Harvesting the East African rich culture

A dancer performs a Kinyarwanda dance. Photo by Abubaker Lubowa

What you need to know:

This year’s Mavuno Yetu festival brought together various aspects of the East African culture ranging from food, music and dance.

The Beauty queens and fashion designers may have stolen the show at last week’s Mavuno Yetu festival at Lake Victoria Serena Resort & Spa, but the cultural aspects in the food and dance were something else.
With a row of food whose stretch seemed endless, one was forced to let “dignity” out the window and indulge in a mountain of food, albeit new to the palate. A journey from contemporary, if one can call veggie and meat salads that, to cultural delicacies marked the food adventure.

One had to be careful though not to put so much “grass” on their plate considering it was only the first step in the culinary walk.

Thereafter, it was an adventure of reading labels and trying to decipher the ingredients of the different dishes from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. I did not quite get the mix of fresh beans and maize from Kenya, but when my colleague served a heap, I followed suit and did not regret the taste of what I later found out was called Githeri.

To best get their way through the food, one needed to give up reading the unique names and just focus on getting the serving ladle comfortably inside the pot, quite a new experience from the pans we are accustomed to.

Food variety
Meat being a big part of our meals, there was a mouth-watering barbeque of a variety. The best thing was it was an ‘eat till you drop’ affair. Gonja and roasted maize, just like your grandmother would make it; was right there…at Serena! When was the last time you tasted malwa, if at all? Well, there was a “hut” where you could dip your straw and chat amidst hearty laughter with friends, getting back to your African roots.

The most interesting thing about Mavuno yetu was how both foreigners and locals were exposed to new experiences rather than the former being the novice.

As the guests travelled through all the East African countries with their forks, Crane Performers brought life to the event the African way, with dance. They performed dances such as Bola, Larakaraka, Kinyarwanda and Bakisimba.

The sounds of drums and other musical instruments as the troupe created a fusion of different ethnic sounds, transported one to their heritage as did the vibrant well-coordinated body movements.

Gladly, music, dance and drama know no language, but rather, speak universally, so there in the tent, the spirit of East Africa was awoken in all the guests. Courtship, war triumph, pride, beauty and many other rich symbols were portrayed in the dances.

The acrobatics put guests on edge as the flexible suit-clad crew bent their bodies in all manner of direction and the fire eating crew blew flames that made them scream both in fear and excitement.
Legendary music maestros Afrigo band got the guests on their feet to familiar tunes like Jim, Obangaina and Oswadde, among others. With great fashion as the icing on the cake, an evening could not have been better spent, for even the distance to the venue did not matter in the end.

Mavuno Yetu
In its fourth edition, Mavuno Yetu, translated as “our harvest”, is a celebration of East African people, culture, food, talent and dance organised by Lake Victoria Serena Resort & Spa. This year, the event was held in partnership with fashion house, Arapapa, on November 14.