An Introduction Ceremony

All weddings start with a love story and this Introduction was no different. Tovas, a 45 year old blond haired man from Sweden and Sheba, the 30 year old bride from Uganda met online. Sheba is an extraordinarily beautiful and prayerful woman that grew up with her father and step mother after her mother passed away in her childhood. Her parents did not give her much attention and were absent from her secondary school graduation ceremony. Ever hopeful that she would meet the right man she waited until she met Tapas. After coming to Uganda for a 3 week visit and meeting her for the first time, Tapas proposed. The only catch was he wanted her to accompany him to Sweden and live there. After driving to the airport with only 15 minutes until her plane left she cried “I do not know what to do! I want to stay but I also want to go...it was so easy in the beginning.” Luckily for Tovas she did get on the plane. Now, two years after their Swedish wedding they returned to Uganda with their new baby son in tow, to have a traditional wedding. Upon commenting on their marriage, friends say that the two are very in love and happy. Sheba has many friends in Sweden, visits Uganda occasionally and finally has all the attention and love from her husband she never had from her parents.


We caught a bus from Kampala to Homi, Uganda. It was scheduled to leave by 6:30 am but we left at 8am to adjust to late arrivals. Ugandan time and Indian time is not much different  I thought. Before we entered the ceremony we had to change and the women were led to a hotel changeroom. Inside we madly changed into our robes and gomez dresses. Many times I heard someone cry out from between a sash and makeup kit by saying Oh! What bad African girls we are, we forgot how to tie the Gomez....this would elicit peels of laughter from the other women.

Walking into an Introduction ceremony is a ritual in itself. Men and women partner up and are greeted by the uncle of the bride. A man, Ian, claimed me as his partner for the night but cuddling up close and grabbing my arm which made our bridal party burst into laughter. If the uncle refuses you entry to the ceremony you must not enter. Men wear a traditional white cloth called a kanzu and a suit jacket over top. The buttons on the jacket must be closed to signify a peaceful meeting. If the buttons are open it signifies that the men are here to fight. The women wore traditional dresses form all over Africa; robes tied on the shoulder are in Rwandan style and Ugandan women wore Gomez’s.

The ceremony started with the separation of seating arrangements. Tovas’s wedding aprty sat on one side while the bride’s family sat on the other. As the event started the local villagers came, plates in hand, to crowd around the edges of the tent and watch the proceedings. Tovas’s father walked over the the brides father with a case of pepsi for drinking. “It is important to wet the fathers throat so he is not thirsty for wedding negotiations of the bride price,” Ian whispered to me. In the weeks before the ceremony the two families had met repeatedly to discuss the amount of gifts that would be given in exchange for the bride. The fathers spoke for both sides of the family with much bantering back and forth, gifts of solar panels, chairs, couches, a fridge, 3 goats, 2 chickens, pop and umbrellas were brought forward by the grooms party.


I did not know the bride or groom before the wedding and was invited by the brides close friend Claire. Claire and I work together at the Uganda Rural Fund and I spent the weekend at her house in Kampala in preparation for the wedding. The wedding took place in Homi, Uganda which is a 200km (4 hour) trip outside the Bugandan Kingdom.  We were set to leave for Homi at 6:30am. Not knowing the bridal party did not stop me from being invited to make a speech by Tovas’s father. I stood with a microphone in fron of the hundreds large crowd and introduced myself, my traditional name and territory, my companions Greg, Leandrea and Claire, how I knew the bride and wished them my best. I was then the only Muzungu to be invited to sit at the high table (6 chairs) to eat with the bride and groom. We had a special dinner prepared and served to us that contained traditional foods only to be eaten by married couples. The other guests at the event ate a buffet style dinner with potatoes, matoke, chicken and goat. I felt awkward at first surrounded by the bride, groom, the grooms sister, friend and Ian but soon started making jokes and we had a really nice meal.