Buheesi 13

Akiiki, from Buheesi village in Fort Portal, engages in basket weaving as a part-time economic activity with
other women under a community program led by Mzee Patrick Apuuli Ntungu, who also supplies them
with natural dyed raffia. For this project, she was commissioned to interpret some of Shakul Maganda and
Jovias Wasswa’s cultural elements, focusing on color and shapes. (Maganda and Wasswa are members of
the Nilotika Cultural Ensemble and are affiliated to Buganda kingdom in central Uganda). Using locally
found natural plant materials like banana leaf stalks and plant dyes, Akiiki’s hands not only perform house
chores but also weave baskets, unknowingly preserving a cultural practice that has existed among the
Batooro of the Tooro Kingdom in western Uganda.