After leaving Makerere University in Kampala city at 6:30 PM, we went straight to Katanga, a slummy suburb of the City of Kampala. The journey took close to 30 minutes walk because we delayed in Wandegeya.

After a rough walk along dusty shortcuts littered with garbage, we reached Kisenyi, a place which Mugisha, the guy I was escorting described as where Christmas happens everyday. Mugisha wanted to meet a man who had traveled from his village in Bushenyi district. This man had brought with him money from Mugisha's paternal aunt who lives in the village. She wanted Mugisha to use this money to buy for her a phone. The old woman thought that phones are cheap in the city.

We were welcomed by different loud music that came from different sources in Kisenyi. The music was coming from simple houses. Just a sitting room and bedroom. Others were just single rooms. People sat comfortably on benches in these rooms. Others sat in verandas as they drank different types of beer. I quickly noticed that banana beer locally known as Tonto was the commonest type of beer being drunk. They drank it in small calabashes, others in bottles and some plastic mugs.

Tonto is a major alcoholic beverage traditionally produced from bananas in Uganda. It is a locally made beer, loved and highly respected by Bantu Ugandans. However, very little is documented about this brown beer.

There are tens of thousands of compacted iron-roofed simple houses in Katanga suburb. Some with rusted iron sheets that look like they would break after being hit by a single rain drops. However, Mugisha knew the room we were heading to so we went direct into this room where there were seven men drinking in three groups. They talked on high tunes as they competed with loud Kiganda music (kadongo kamu) which came from a radio cassette placed in the corned of this uncemented single room with no ceiling.

About 5 jerrycans, brown in color lay behind a brown lady that I later came to know as the bar attendant. They were covered by a brown old piece of cloth that seemed to have been white while still new. We joined the group that was in the corner where Byaruhanga, the man we wanted to meet was sitting together with two other men. Byaruhanga and the two other men smiled and extended their hands to us. They greeted us in Runyankole. We joined them and sat on a seemingly dirty bench provided by the bar attendant. The dirty bench never scared me since I was putting on a dirty pair of trousers. However, I first wiped it using a bare hand before I sat on it.

The bar attendant asked us the type of Tonto we wanted. The newly brewed Tonto or the one that has stayed for over 4 days. The newly brewed Tonto tests sweet. However the older it grows, the sour it becomes. Mugisha was quick to tell her to first wait as he engaged Byaruhanga in a conversation characterized by what was taking place in the village back in Bushenyi. I was getting bored before engaging the two remaining men. We discussed about Tonto- the beer they were drinking.
Our discussion on Tonto came after this shortest man of the two drank from his mug and spitted close to the wall of the house. He cursed immediately after spiting. “This Tonto is bad, the brewer put a lot of water in the banana wine,” he said with a bitter face stressing that Tonto brewed in central Uganda has never been good like that of western Uganda.

Byensi, as I later came to know his name to be, told me that back home in his village in Mwizi Mbarara, he is taken by his villagemates as a professional Tonto brewer.

Tonto is brewed by treading bananas to make wine (Okunyuka). The treading process is done in a wooden trough locally known as Obwato. The man treading the bananas uses his feet, an act that is similar to stepping in mud at the same spot for a number of times. A banana specie locally known as embiire is the one used in this venture. The juice produce (Eshande) is mixed with water and sorghum. The mixture produced is them left to ferment overnight in a wooden trough (Obwato). When it gets ready, the beer is then removed from Obwato and put in pots of Jerrycans, the act which is locally known as okutaha amarwa in Runyankole.

Though Byensi seemed to have been under the influence of the alcohol which he was taking, he managed to narrate to me how married ladies in his village used to love him because he knew how to brew the right beer they wanted. He said he was loved in his village for knowing how to tread properly ripped bananas to make concentrated banana juice.

Speaking in a jovial mood, Byensi recounted how elders in his village would often plead with his to help them tread their bananas. He told me that in days when Christmas would be approaching, he would tread bananas more than 3 times a day.
Byensi's story immediately brought to me memories of the old days in my village, when I enjoyed digging pits where we would burry bananas to make them ripe. We would dig a pit in our banana plantation, prepared it by burning dry banana leaves inside. Fresh banana leaves would then be cut and laid on the floor of this pit and on the sides. Others leaves would be made to hang on the sides of the pit from the top.

When the pit was ready, split bunches of embiire bananas would then be laid into the pit in order to have them well packed there and covered with banana leaves after which soil would also be put on top.

I remembered how after about 3 to 5 days we would remove soil and the banana leaves to unearth the already ripe bananas ready to be treaded. I was absent minded recalling all this when Byensi told me the trick behind the good Tonto he was making. He said he knew how to proportionately mix the ingredients of Tonto; water, sorghum and banana juice.

Byensi narrated to me how old men would get drunk at communal drinking occasions termed as entereko and sing songs praising his name. In Banyakole culture, if a family brews beer, it reserves some for its neighbors as a symbol of good neighborliness. This beer so reserved is termed as entereko. It is served after two days or more after it has been brewed. This practice still remains so important in this modern age that anyone who fails to comply with it is considered a bad neighbor.

During entereko, the drinkers discuss important matters affecting their communities. On such occasions, there would be a lot of merry making including traditional dancing ekyitaguriro where men and women participate. Byensi told me that on such occasions, he would be taken as a king.

However with globalization such traditions are slowly disappearing. Innovations and commercialization are changing Tonto. Tonto is now seen as an important source of income for many households instead of Etereko. It is also competing with the modern beers.

My conversation with Byensi was interrupted by Mugisha. He stood up from the other end of the bench which him and I were sitting on. This made the bench fail to imbalance. I would have fallen if Byensi did not grab me. Mugisha pulled me up too saying he was sorry. He stood straight as he pocketed the money Byaruhanga delivered to him and told me that he was through so we should go back to Kinoni, also a suburb of Kampala city. I held Byensi's right hand as he held mine too firmly. He said good bye as the odor coming from his mouth smelt like really Tonto.