Uganda #9: Preparing for the Lumbe (LOOM-BAY)

Yesterday, when we went into town, I leaned out the window of the taxi (a van which fits 16 people squeezed in) & thought of my grandmother & it hit me like a ton of bricks that I did not get to see her before she died. It hurts & when I think of the lumbe, to me it'll be like going to the funeral, which took place last year but I couldn't go because of timing & money, $2000 air ticket to get here. It would have been worth the expense.
Tomorrow until Monday, we will be gone for my grandmother's lumbe, a burial rites ceremony which I've been told includes the gathering of several hundred people including extended family & people in the village who heard thru a friend of a friend of a neighbor. My mother syasy I will meet everyone in my entire family, aunts, uncles, cousins, a family reunion. The ceremony will also include mass, a reading of my grandmother's wills, distribution of her property to children & grandchildren (10 total including me), food & the selection of an adopted grandmother, who has t be approved my her children & relatives & has probably been selected by my grandmother. It will be my first time t experience a lumbe (pronounced LOOM-BAY) but some the traditions already don't make sense to me. They seem be non-pragmatic. Example: my father's family will be bringing food for the lumbe but in return, they ask that we all cook them a special meal for the lumbe...?