Congratulations! And celebrations!

It’s been a week of celebrations.

Just a month after our son’s wedding in England we were pleased to attend the wedding in the Cathedral of the former Diocese Treasurer, the Revd Habert, to Immaculate. Although entirely in Rufumbira, many aspects of the service were familiar.

However, a couple of major differences were:

- the bride arrived about 50 minutes late, but this was before most of the guests, and she walked up the aisle to an almost empty church.

- Malcolm noted, having been ‘official’ video man at his son’s wedding, that there seemed to be no restrictions on the number of photographers at the service, and how intrusive they were. At one point there were 6 clustered around the Bishop as the couple made their vows – something that would not have been permitted at David and Sarah’s (or any British?) wedding!!!!

The reception also had a distinctive flavour:

- It was outdoors, but fortunately under awnings for guests as just before the arrival of the wedding party there was a major rain storm.

- First all the guests ate.

- Then the wedding party arrived, Having paraded around the town they processed into the reception area accompanied by a band.

- There was entertainment from Ugandan dancers and choirs,

- Many people gave speeches

- Not just one tier of cakes - there were lots and lots of wedding cakes

- The most popular drink was Bushera, made from Sorghum and served from a large oil barrel. It looks like chocolate, is non-alcoholic and is an acquired taste much enjoyed by the locals. (There is an alcoholic version which is available in town and is the cause of some problems from excess drinking) The contents of the barrel, and several jerry cans, were drunk dry by the guests. We kept to Fanta Orange!

Having celebrated a new marriage at the start of the week, at the end of the week we celebrated our own wedding anniversary by having dinner at the Travellers Rest hotel, and were delighted to be given a bottle of bubbly by the manager. As a special present Malcolm has ordered for Irene an ironing board from a local shop – he is trying his luck!!!!

The other celebration this week was by the supporters of President Museveni who was re-elected despite claims of vote rigging from his opponents. He was so pleased to be re-elected that both of us (along with many Ugandans) have received text messages from him thanking us for voting for him!!!! (We are still waiting for similar messages for our votes in the UK last May!!!) Although the national elections were largely peaceful and international observers have reported that it was fair there have been problems this week in Kampala as local elections for the mayor were cancelled. This was because falsified voting papers supporting the NRM candidate (the President’s party) were discovered, ready to be ‘stuffed’ into ballot boxes. This has added some weight to the opposition party claims that the national elections were rigged.