Ok... that's not entirely true. My adoptive friends decided for me it was time to get away. Actually, a pair of those adoptive friends had their wedding party last weekend, so they decided for all of us that it was time to get away. Whatever - the important part is that I spent the weekend - from late Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon at a lovely place called Ssissa up a hill about 20 miles outside of Kampala. And it was awesome.
On the road to Ssissa:
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| From Ssissa |
Friday was actually Ugandan independence day and a national holiday... not that that meant I didn't have a meeting plus a couple hours of work. Sheehsh. Aaaaanyway, we arrived at a little club called Ssissa, well up a dirt quasi-road Friday evening and spent about an hour just coming to terms with the view. Helllooooooo Africa!
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| From Ssissa |
Moses and Jillian had their wedding ceremony in early September but, for reasons I forgot to ask about, had their party this past weekend. If you have the chance to go to a Uganda wedding, go for the second half. The first half is pretty much a long stream of long speeches by relevant folks which, while interesting for their cultural nuance, had the tendency to get a bit... rambling. One relative of Moses treated the 100ish guests to a long ambling diatribe about what a wonderful success his bank is. I needed to know that.
Oh! One highlight of the speeches was that one of Moses' relatives told Jillian that they're giving her a cow as a wedding present! HAH! It must have been a runty baby cow, though, because I investigated and there were definitely no full-cow-sized wrapped packages on the gift table. Also the local band definitely played a song at one point that had "hakuna matata". Hah! I'm in Africa and someone said hakuna matata!
As, in my experience, is characteristic of weddings around the world, shenanigans ensued after dinner as the beer and wine flowed. I had long conversations about totally irrelevant topics with people I didn't know (including a freelance journalist - that was a pretty interesting one), I drank some beer that renewed my despair about the developing world's distaste for beer with flavor, I saw my boss get down to some Ugandan music, and I got down to some Ugandan music (by "got down" I of course mean tried not to worry about how much of a doofus I was making of myself by trying to imitate my brand new Ugandan buddies).
The lodge had beautiful cabins for rooms... but not enough. So I slept on a cot in a tent! I love fake camping! (I was about 8 feet from the cabin some friends were staying in, complete with hot shower and flushing toilet... talk about roughing it). Saturday morning was a bit rough for everyone, but that just made the day that much more relaxing: no one could really muster the energy to do much of anything beyond read. And read. And read. And nap. Nothing like being in a comfy chair in an open-air lodge during an African thunderstorm to put me right to sleep.
Can you figure out where I slept?
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| From Ssissa |
The lodge:
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| From Ssissa |
Most of the guests left later Friday night or Saturday morning, so Saturday evening was much mellower. It actually got cold Saturday night so we spent the evening blanketed and couched around a roaring fire, enjoying pleasurable conversation. Wait, scratch that. It was me and 4 girls on a couch... I'm sure you can imagine the conversations I had the pleasure to be privy to. If I hadn't been so damn comfortable...
I was thrilled to discover that Sunday presented the same phenomenal view as the previous days. Fortunately, however, the storms stayed away for the first half-day so I could watch my petite female flatmates trap-shoot. What we discovered: Kate, the somewhat-firearm-experienced 5'1.75" (by her report) Kansasian couldn't hit the broadside of a quickly-moving clay-pigeon-sized barn. She hit 1 of 25 targets. Hannah "Sharp-Shootin'" Schwing, the timid Texas-bred never-touched-a-gun mysteriously also 5' 1.75" vegan took down 7 out of 12. Well played.
Sharp-shootin' Schwing:
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| From Ssissa |
Well that was about the long and short of the weekend: read, read, read, eat, nap, read, watch little girls shoot big guns. And back to town we mosied. I'd love to say that the nice relaxing weekend made for a nice relaxing Monday, but I'm still in the midst of the frantically-try-to-learn-how-to-do-everything-while-being-expected-to-do-everything first few weeks of work. Example: I'm going to be sent up to the North of Uganda to teach another IPA Project Associate how to use a program I don't know how to use. Woo!
And on that note, click here for lots&lots of pictures:
you didn't take part in the skeet shooting?? you were just afraid to make the girls feel bad with your annie oakley style accuracy, right?
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel! I hope you are well. I heard this funny podcast about microlending. Enjoy :)
ReplyDeletehttp://podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2009-09-10-sysk-microlending.mp3
Wow, how lucky to get invited to a wedding in the first couple of weeks! So...the food? And I'm with Peter. Why didn't you show off your skills? Of course, remembering you at the driving range, maybe it's better that you didn't! Luuuuuvvv ya!
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend that you post a video of this mysterious Ugandan dance you speak of - I'm sure everyone would love to see you tearin' it up! And those views are gorgeous! So much green!
ReplyDeleteSo, is that where the Ssissa Sisters are from?
ReplyDeleteAlso, is this the wedding you went to:
http://phutterman.blogspot.com/2009/08/nice-outing-to-ssissa.html
Because THAT would be a hell of a coincidence.
It's like Uganda's got a Berkeley grad quota and you just filled it. You're the new Nat Futterman.
Who, incidentally, informs us that import of used computers is banned in Uganda.
Oh....Kay.
All right...got to batten down the hatches for the epic storm we're anticipating. Cross your fingers the mountains of Big Sur don't slide down and kill me. And the river doesn't swell up and drown me.
Hello Daniel - It seems like just yesterday you were standing in my office. Congratulations on your first post grad foothold in the corporate world. What a journey! I hear mini cows are all the rage in Uganda now, kind of like chihuahua's in Orange County.
ReplyDelete@ Sarah: Yes. Daniel IS the new Nat. Nat came to preview the venue, and Daniel replaced him at the actual event. ;) Question is- what do we do when Nat comes back and then we have Nat AND Daniel? Tricky....
ReplyDelete@ Daniel: The person who gave the speech which included talk of the bank- well, that was not Moses' relative, but the CEO of the bank I have been working with for the past two years. He represented me as my 'Ugandan Dad.' So, not so illogical that there would be a little bank talk in there. Oh, and, he's the same one who gave me a cow. It wasn't on the gift table, because it's waiting for me to pick it up in Mbarara. I'm thinking with a boda boda? BTW- typical Ugandan weddings have approximately 6 hours (minimum- I swear!) of speeches. Our speeches were abnormally short at about 30-40 minutes - miraculous in fact that we managed this. Good luck at yr next wedding!