Friday was Martyrs' Day in Uganda. Though there seem to be some special celebrations to commemorate it in Kampala, to most people this is just another bank holiday, like Memorial Day or President's Day. Now, since we work at a bank, between bankers' hours and the word "bank" being in "bank holiday," we clearly didn't have to go to work that day. Our consequent weekend journey to the Crater Lakes was very well documented (see Pictures 2011 link in the sidebar), and I'm pretty sure David and Heehyun will be writing about it.
Martyrs' Day, according to the font of all knowledge (Wikipedia), commemorates the murder of a group of Ugandan saints by a Ugandan king in the mid-19th century. Unsurprisingly, Uganda is a very religious country and a high percentage of its population is Catholic. You can hardly walk a few feet in Nkokonjeru without seeing another church or church-sponsored project. The only other credit union in the area, Caritas, is a church-sponsored organization. Many organizations, including the government, may be secular in the minds of their participants but you would never start or end a meeting or event without a prayer.
Mosque in Fort Portal
What's interesting, though, is the relative interchangeability of religions. At one meeting last week, we bent our heads for the prayer to begin and I fully expected to understand exactly zero of what was being said--but then the man leading it began with "Bismi Allahu Rahmani Rahim ..." and proceeded with a Muslim prayer in Arabic. About 12% of the population is Muslim, and it's not uncommon to see people wearing traditionally Muslin clothing. More than half the people in the room were Christian, but nobody minded. A prayer is a prayer. I certainly can't yet understand the nuances of the religious relationships in town and I would never presume to say that there is complete harmony and tolerance, but things have come a long way since Muslim traders and Christian missionaries competed for converts in the 1800s.
No comments:
Post a Comment