Mzungu Monologues: Dancing, festivals, and kittens!

"If we have to die for Jesus, we shall die together hand in hand."

Charles Lwanga

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This week started out with dance lessons from the Musana women. Remember those dancing videos I posted in my first blog post from Uganda? That dance is called the maganda. After work on Monday, we bribed Eve to teach us the maganda. I quickly realized that these women don't need to be bribed to dance, especially Eve. They all were dancing, singing, clapping, and mostly laughing once Kathryn started dancing.

Tuesday was a national holiday - Martyrs Day - so everyone was off work. Here's a brief rundown of Martyrs Day as it was explained to me. In 1875, the king of Buganda (a kingdom within Uganda) wrote a letter asking missionaries to come to Uganda to teach his people. His wishes were granted, and the missionaries were successful in converting many people. Now the population worshiped God as their Creator; before their conversion, the people believed that their king was the creator. Therefore the king had ultimate power. Fast-forward about ten years - there is a new king in power. He's upset that he no longer has omnipotence and that his people are no longer blindly obeying him. So he retaliates by killing them. The martyrs were tortured for a week before they were forced to collect the very firewood that was used to burn them alive.

The tree where the martyrs were tied and tortured for a week.

My favorite part of a mural depicting the story of the martyrs.

The shrine for the martyrs is in Namugongo so we went for the festival. I don't think I have ever in my life been in a crowd as massive as the one at the festival. I later read that over 10,000 people from across the world showed up in Namugongo. And some of them even walked! We heard reports on the radio saying the people had walked from Kenya, Sudan, Nigeria, and a few other countries... walked! The whole way!

The crowd waiting to get inside the shrine grounds... and this isn't
even the front of the line!
Source

Apparently the festival had a bad turnout this year, but I thought the crowd was overwhelming. It didn't help that Tessa, Kathryn, and I stuck out like a sore thumb. All eyes were on us, which made it really great when I rode this angry camel and got scared because I thought it was going to whip its head around and bite me. I've never had that many people laughing at me. First time for everything!