture of me in gomas with the other girls that also were part of the celebration. I'm not going to lie I didn't find the pattern or color very attractive and in order for it to be stayed wrapped around me, they for some reason had to put a wool shawl completely around my body underneath- so yeah, I was incredibly hot and changed out of it immediately after my dancing routine was over! The gomas are supposed to be big on you, and they'll put more clothes underneath it to make you look "bigger."

I have seen these beetles flying around at night here, but I actually thought they were just very large moths or little birds. I wasn't really sure what they were until I was walking and saw one out of the corner of my eye on the ground. I had this boy pick it up so I could take a picture of it. The picture didn't come out so well so this one below is from google.