Granai della Memoria :: Christopher Wali Alwana

Christopher Wali Alwana

Bogoya bananas growers from Bukunja

In the province of Bukunja, in the area of Mabira Forest (central Uganda) , farmers mainly grow coffee, sugar cane and bananas, with a number of associated crops: vanilla, for example, is often intercropped in coffee or banana plantations; moreover, cocoa, sweet potatoes, cassavas, rice and yams can share the same fields in traditional agroforestry systems.

Banana, though, represents not only the main crop of the area, but also the first symbol of a local folk culture.

The biodiversity of this fruit in Mabira Forest is simply great: “to a man in Europe a Banana is the type which is the dessert type (...). We think we are the mother of all bananas in the world.”

Christopher Wali Alwana was born and grew up in a family of farmers. In this interview, Christopher describes the differences among a number of varieties of bananas and the way people traditionally cook them. After, he explains some rituals linked to the big culture of this food: special moments like home feasts and ceremonies, family rituals linked to the earth, old tales.

It's evident how rural communities from this area were able to develop a very symbiotic link with their land and their crops. For example, as Christopher tells us, the practice of burying the human placenta in the same plantation where the child will grow and work is an ancient ritual through which farmers build a lifelong - and generational - link between a man and his land.