Igongo Cultural Centre Menu & 2 Other Things You Can Find at This Wonderful Centre

Igongo Cultural Centre Menu

If you would like to see the Igongo Cultural Centre menu, click here. The Igongo Cultural Centre menu offers both buffet and à la carte options.

The Igongo Cultural Centre menu offers both Ugandan dishes and international continental fare.

Igongo Cultural Center Nkwanzi Crafts & Bookshop

Nkwanzi stocks books and crafts related to the culture and history of the region’s people.

The crafts were both interesting and pretty. What really captured my heart, though, were the books.

There I found–and I find each time I visit Igongo Cultural Centre–interesting books about aspects of local culture such as language, cows, herbal medicine and folklore to name but a few.

I would find these books interesting if they were about any culture in the world.

They are doubly interesting to me, though, because they are about my culture, which I unfortunately don’t know well because I didn’t grow up in it.

After browsing through the books and quickly looking at the crafts, I made my way to the museum.

Igongo Cultural Centre Museum

I enjoy visiting museums.

Whenever I am somewhere new, I look out for museums because they are a quick and usually inexpensive way to learn about a place, its people, its history and culture.

For this reason, I was looking forward to visiting the Eriijukiro Museum. I was looking particularly forward because this museum was about my culture, as presented by my people, rather than from the foreign perspective that is so common when talking about African cultures.

I paid the entry fee for East African nationals—a few thousand shillings—and was all set to begin my museum tour.

When you visit the Eriijukiro Museum of Southwestern Uganda, you can eat from the Igongo Cultural Centre menu — The Eriijukiro Museum at Igongo Cultural Centre

I have visited the Eriijukiro Museum a couple of times now.

Each time, I am always happy at the welcome I receive.

As I pay to enter the museum, almost invariably, a well-dressed and professional guide in uniform meets me and my group at the front of the museum to welcome us inside and take us around.

This is not the norm at other museums across East Africa. Perhaps this has something to do with Eriijukiro Museum being privately owned.

In the same vein, I must say that I am impressed with how organized and well-documented the Eriijukiro Museum is.

Inside the Eriijukiro Museum

The displays are organized thematically around themes such as housing, fashion, games & leisure, education, folklore, religion, politics, etc., and each thematic section covers that particular aspect of culture or history, chronologically, for each of the different communities that inhabit southwestern Uganda, i.e., the Bakiga and the Banyankore, their subgroups and other smaller communities.

There’s so much to learn within the museum that I can’t attempt to share it all with you.

Rather, I’d like to tell you about the three things that I most enjoyed learning at the Eriijukiro Museum.

My Favorite Learnings From the Eriijukiro Museum and a Picture Taken Near Lake Kigere

My favorite thing to learn was that, in the 18^thcentury the Kingdom of Mpororo (where my matriliny stems from) was ruled by a warrior queen called Kitami kya Nyawera. I am always happy to learn about strong female figures in African history who challenge the stereotype of what a “good traditional African woman” is but even more so when it’s so close to home.

My second favorite thing to learn had to do with the gigantic cow statue in front of the museum. When I first saw this statue, I simply thought that it had something to do with the general value placed on cows by the local people. Apparently, this statue is of a specific cow known as Mayenje ga Ishinjo who was the reason behind an 18^th century war between the Kingdom of Buhweju and the Kingdom of Nkore—a war that lasted years and cost 4000 lives!!

Muchwezi footprint, Lake Kigere, Fort Portal — The supposed footprint of a Mucweezi left in a rock near Lake Kigere in Fort Portal with my foot next to it for comparison.

The third was learning more about the Bacweezi. I first heard of the Bacweezi in hushed conversations with my cousins when I was a teenager. Hushed because the Bacweezi are a legendary people thought to have had supernatural powers who are said to have inhabited the region before its present-day inhabitants. It’s not clear what ever became of the Bacweezi. Some say they all walked into a lake one day and disappeared. It was interesting to learn at the museum that they, historically, actually did exist. Archaeological records show that they inhabited the region as far back as the 12^th-14^th century.