Hospitality

In this blog post, I’ll describe what happens when you go to someone’s house here in Central Uganda. (Being Central Uganda as opposed to another region is important as the customs are different in different places.) I’m doing this because hospitality is very important for the culture here.

            When you go to someone’s house, they’re obligated to give you food – usually a meal if you arrive at mealtime or a meal-like equivalent. One difference I noted between U.S. culture and Ugandan culture is that in the U.S. spending time with guests is more important than feeding them. Here it is normal to just let the guest sit there for 30 minutes or so by himself or herself while one makes the food; whereas in the U.S. leaving the guest alone would signify that they are not wanted to be there. Some of the first times I’ve been at someone’s house, I interpreted to being left alone as a sign that I should leave and tried to find a polite way to excuse myself, but this often confused and offended my hosts who were shocked that I would leave without taking food. It is improper to show the guest the food or kitchen (or area in which the cooking occurs), which is often either in a different hut than the living area or divided by a curtain. This prevents any social interaction while cooking, because while cooking, one is hidden.

            Anyways often when you’re at the house, you are taken to the sitting room/area (living room). You are always given a good seat. While one waits, usually the head male of the house will keep you company and talk to you while you wait. This is complicated by the fact that for many families here, the husband lives far away to work. Surprisingly often I visit houses in which there are no adult men there and only maybe a little boy. This means that this is often replaced by an equivalent head female (either a mother or eldest sibling). In some cases with me, the person who does this is really the one who knows English, particularly when the parents don’t but the teenagers do. I sometimes refer to this person as the company, because this person’s job seems to be to keep the guest company. Sometimes as described above, there is no such person or the work of cooking gets too much and that person is demanded part way through – the last one being one of the stories I described above – but these seem to be adaptions of the ideal.

            When the food is ready, this person eats with me as well, but often no one else in the family does. From what I can figure out, they will eat either later or in secret, in a different hut/room or behind a curtain. (Okay so keep in mind that when people are living in huts, each hut is usually one room, but a family often has multiple huts or at least two, one for the kitchen and the other for living. In some cases changing huts would be like the U.S. equivalent to rooms in our one-building homes. Huts and one-roomed houses are also usually divided with curtains, say between the sitting room and the beds.) People here consider the idea of having guests eat with the family (and even the idea of the family eating at together at the same time) strange. When I have been at people’s houses more often and seen them relax their formalities a little more, I’ve been around the children when they eat, but then usually it’s somewhat hushed.

Often the cook will present the food kneeling and then will sit on the ground with her (and less the cook has always been female) legs tucked under her kneels while you eat. In some cases, she was eating as well, and sometimes she isn’t. At first I thought the cook was kneeling because all the seats were taken – it’s not uncommon for there to be only two or three chairs, which are then taken by me, the company, and any other guests. The cook still usually opts to kneel on the ground, though, even when there’s an available seat. This is because kneeling in that situation is considered respectful. It is also similar to the fact that women and children will often greet men (especially men older than themselves) by kneeling. (This is the formal greeting at least and isn’t practiced in every case, but that’s a different topic). From what I can figure out, for example, wives rarely eat on equal footing with their husbands. At the same time though, I’ve never seen women in their 40s or 50s kneeling while they eat, partially I think because their knees won’t allow it. Often the husband is not around – in homes I visit remember the husband works and lives far away. In one case, I’ve visited a middle-aged woman with her husband frequently, in which case I notice that she is usually not around while the husband eats, but when then come and sit with him after he eats or as he finishes. But even she (or one of the daughters) will kneel while giving him his food, even if briefly. There is something unique about food and eating that requires women to kneel in front of men, even if not always followed at other times.

When I visit a house, I usually also bring some food myself, usually something snack-like or something quick to cook. If a woman does eat food both in my presence and not kneeling, it is most likely to be the food I bring. I have noticed with homes that I’ve visited more often, that the first few times I bring food, they don’t eat it in my presence and give me the first dibs, telling me to eat as much as I want, and then dividing the rest up evenly with the whole family, although they try to hide this second part from me. After visiting more times, they will eventually divide the food evenly among the whole family (with myself being another person in the distribution) and eat it in my presence.

All right, so I’ll sort of conclude by noting a few things. One I’m describing primarily formal hospitality, with a little brief descriptions of informal like in this last paragraph. The rules are clearly more lax for the latter. Second, even though I haven’t had the depth or details of experience in other parts of Uganda, I can tell that these hospitality practices are unique to rural central Uganda. Other regions of Uganda and even urban central Uganda are different (although not without their strands of similarities). Now many of the people I visit are Banyarwanda (Rwandan migrants, usually either from the 60s or mid-90s), who have different practices then the Baganda (the main ethnic group in the area). I am still trying to figure out to what extent the hospitality customs is based on practices in the area or practices taken from Rwanda. For example, I have noticed a slight more relaxed attitude towards women kneeling while eating among the Banyarwandans, although usually not the first time one visits a house.

Last one significant difference I’ve noticed between the hospitality here than in the U.S. is that U.S. hospitality is designed to integrate; whereas, Ugandan is designed to elevate. One can see this is the difference between eating with the family in the U.S. – a way of making the guest a part of the family – and the custom of making sure the guest eats separate and first – a way to honor the guest by elevating. This is reflective of an overall difference in culture that would take me well beyond the scope of this blog post to explain, but suffice to say that for now that this relates to the fact that Ugandan culture is far more hierarchy-orientated. Also, in the U.S. respect is usually expressed through integrating or becoming equal with the person; whereas, here respect is given by honoring or elevating. It took me a while to get used to this, and until then I never really understood their hospitality.