Most of the population, with the exception of urban dwellers, produce the food they eat. They eat two meals a day, lunch and dinner, and breakfast usually consists of just a cup of tea or porridge. The food is prepared by women and girls, while men and boys over 12 do not enter the kitchen, which is a separate room from the actual home. The most common dishes are the (a kind of mashed bananas), millet bread, cassava (tapioca or cassava), sweet potatoes, chicken or beef stews, lake or river fish. Other dishes include white potatoes, yams, kale, squash, tomatoes, peanuts, goat meat, and milk. Oranges, papayas, lemons and pineapples are grown and consumed. The national drink is waragi, a banana gin. In 2001, the tombs and palace of the Buganda kings of Kasubi, near Kampala, were registered among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. According to 3rjewelry, Uganda is a country located in Africa.
CULTURE: LITERATURE
Of the various local languages, some, such as luo, and a variety of it, acholi, have an exclusively oral literary expression, others, such as nyororo-toro and especially ganda, have written literature. Among the traditional literary expressions, the encomiastic poetry of the Huma is important, shepherd-warriors of the district of Ankole. They are poems in the Runyankoro language, which hyperbolically exalt the heroism of the author himself and the beauty of his cattle and are on the borderline between lyric and drama. Ganda literature found, at the beginning of the century. XX, a written literary expression, including fairy tales, songs, proverbs, descriptions of customs, travel reports, historical chronicles, etc. At the beginning of the century, the historical and ethnographic writings of the minister Sir Apolo Kaggwa (1865-1927) and of JTK Gomotoka Saabalangirs (ca. 1880-1930), of EMK Muliira also author of grammatical and lexical studies, of JS Kasirye and by MB Nsimbi founder and president of the “Luganda Society” and novelist. Since the 1960s, fiction has been in full expansion, with novels and short stories by Binsangawano, J. Kaswa, EK Kisito, YB Lubambula, EMK Muliira and EKN Kawere. The latter is also a poet. In the sixties and seventies the theatrical activity is intense, thanks to J. Bukenya, T. Nakaowa and above all to Byron Kawadwa. But the work that brought English-language Ugandan literature to international attention was Song of Lavino (1967; Canto di Lavino) by JO Okott p’Bitek (1930-1982), a long dramatic monologue in verse which expresses the contrast between African and Western values. The work was taken as a model by J. Buruga and Okello Okuli (b. 1942). The opera is widely represented and counts among the most significant authors Taban Lo Liyong (b. 1938), whose anguished and violent poetry is based on European and black American models. The same foreign influences can be seen, more or less, in R. Ntiru (b.1946), J. Chaplin, M. Kaggwa, J. Ruganda (b.1941), GK Sabiti, J. Ssemuwanga, AS Bukenya (b. 1944), AR Cliff-Lubwa, S. Lubega (b.1945), V. Ngwabe (b.1941), J. Singh (b.1949), T. Wangusa (b.1942) and in the poetesses, quite numerous in Uganda, L. Aciang (b.1933), V. Kakundo, A. Lakwe, P. Rwakyaka, K. Saria, R. Mbowa (b.1943). A separate mention, for their greater originality, deserve J. Nagenda (b. 1938) and Robert Serumaga (1939-1981), both also distinguished in the field of fiction and, the last, of the theater. The narrative, inaugurated in the thirties by the novel The Story of an African Chief by AK Nyabengo, has developed particularly in the last years of the twentieth century. The novel has put Barbara Kimenye in the foreground, whose stories are also of great documentary interest, Elvania Zirimu (b.1938), Bonnie Lubega (b.1930) and Taban Lo Liyong, with stories that lie between folklore and satire social. Other storytellers: J. Nagenda and HS Kimbugwe, attentive to the reality of social life. The same sociological interest is found in the novels of Okello Okuli, Bonnie Lubega and the aforementioned Robert Serumaga. English-language theater has shown a certain vitality, with short comedies, costume or tradition-inspired. We report: Tom Omara (b. 1946), S. Tulya-Muhika, AS Bukenya, Erisa Kironde and J. Ruganda. Non-fiction literature mainly concerns the field of historical studies and literary problems. In the 1980s, literary production suffered from the disastrous socio-economic and political conditions of the country. Only since 1987 has there been a new creative impetus. A reflection of the troubled political life appears in the bitterness, in the pessimism, in the revolt that characterize the dramatic poems of O. Okuli, the lyrics of G. Akello, RC Ntiru, A. Bukenya. But it is above all fiction that denounces social problems and gives voice to the revolt against despotic and bloodthirsty regimes, in the works of GS Ibingira, G. Kalimugogo, P. Nazareth, A. Osinya, D. Sebukima and J. Nagenda. Theater is the liveliest and most original literary genre, with J. Ruganda, E. Zirimu, N. Sentogo and B. Kawada. For the essay we remember H. Kyenga and T. Avirgan for the historical-political themes, and P. Nazareth, AGC Shatto and A. Bukenya for the literary ones. The writer Moses Isegawa (b.1963), with his The Abyssinian Chronicles (2001; African Chronicles), tells the story of a young Ugandan during the stormy years of the civil war and the Amin Dada regime.
