300 Brides and 300 Grooms!

I had such a peculiar day a couple of weeks ago which I've been meaning to jot down....

In my haste, I deeply regretted forgetting my camera and video camera and my mobile phone died in the 2 hour hunt!   I did manage to borrow one of our neighbour's mobile phones for a few low res photos  

A. so I don't forget the details if I get to be an old lady and am telling tales to my grandchildren  

B. to hopefully provide you with some amusement.  

One of our trainees, Irene, and one of our MAF night guards, Steve, invited me to come to their wedding.   For many Ugandans, weddings and 'introductions' (like an engagement party) are so expensive they often settle with having a registry wedding without a service and reception.   An evangelical church in Kampala has generously offered to host a mass wedding ceremony once every 6 months to help address this economical dilemma for many struggling couples.  The church provide the wedding dress & accessories along with hair styling and make up, the groom's suit, rings (not real gold of course), reception for 7 guests per couple and even a wedding cake for every couple.  I was a little daunted about going along, but my lovely Dina (house-help and trainer of our cooking school) was also invited as one of the 7 guests so we agreed to go side by side into the throng of 5,000!  

We spent quite a long time getting lost having encountered a truck blocking the dirt road entrance to the church.   To set the scene, the church is near a lake littered with garbage and surrounded by slums.   We made our way through the first security check and parked our car in a crowded car park.   Because of the swarming crowds, we decided to walk outside of the grounds to grab a chapati rolex (omelette inside a chapati...local roadside filler)   We were already a bit of a spectacle because being a 'muzungu'  (white person) you can't help but stand out and we were both coincidentally dressed in bright purple dresses and I was carrying a red and white polkadot umbrella for shade.  I find a bit of 'L'Ugandan chit chat with the street sellers helps to level the attention to bearable the affect being the locals beaming back at you with further banter to test out how much you really know.   It's hard to explain, but you either enjoy the experience of looking like an alien by acknowledging the locals or resist and feel uncomfortable standing out like a sore thumb.  Its only taken me about 8 years to figure this out...  

After we armed ourselves with rolex and fried motoki, we yet again attempted going through the security check, this time by foot.   The girl checking me, decided I looked a bit questionable and so went through every single little item in my handbag...she pulled out my bobby-pins box and opened it saying, "What's this??"  I explained it was for my hair...next she opened my headphones case, "and what's this??"  "A headphone's case"...then she pulled out a torch as if it was some kind of a weapon..."And what is this!?  Can you open it please?"  At this point I was starting to feel like she was just being nosey as she continued rifling through my handbag.   My low-blood sugar, (we hadn't eaten our emergency supplies yet) the heat, the crowds, her rifling...I could feel my hackles beginning to rise.   I muttered something about not being someone who would have a bomb in my torch or bobby-pins box and added that I just wanted to go and witness my friends getting married...so could I please go now?  And for good measure I asked for her name.   So on Dina and I went...Dina slightly embarrassed that I asked for the rifler's name, being the gentle soul that she is, me explaining that I would have been much more pliable with her rifling once I had eaten something.   

We got to entrance number one and a crowd of about 100 of us were barricaded and told we couldn't enter that way anymore.   We then made our way around to entrance number 2 and were again told that they wouldn't allow anymore guests entrance.  We waved our guest invitation in the hope it would magically open the doorway to us, but no, apparently the outdoor auditorium was already fully squeezed with more guests than expected.   We plodded on determinedly to entrance number 3 but stopped where some other disgruntled, fatigued guests were sitting or lying in an overflow marquee area and wisely ate our supplies before facing the next obstacle.  By this point we were about 2 hours late for the time that our bride and groom said they would be married.   We attempted entrance number 3 and were again barricaded along with a pushy crowd.    I then implored the security guard, "We are all wedding guests and have invitations, surely you can let us all in??"   I was given a negative response so at this point I turned around exasperated and marched off in the direction of the exit.   "Come on Dina, we tried our best.  Lets go home....this is too much!"  My marching drew the attention of some church officials who followed us and said, "Hey, Muzungu, what's wrong?"  "I've tried to get into this jolly wedding for 2 hours and so I'm going home."  "Ah, you come, you come...we will help you get in."   At last we were led inside to another marquee with tables and sat down on the fringe of the ceremony...we could see there were hundreds of white brides and suit-decked grooms squeezed onto a red carpeted area. 

The groom had asked us to call him once we were inside.   He answered our call and then said, 'Well I'm about to do the vows so I can't really talk right now'.....I quickly hung up...only in Africa would you be calling a groom just before he's saying his vows!   I then suggested to Dina that we may as well hunt them down ourselves.   Dina asked, 'But how will we find them?'  'We're not going to find them, they're going to find us!  I'm the only muzungu among 5000 people and I'm wearing bright purple and holding a bright red umbrella!'   We started making our way through the sea of white dresses and black suits and as predicted saw 2 hands waving in the distance at us right at the very front....We miraculously made it to them just as one of the many Marriage Ceremony pastors approached to begin their vows!   Suddenly Dina and I were somehow matching purple bridesmaids as the bride passed her somewhat wilted lily to Dina and we huddled together to hear the vows being recited!   I suddenly felt a buzz of excitement which made all of the fighting our way into the auditorium worth this moment.   The heat of the day and the fact that the female pastor had been marrying couples for the last 4 hours seemed to be taking its toll as she kept calling Irene 'Florence'.  The previous bride married off who was indeed called 'Florence',  asked if I would have my photo taken with her and her groom...maybe because Dina and I did so well as stand-in bridesmaids?    Before I had time to comply I was ushered over to our designated table with the 5 other guests to admire the decorated wedding cake still clad in cellophane.  We watched as the 300 freshly wedded couples began dancing in only the way I've seen Africans dance...with abandonment and freedom... Because after-all, they always look cool...they know instinctively how to move and they don't know what 'inhibition' means when it comes to dancing.

A dark rain storm was looming so Dina and I decided against joining the very long queue for food and legged it to the car park.    On the way out we drove past a truck laden with police sitting face out towards our window....'Hey Muzungu...you getting married?'   'No sebot (sir), I've been married for 21 years!'...I should have added 'And you think I would get married in purple?'  

Bidi Bidi...World's Largest Settlement

One outstanding day in my life...

BidiBidi..Largest settlement in the world - only opened in Jan 17 & hosts 280,000 refugees ovr 88.8sq mls 

I was asked by MAFUK to blog a day in my life here in Uganda.   I could have picked an average day that wouldn't be all that interesting but instead I chose to write about a day 2 weeks ago that I thought you might enjoy reading about. 

I was able to fly with MAF to Arua to visit the largest settlement in the world right now, Bidi Bidi in Northern Uganda which is hosting 280,000 refugees and is only 1 year old.   Thankfully, a friend of mine who is a fabulous photographer from South Africa agreed to fly in to Uganda and come along to take all of the photos.   We had to get up at 5am to accompany the pilot to the airfield by 6am check-in...this always creates a problem for me the night before.  I seem to have sleep anxiety if I know that I have to be up early, and so lay awake hour after hour counting down the few hours I would have left to function throughout a predictably grueling day.   About 3 or 4 cups of coffee later my adrenaline was ticking over ready for the day by the time we boarded LDR for the 2 hour flight. 

Warchild Canada kindly met us at the airfield in Arua and whisked us away in a van for the long 2.5 hour drive to Bidi Bidi settlement.  Every minute of the day was spent interviewing every person encountered, gleaning as much information as possible to get an overall picture of how our partners we fly are impacting the beneficiaries (villagers, the people in isolated places, struggling with war, displacement etc)   Bouncing around in the van I was switching between filming a diary log for this blog and also jotting down information on my phone (which is way easier than trying to write on a bumpy road!)  At first glance, every staff of Warchild Canada were oozing with a passion for their work among the refugees from South Sudan and were great company for the long day ahead.  We seemed to pick up one staff member after another as the day wore on until we had a jam-packed van full of staff and beneficiaries.

I had warned our photographer to brace herself for the stories we would possibly come across throughout the day.  I had previously visited Adjumani a year before and the interviews were pretty harrowing.  We met elderly women who had just run under gun fire, having to jump over dead bodies seeing their own children killed, sitting desolate on a mat with a handful of grandchildren and nothing else.   This visit was different.   The silver edge we found in Bidi Bidi settlement was encouraging.

One of the students from the Warchild Canada Accelerated Learning Program (Photo JV)

We interviewed quite a few students with Warchild Canada who were now attaining education when back in South Sudan they weren't able to.  We discovered that the locals were helping lease the land needed to host all of the refugees that have been flooding in (at its climax, 2800 per day).   We heard students tell us how the leadership training they were being given by Warchild Canada was helping bring domestic violence and other issues down quite noticeably in the refugee community through education and also accountability.   We also witnessed how spread out the settlement is, allowing the refugees to have their own piece of land to build on and grow crops which they are allowed to sell outside of the camps.   The refugees we interviewed mentioned the relief of just being safe and being able to sleep well at night.   Although there are problems with the refugees finding ways to keep themselves pro-active and purposeful with creating small industries that can help them be self-sufficient, overall the elaborate way that Aid organisations are working together to assist these refugees, is impressive.   It did seem to me that after all that Aid Organisations have learned over the years, Uganda's settlement model is worthy of being hailed one of the best in the world.

Filming the youth leaders at Warchild Canada

(Photo Claire Wise de Wet)

Interviewing in the Warchild Canada ALP Tents 

(Photo Claire Wise de Wet)

After visiting a couple of Warchild Canada's education programs which entailed driving hours in between, we then drove from one Zone to another to visit Samaritan's Purse.  Driving from one zone to another entailed 1 lengthy 1 hour and 30 minutes drive, just to give you an idea of how massive Bidi Bidi is.  Because of needing to reach Arua by dark, we didn't have time to stop for lunch and managed two pit latrine stops over the 16 hour day!

Refugee family from Yei who are now safe and have benefited from SP's support

(Photo JV)

We were greeted by Samaritan's Purse who kindly gave us a cup of hot tea made by one of the refugee families.   The regional manager showed us around the area which was just like a cluster of mud huts with straw roof-tops identical to the villages I had seen in South Sudan.   Everything was very tidy and clean and it was very apparent how much Samaritan's Purse were assisting the refugees with latrine kits, hand washing kits, economically designed cooking areas, washing up elevated kits...all designed to keep outbreaks of cholera and dysentery away.   Again, way more positive then I was at first expecting. 

Using one of the SP's handy Tippy Tippy WASH kits

(Photo Claire Wise de Wet)

Although we were exhausted by the time we had made the 2.5 hour drive back to Arua, we tumbled into the little hotel there at 9pm, hungry, dirty, but totally satisfied with the day and all of the smiles we had met on every face that we had the privilege of meeting.

With the staff from Samaritan's Purse in Bidi Bidi seeing firsthand how SP has assisted refugees

(Photo Claire Wise de Wet)

MAF needs to be in the places in the world it is needed most.   MAF Uganda are playing a significant role in flying daily shuttles up to the north of Uganda where the four refugee settlements are based.

The reality is that the South Sudanese are exhausted with having the hope of their nation being born and smashed apart, but the welcome and help they are receiving in Uganda has become the silver lining and is helping them bide this difficult time of waiting for their nation to repair itself hopefully in my lifetime.

See video blog at https://youtu.be/C4GW9o5-LyQ

Later this month I'm going to write about the following remarkable day finding Jackson Mataya after 4 years which had me riding on a high for at least 24 hours....so watch this space or search online for Jill Vine MAF Jackson Mataya to read more.

(https://www.mafc.org/how-maf-helps/medevac-and-flying-doctor-services/wheelchairs-delivered)