अलगाव, शादी, रात्रिजीवन

The past week in Kampala started out pretty lonely, because I moved to the cheaper guesthouse, I had this huge apartment all to myself. It was pretty cool, but at the same time isolated, the TV only had one channel that reported about China all day long, and there was no internet. So my main activity was dancing around the apartment or going somewhere to have coffee!

Then on the day of moving out, I was supposed to couchsurf, but after some communication complications, I decided to go back to Fat Cat Hostel. That was the best decision ever, because there I met Cesar from Mexico and many other cool people, with whom I had meals and drinks in the evening! It was fun, and I got pretty drunk for the first time in a long time (except for my awesome date). The nightlife here mainly consists of going to the big bars (which are really fancy and outdoors), drinking, and dancing in front of the bar at a certain point (or in the case of the young African ladies, twerking).

Cesar had been invited to a wedding by an organizer he did gorilla trekking with, and he took me along.

It started in the church, where the priest preached for 10 minutes about how shitty and difficult it is to be married, and then added something like 'but Jesus is with you' and 'the bride must always cook well.' Cesar and I were slightly amused and wondered what else would await us for the rest of the day.

At the end of the ceremony, the whole church community danced out of the church, which was pretty awesome!

Then we were driven to another location for the wedding reception. It was pretty fancy, pretty colorful (yellow/red/white decoration with zebra elements), but I liked it a lot :)

When we arrived there, we had to sit and wait for something to happen, typical Ugandan style. After what felt like two hours, the bride and groom finally arrived and danced their way from the entrance to their podium in just 25 minutes! We had so much laughter, on the one hand, I thought that was the most beautiful part of the wedding, because it was nice that not everything went so stiffly like at home, on the other hand, we just had to laugh out loud because it took forever.

I was the rockstar at the wedding, I think there were more photos taken of me and Cesar than of the bride and groom! At one point, we were even called to the front, our hands were shaken by the bride's father, and photos were taken. I am supposed to send greetings to Germany, Uganda loves you! hahaha

The buffet was typical Ugandan cuisine but with meat and coleslaw, it was nice though!

Throughout the day, there were speeches, small rituals, dance performances (of course, very slow and relaxed), and then it was time to cut the cake.

Thankfully, Cesar was as impatient as I was, so we started planning when it would be appropriate to leave the wedding.

Suddenly, he was called upon to say a few words for the bride and groom. What did he do - completely surprised and confused, he just shouted, 'No, no, I have nothing to say, thank you!'

I couldn't stop laughing!

Then there was half an hour of dancing around the cake before it was cut and distributed in small pieces on hand.

Afterward, we went to the bride and groom (who then invited me directly to the baby shower for the unborn child), thanked them, and went home.

What can I say - like everything else here, a very interesting experience!

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