a purim to remember

I was really excited to find out what Purim at the Abayudaya would be like. I had a feeling that such a fun and entertaining holiday would be a favorite among the Abyudaya and I was correct. At Hebrew/Judaica classes on the Sunday morning before Purim, as I was asking some questions about Purim and reviewing the four mitzvoth of the holiday, I was asked the question- how can we be celebrating a holiday that commemorates Jews slaughtering over 75,000 Persians on the 13th and 14th of Adar? I agreed that it is not easy to read that part of the megilla. It reminded me of the midrash about shirat hayam, the Song of the Sea, when God reprimands the angels for singing praises to God as they watch the Egyptians drown. God rebukes them by saying that we should never rejoice about the suffering of another human being. Through further discussion, we explored the central theme of opposites in the megilla and the customs of the holiday. In the story, instead of Haman riding on the back of the king’s horse wearing the king’s robe, it is Mordechai. And instead of Haman causing the deaths of thousands of Jews, Mordechai and Esther facilitated the deaths of thousands of Persians. It is this reversal of components of the story that makes this holiday so topsy-turvy. We wear costumes to appear as people we are not. Some people drink alcohol to confuse their perception of the truth. And we fast the day before the holiday only to have a large festive meal a day later. It is this nature of the holiday that makes it so fun and so bizarre. The conversation was eye opening for all of us and I really looked forward to celebrate with the community.
To celebrate our being in Africa, and the fact that we are very far from being African, we wore fancy African attire. Maital wore a bright blue Gomezi, which is a silk gown with puffed up shoulders and really large belt that is worn by Ugandan women at introductions (the traditional ceremony before the wedding) and other celebratory events. Some older women wear gomezis on a regular basis. I wore a kanzu, a full-length white shirt down to my toes with a suit jacket covering the top half. This is an outfit worn by men at introductions and other festive events. It was hysterical, and people were really excited to see us wearing their traditional clothing. I ended up reading the Megilla from a scroll that was miraculously in the back of the ark. Who knew? And Maital was my assistant. She corrected my words and motioned at the end of every verse. No one else dressed up really, but it was a fun experience and we have pictures to prove it. The next day, the kids put on a Purim shpiel in Luganda and did a great job.
One difficult thing we had to deal with was deciding what to do for mishloach manot (sending meals to friends) and matanot l’evyonim, presents for the poor. We have been very conscious this year about giving monetary gifts to the people we work with. A lot of people ask us for money, and it has been hard to say no. We feel that giving money to people that ask is not the most helpful thing we can do for that person and it also creates a precedent for our relationship with those we meet and for volunteers in the future. We ended up giving gift packages to our other volunteer friends in Mbale and buying food for a family with whom we already have a close relationship.
We were supposed to go back for Shabbat, but we go stuck in the rain and ran out of time. The hard thing about being dependent on motorcycles is that in the rainy season, it’s often too wet to go anywhere! But instead, we settled for a nice Shabbat at home. We continued celebrating Purim two weeks later when we received delicious humentashen from Maital’s family! Thanks!