Da da dum dum…
It was a sunny Saturday morning in Kampala and I was at the local City Oil service station trying to top up my airtime on my mobile phone.
Anytime in Uganda was airtime, it seemed, for anywhere you looked there was someone selling a top-up card. It was either this or a “nice time”, which the Ugandans were constantly saying.
“Nice time,” they’d say, when bidding you farewell. I hadn’t yet established whether this meant they’d had a nice time seeing you, or whether they wanted you to have a nice time wherever you were going. But it was up there with their favourite catchphrases, along with “you have been lost” (read: I haven’t seen you for a while; I always answered, “but now I am found, in manner of Amazing Grace). Then there was “you are smart” (read: you look stylish today, not that you’re the next Hawking), and “I’m not getting you well” (read: I cant understand your funny accent).
This Saturday morning, however, was one of the few occasions in Uganda when it wasn’t airtime, due to there being a technical glitch with MTN, one of the local phone networks, preventing me from topping up my phone.
Damn. This was really going to throw my social life in Kampala into a tailspin. I had lunch with one friend scheduled, followed by a coffee with another.
After getting a boda home I sat at the kitchen table and pondered whether it would just be easier to send a message via a Ugandan Crested Crane to my friends I was meeting, rather than go online (the internet had been slow this morning) and email them.
When my friend Lucy M however rang and reminded me about My Big Fat Ugandan Muslim Wedding, I realised I wouldn’t be going out to lunch of having a latte anywhere.
I’d forgotten about My Big Fat Ugandan Muslim Wedding. Apparently I’d RSVPd ‘yes’ to the event, to be held at Kibuli Mosque, while distracted.
I wish I’d been paying attention, because I had nothing to wear to My Big Fat Ugandan Muslim Wedding – I was currently sporting a tight off-the-shoulder, above-the-knee leopard print dress I’d had the local tailor working underneath 1,000 Cups coffee on Buganda Road make – unless I started playing around with the tea towels in the kitchen.
“Oh I’ll just pop down to the local markets,” I told her over the phone. The Kampala high street wasn’t exactly like its UK counterpart, but I was sure I’d find something.
“Amy,” she said, “It’s in an hour. We’ll be at yours in ten. Lucy (Lucy B – there were a lot of Lucy’s in Kampala) needs to use your power to do her hair as there’s none at ours.”
“Right,” I said, looking down at what I was wearing.
Did I really care that much, though? After all, I didn’t know the groom from a bar of soap.
He didn’t seem to care about this though either. He had apparently requested some mzungus (foreigners) at his nuptials for “that sort of image”, my friends informed me after they’d arrived at mine, one Lucy B toting her curling wand.
“The more mzungus the merrier,” said Liam, Lucy B’s boyfriend, as he sat in the lounge room and waited for us to get ready.
“It’s like rent a mzungu,” I remarked. “Should we start up a rent-a-mzungu service for Ugandans?”
“I’m going to dash their hopes but actually telling them that I’m an Albino,” Liam joked.
Fearing that part of him might actually be serious, we all gave him a stern talking to.
In the end, I ended up borrowing Lucy B’s Warehouse skirt and teamed it with a Breton top from Whistles (yes, the same one I wore to the celebration of the Ugandan airfield). The others were much more glamorous, with Lucy B even picking up a long, flowing frock in lemon from a roadside shack at Wandegeya. I was impressed, not to mention a bit jealous as I’d been there several times and had come home empty-handed.
They’d all brought headscarves, too. I’d forgotten it was BYO headscarf. Lucy B kindly loaned me a purple one.
When we stepped out of the car at the mosque a man with a tux on waved at me while another pointed a video camera in my direction.
“That’s the groom,” Lucy M whispered.
“I don’t know anyone here and I’m being filmed,” I hissed back.
“Just go along with it,” she said.
Happy to play the role of the ‘rented mzungu’ we each gave the proud groom a congratulations kiss on the cheek, before making our way into the mosque grounds to wait for My Big Fat Ugandan Muslim Bride.
Eventually she appeared in a big white dress with embroidered flowers, complete with veil and a bouquet or orange roses. The bridesmaids were radiant in fuchsia. They looked like Iman, while the men in the bridal party had yellow flowers pinned on their tux. They all walked up the aisle together with the guests, dancing to drummers playing as they moved.
One may have been forgiven for naming the event Gomesi Galore or the 2012 Shoulder Pad Convention, with all of the female guests sporting gomesis, the multicolored long traditional dress with long, giant sashes tied around the waist nearly dragging on the ground and shoulder pads the height of the Eiffel Tower. There were so many women wearing so many stunning headscarves; at one point I thought I saw Mrs Mugabe. I also spotted my dream gomesi – a lime green dress featuring a flower print with a wide brown sash in the middle.
I felt underdressed in comparison, until we got into the church.
“You look like Mother Mary,” said Lucy M as we sat on the floor and listened to the service, of which we couldn’t understand a single word.
“I think I look like a cancer patient,” I replied, holding up an eye shadow palette and looking into its mirror.
After the mosque service there was a short interval for lunch, before the reception began. The mzungus decided to grab something to eat beforehand to tide them over at a nearby restaurant, where I discovered I must have dropped my house key in the grounds of the mosque.
Once I’d eaten I said goodbye to the others and rushed off to look for it, not sure I’d be back in time for the reception. After searching unsuccessfully, I ended up having to go and meet the cleaner (the only other person who had another key). It ended up being a hassle, but after being informed the next day that the others were suffering from food poisoning, which they’d almost certainly contracted at My Big Fat Ugandan Muslim Wedding, realised this was just a small price to pay for being a ‘rent-a-mzungu’ guest.