african farewell

This concludes my Africa posts. Perhaps I'll go back through my photos and add a photo here or there in the next few months, but I'm ready to bring this blog back to my present life. These photographs represent my last day in Africa. I can honestly say I was sad to leave. Sure, I missed my friends and the normalcy of American life, but I could have stayed longer. "Be more relational," were Daudi's parting words. He encouraged me to focus on relationships and not worry about the "other stuff." I've tried to do this since my return. I try not to watch the clock or worry if I'm a few minutes late. I try to make the people I'm with a priority. I have a long way to go, but his words still echo, bounce around in the walls of my mind.

kweranga

[tip: view the audio slideshow in fullscreen mode for a better experience]

My reason for going to Africa? Kweranga. It's an introduction ceremony in Tooro culture. Daudi brings "his village" to Kellen's village to ask for her hand in marriage. We travel to her home, after our briefing from Daudi's spokesperson. The ceremony is in Tooro. We listen and smile but don't understand.

We arrive by van and wait for an invitation to "enter." Once welcomed, we come with gifts for the family: green bags filled with clothes and fabric, calabashes, crates of soda and a television and DVD player. We kneel to the elders and walk backward to our seats. A handful of us are invited into the family home where we drink milk from a calabash in unison. We return to our seats. A group of a few hundred face us, judge us and decide to accept us.

music credits:
1 - four bored at the kitchen table in Uganda
2 - same as above, except we used our voices instead of fingers this time
3 - the crowd at Kellen's home
4 - dj music

hay más

Just a visual reminder that there is more to come from Africa. Here are two snaps from Uganda. I should have the kweranga multimedia posted by tomorrow night or Tuesday at the latest.

hashim raps

Hashim sings a Christian rap song in Swahili at the bus station in Kampala. (Turning this into a video with a single image was easier than posting this as audio alone.) If you like audio, there is more to come!

kweranga prep

Kellen sits under a dryer, waiting for a weave.


Kellen bargains over the price of something. This girl knows how to get a good deal!


Kellen and Daudi use a calculator do to some quick math. Daudi's eyes bulge from his head ... haha. Marriage isn't cheap (even in Africa!).

fort portal

Home for my last four days in Africa.


A cow cuts the grass down the hill from the house.


Art on the wall. Most of the art at the house was religious.


The table where many good meals and chai were shared.

Welcome to Fort Portal, Uganda (or UG, as they like to say). Daudi's love, Kellen, is from Fort Portal, so the kweranga (introduction ceremony) was held there. We journeyed to UG three days before the celebration. The time we spent in Fort Portal was a lot like the days before a wedding in the U.S. - dresses to rent, details to work out, hair to cut/style, people to pay, etc. The maid of honor's family took us under their wing. They fed us, made our beds and drew us hot bath water. Since Daudi is Tanzanian and from a different tribe than Kellen, they were also instrumental in helping Daudi and "his party" understand the Tooro customs. I cannot express enough appreciation for them. Thank you, Deborah, Joshua, Caleb and Pinyo!