Welcome to the Gorilla Highlands archives. For fresh stories don't miss the Gorilla Highlands Experts Blog.

I don’t enjoy weddings. They take too much time and they are almost the same, wherever you go in Uganda. But when Blasio, Edirisa’s co-director, asked me to come to his first-born’s kwanjula, I felt I couldn’t say no. Also known as the introduction, this is the central part of the traditional wedding procedures.

Busy as I tend to be, I ended up taking a night bus to Kampala. That meant travelling from 10pm to 4:30am in the last row (ouch!) of the shakiest bus ever, catching a couple of hours of sleep at my kids’ home in Nsambya, briefly meeting a lovely trekking client at Kisementi, and finally making it to Gayaza, a town north of the capital, by 1pm …

I had two beautiful dates in the car I hired, my own first-born and her friend Aster of mixed Ethiopian (note her traditional dress) and Kenyan heritage. They wanted to attend the party and all I could do was to hope they would not die of boredom.

We were late, of course, but everyone else was even more late, of course, so cutely arranged but empty seats in Blasio’s impressive home garden looked discouraging to the girls. Whenever they asked me “When will it start?” I simply directed them to Blasio, cheeky me.

I had wisely packed my laptop and was doing my work as others were doing theirs, preparing for the big event. I sat in the main room of a spacious house that my partner built on a foundation of postcards; he has converted his passion for photography into a decent business.

The things began to look promising when a full plate was delivered to the armrest of my sofa, together with delicious passion juice. I am not a huge fan of local food but, hey, when something is well-made and plentiful, it is well-made and plentiful across cultures!

I was deep in my screen todos when the speeches started and when a group of sweet little girls marched out. But then I finally grabbed my phone and turned into a photographer. … Well, did you really expect me to sit idle for hours?! I certainly couldn’t do that… And with my daughter Enyanja also recording everything with her tablet, media coverage became a family job. There was TV Pakwach and some real photographers too.

Did “Pakwach” make you wonder? The groom, accountant Jimmy, was from the Alur ethnic group, and that’s their urban centre. Blasio is of the Banyoro. This was united Uganda being forged in front of our eyes… It started as it usually does: with two students meeting at Makerere University.

For a moment it made me think of the Baganda, the biggest tribe in the country, who are not too excited to marry outside of their group – will there eventually be only pure Baganda and mixed “Ugandans” left? … But that is an oversimplification that proves shaky the moment I tell you that Blasio’s wife is actually a daughter of the Baganda.

The groom is not supposed to talk much at such an introduction. He has a speaker who does everything for him, normally a witty elder. On the bride’s side of the tent, he has a counterpart. Together they humorously “negotiate” what had all been arranged beforehand. To make the matters even more “rigged”, Jimmy’s spokesman was actually handpicked by Blasio; by custom he needed to be able to speak the father’s language. The rest of the ceremony was in English, to make everybody part of it.

A significant period of such an event is devoted to bringing out all kinds of ladies, and visiting men checking on them until they find the woman they have come for. No girl leaves empty-handed.

I did not know Blasio’s first-born but once the groom’s group stood up in excitement, it was clear she was approaching. She shined, as every bride should, and she was happy.

In fact, everybody was happy! I have seen too many weddings where spouses-to-be looked like they were about to be executed, but this was an entirely different case. “Jimmy is a jolly man, just like me,” Blasio would tell me later. But not only cheerfulness, love was in the air, and that was moving. Jimmy surely had no trouble identifying his Kange (her name means “mine”) and putting his necklace where it rightfully belonged.

At that point everybody’s camera was out! Blasio had bought himself his first proper smartphone for the event; would have looked odd for him to sit in front with his photographic gear.

Visitors then paraded the photo of the king of Bunyoro and cultural wedding certificates; that was to show respect for Blasio’s culture.

My friend had a beautiful, flower-themed speech. In short: Kange is my flower, make sure she keeps blossoming! Then he took Jimmy on his laps, implying that he was a baby, born again into a new family.

Afterwards, the grandfather had a word. He is very proud of his vitality and told everybody he would be even stronger today, had he not suffered through years of imprisonment and torture as a political prisoner in the 1980s.

Gifts followed… Many many gifts… Blasio had told Jimmy’s family that his daughter was not for sale, that they could bring anything they wanted as a token of appreciation, and that was it. It was quite a token.

Yes, even those chairs were gifts to Blasio! Very thoughtful of the guests; wildlife patterns on them are in sync with Blasio’s biggest mission: protecting nature.

The introduction will be followed by a Church wedding in early 2017, so an engagement ring was added to what the traditional culture demands.

When the cake was cut, I needed to look for Enya and Aster; they had disappeared from the stage hours ago.

The reason? They became friends with Blasio’s daughter Mercy and were gossiping behind the tents!

Kange took one cake to her mother who sat in the background; she is Blasio’s only child from a previous relationship. My co-director has so far managed 6 daughters and 1 son with two women.

Blasio is a devout Christian, so it is highly unlikely he will ever be married to more than one wife though… Christianity as a connecting factor, as something that bonds people beyond tribal lines, was indeed one of the main topics during the speeches.

It was only appropriate therefore that the master of ceremony, a pastor with whom Blasio went to school in the early 1990s, completed the evening with a prayer.

And thus we went home, with our new friend Mercy in our car, and happy. What was initially something I felt I had to do, turned out to be something I truly enjoyed!

text & photos: Miha Logar