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 proud of her inanga-play­ing skills, and her vocals. 

Her tal­ent and pas­sion was delightful.

Emma Raissa called her an artist, and Colette beamed with pride again.

There are all sorts of things to learn at Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Cen­ter, including: 

• All the vari­ous ini­ti­at­ives designed to upskill loc­als, par­tic­u­larly the women and youth of the area, and to mon­et­ise their indus­tri­ous­ness, cre­ativ­ity, and artist­ic flair;
• The cir­cu­lar agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices ini­ti­ated by Red Rocks’ res­id­ent agro­nom­ist Jean De Dieu Twagirim­ana; and 
• Who­ever may be work­ing in col­lab­or­a­tion with Red Rocks at the time, such as Raina J Welling, a Mas­ters stu­dent from Col­or­ado State Uni­ver­sity in the United States, who has been col­lab­or­at­ing with Red Rocks on vari­ous ini­ti­at­ives around youth and women’s empower­ment, and conservation.

I have invited both Jean and Raina (among oth­ers I’ve met) to share their work and insights with The “Good Tour­ism” Blog.

I am in Rwanda at the invit­a­tion of Red Rocks Rwanda and Red Rocks Ini­ti­at­ive for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (“GT” Part­ners) and the Rwanda Devel­op­ment Board (RDB).

My first five days will be with Red Rocks in Musan­ze, North­ern Province, as they cel­eb­rate their 11th annu­al Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Fest­iv­al at the Red Rocks Cul­tur­al Center. 

I will then join a num­ber of oth­er media people for a 10-day famil­i­ar­isa­tion tour of the coun­try hos­ted by RDB.

I will try to reg­u­larly post travel impres­sions like this — “GT” Travel post­cards — as I invite fresh per­spect­ives on tour­ism for The “Good Tour­ism” Blog

Where next?