Yesterday I was able to attend Michael Kirungi's wedding. Michael is an ARM employee and was the person that I coordinated with the most in the details of this trip. I actually think that when I first met him was when he mentioned the wedding, at that time a month away, and invited me to it. So, I got dressed in the "dressiest" clothes I had, my tan shorts, a long sleeved collared shirt, and my flip flops and walked to the church. I didn't realize until halfway into the 20 minute walk that it was the hottest day I have experienced here so far. Unfortunately there aren't any taxis on this path and I didn't have the 1000 shillings (50 cents) on me for a boda-boda. By the time I arrived, I was, well, sweaty. I was at the church with 5 minutes to spare before the wedding was supposed to start, but thankfully everything is on "Ugandan time", meaning everything starts late. I chose a seat towards the back of the church, away from the middle aisle, so that I wouldn't be in all the pictures of people walking in. It was just my luck that for some reason everybody entered from the side door, completely skipping the middle aisle, right behind where I was sitting. I think it's safe to say I was in everyone's pictures at least once, thank God for picture cropping.

The wedding itself was like most weddings the vows, the songs, the sermon, what made it different for me was that I had to help with one of the visiting girls from Scotland who fainted from the heat during the wedding. I helped bring her out of the church then track down some water for her, then eventually helped their group leader escort her across the courtyard to the house where they were staying. I missed most of the sermon while helping, but was glad to be able to help.

The reception was at another location close by, The Bunga Gardens, which was a really nice place, shady and cool haha.. This was were the African weddings differed from traditional weddings. It started with the bride and groom standing before everyone to receive gifts. It seemed like everyone of the 300 people there got in line to give the newlyweds gifts. The great part was that everyone was dancing and singing while waiting in line, I'll tell you, if there was ever an ideal place to people watch, this was it hahaha. Then they served dinner which had the African staple foods. Then there was a time for people to give speeches, followed by the bride and groom giving speeches, and interestingly the bride and groom then gave gifts like separate wedding cakes to certain people that they were thankful for. Everything was wrapped up by 300 people swarming the couple to say congratulations and goodbye before they left, so we were there for awhile longer. 

Today I will be skipping church, for the morning that is, to go with Abby to visit her daughter who is in a boarding school. Abby rreeaallyy insisted that I come meet her daughter..... Anyway, then later on tonight I will be joining Pastor Abbe to meet the rest of his congregation for their sunday night service. Should be a good day :)