Ugandan Families

A friend of ours, who is a colleague of Greg’s at Watoto Church, will be moving to Juba, South Sudan this weekend. He will be acting as the administrator of the Watoto Church there. Yesterday he asked if we would “stop by” and meet his family before he leaves for Juba. You would think that after this long in Uganda, we would know what “stop by” means. We were thinking that we would be back in an hour or so- not so!
After work Greg picked me from our apartment and we were going to meet our friend’s family. With the usual Ugandan directions in place (just keep driving past the quarry and you will see me), we set out on our journey. Now a few months ago, that kind of directions would have made us a little crazy. However, we have become more Ugandan with time so now we just laugh and proceed when we are given directions like that.
We did meet up with our friend who then told us that he wanted us to first “stop in” and “just say hello” to his auntie. Well…about an hour later, after we had been served tea and g-nuts, we bid farewell to auntie, cousin and a family friend. However, when auntie found out that we stayed nearby, we had to promise that we would come by to visit again because we “are family now”.
After a very short drive we arrived at our friend’s sister’s house. A wonderful little African home with beautiful, warm people. Our friend’s two brothers and three sisters, their spouses and families were there, as well as his mom, a cousin and a family friend. They served us a wonderful Ugandan meal and treated us as if we were the guests of honor. Our friend kept referring to us as “his bosses” and his family kept thanking us for all that we had done in his life- we didn’t know we had done anything!
After supper we had a time of singing and prayer. Some of it was in English and some in Luganda, but it didn’t matter- it was beautiful and amazing! Again they told us that we were family and we were welcome to come to visit anytime.
It is amazing how we could feel so welcomed by people we had never met before. Some of them didn’t speak English very well and we don’t speak Luganda. It was the first time that they had ever had Mzungu (white people) in their home. But none of that mattered! We were friends with their family member and that made us family- that was all that mattered.
I remember hearing stories of how our culture used to be like that. You could depend on your neighbours, stop in at a friend’s house unannounced and enjoy a meal with them without feeling like you were imposing. Where did we lose that? When did we lose that? Why did we lose that? We think that we have advanced so far, but I think we need to take some notes from our Ugandan brothers and sisters on this one.
Before we came to Uganda, we feared that it might be “awkward” to be the only white people at different gatherings. Last night we were not only the only Mzungu in the house at that time, but we were the only Mzungu who had ever set foot in that house and I can tell you that we felt nothing but love and acceptance.
We are really missing our family, but when we leave here, we are going to miss our Ugandan family. They are such loving, kind, generous people who welcome us with open arms.
Greg did make a new friend last night. Our friend’s niece is about 8 or 9 years old and she stuck to Greg like glue. She sat right beside him all night and kept putting her hand on his arm (they are amazed by the contrast between their skin colour and ours).
We have become so accustomed to seeing our black brothers and sisters everywhere (it is OK for me to call them black- it is not racist here) that it is going to be strange when we go home and all we see is pasty white faces everywhere!