Weekends are for culture

 

While my weekdays will be spent working at Kyambogo College, my weekends are reserved for cultural experiences, and one post per week will be dedicated to those weekends. On Friday evening, I went to an African cultural center called Ndere Centre with several faculty and staff members from KCS, and Ms. Diana, a teacher from another school who recently completed a study abroad in New York. The Ndere Centre preserves Africa's heritage through music, song, and dance. The troupe that performs there has been in existence since 1984, and as it happens, Mr. Idris -- one of the assistant administrators from KCS-- is one of the original members of the troupe. He delighted us by getting up from our table and performing with them for a few minutes. The Ndere Center is amazing.  The architecture of the buildings there are created with traditional materials used in Africa for centuries and are representations of those ancient structures. They also sell handmade African crafts in the gift store, and I am an avowed gift shop shopper!
                                                           

                                                       

On Saturday Joan called me an Uber so I could go visit the Kasubi Tombs, the houses and tombs of some long dead kings of Africa. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When we got there it turned out to be closed for renovations, and it has been since a fire in 2011. But Yiga, my driver, talks to the men inside and they agree to let me in for a fee, but first they make me put on a scarf to wrap around my waist because I am wearing pants. Uganda is a very traditional, conservative society and women here rarely wear pants, and certainly not in a work environment or at a religious site. The scarf is so beautiful that I want to keep it. We enter first into the guard house and get a bit of a history lesson before being escorted into the courtyard that leads to the king's house. 

The Guard House

The king's house is what was burned in 2011 in what is to believed to be an act of terrorism.  There are numerous structures surrounding the courtyard and when I inquire about them I am told that they were the houses of the king's wives, and that he had one from each tribe in order to keep peace in the country.  There are people who live within the grounds of the old palace to this day and they are descendants of some of those secondary wives. There are two cemeteries on the grounds, the smaller one are the tombs of the widows-- I took that to mean the king's widows, and the larger one is that of the direct line of the royal family. It turns out that my guide is a grandson of one of the people in the cemetery.

Houses of the King's Wives

Royal Tombs

On Sunday I attend church service up the street from my apartment at St. Luke's Church of Uganda. These are very religious people. St. Luke's is a beautiful octagonal structure with one big open space inside. They have three services each Sunday, 2 in English and one in Ugandan. I went to the second English service. Praise and worship, scripture readings, litanies, announcements, and a teaching. I felt like I was home.

Sunday evening, Yiga picked me up to take me to the Zoo in Entebbe, one of the places on my list of things to do while in the country. It's a forty five minute drive but well worth it.  The zoo is interesting. There are monkeys just roaming free throughout the grounds. And there is a lot of signage warning against feeding, teasing, and taunting them. The animals are in open air environments (except for the snakes of course). I see my first ever rhino.  They are a lot larger than I expected. The baboon enclosure contains a warning-- not that I was going to try to cross the barrier anyway. I found a gift shop (of course!) and purchased a mask that I will proudly add to my collection when I get home.

                                                                       

Lake Victoria- the source of the River Nile