Happy thanks giving Rwanda!
Giving thanks to mother Earth, umuganura is the annual event held on the first Friday of August to celebrate Rwanda’s first harvest. This has been part of Rwandan culture for over 1,800 years and it's a public holiday where families, friends and neighbours meet to share the bounty of the harvest.
My earliest memory takes me back to the late 90’s, I was a schoolgirl starting primary school. We went to Rutobwe, the Southern province to celebrate food fest, it was the first time I saw sorghum bread known as “Rukacarara”. Although this bread is now as it was then rarely consumed, my grand-aunt (father’s aunt) prepared it carefully, explaining step by step the whole cooking process.
Rukacarara is a traditional type of bread dish made from sorghum flour and a dash of cassava flour. Sorghum flour was historically homemade, using traditional mills put together with large cut and polished stones (urusyo & ingasire). Once the sorghum was ground down to obtain the flour, it was poured into boiling water and then removed once cooked, using a wooden ladle called “umwuko”. In the end, a thin marshland plant that is normally found in most wildlife marshes of East African savannah, was used to divide the bread into equal pieces; this type of knife is what we call “urutamyi”. As my grand-aunt was proudly demonstrating this to a six year old me, I remember being both curious and scared of the bread’s colour, it looked nothing close to alI had eaten before.
Rukacarara is historically famous among other traditional recipes that accompany this event. Sorghum and cassava are two among many other crops grown in Rwanda that we are celebrating today. Among them, maize, beans, peas, wheat, sweet potato, cooking banana, etc, and of course not forgetting Rwandan tea and coffee plants that are now among the most sought-after in the world.
Finally, my favourite part of the event is entertainment which showcases traditional instruments and music. Umuganura is an opportunity to express culture values, and on different occasions I was honoured to participate in songs and dance that are performed for many in the most Rwandaful way.
Amahoro, amahoro - Ngira nkugire.