Postcard from Rwanda: A banana beer moment
The Red Rocks Cultural Festival is a very relaxed affair. There are no madding crowds nor tour guide flags to make you feel like you’re part of a machine.
Over the five days of the Festival, there are scheduled activities that are free to join.
Or you can show up at Red Rocks Cultural Center independently, or as part of a tour, and visit the various demonstration stations.
There are a range of accommodation options too, from camp tents to roomier safari tents, hostel-style dorm rooms to very comfortable private bungalows with en suite facilities, all of which are very colourful.
I sampled a gourd of banana beer with Emma Raissa Isheja yesterday; just a little before beer o’clock. (She insisted I try it. I insisted she join me.)
Like most alcholic beverages, banana beer is an acquired taste.
Banana beer is not carbonated and it has the alcohol per volume of grape wine — ~14% — despite only two days of fermentation. It should really be called ‘banana wine’, Emma Raissa reckons. Alliteration won.
The banana beer ‘bar’ was strategically located near a group of several ladies sitting on ground mats. They were weaving baskets, making fully biodegradable seed bags from banana bark, and were keen to demonstrate sorghum grinding with rocks as soon as a new person showed up.
Emma Raissa spoke to one of the ladies whose face broke into a wide grin. The woman hauled herself onto her feet, and literally ran off to find something.
Her name was Colette, Emma told me, and she was off in search of her inanga, a traditional stringed instrument.
When she returned — after catching her breath — she broke into strum and song.
Colette was justifiably … Continue reading this post in full and for free at The “GT” Travel Blog.
