From the outside, it looks like a little house by the side of the road, like so many others, except for the sign painted over the entrance that reads Umubano Restaurant. A restaurant it is not, however, much less a house like any other. A little notice board indicates its real function: Bistrot Chez Bizarete, selling banana wine and passion fruit juice.
From April to the end of June, the Sakara coffee washing station in Rwanda’s province of Kibungo, bustles with activity. Coffee-growers in the nine surrounding areas come to weigh their crops. For the 845 members of Iakab, the association that manages the washing station, it is the beginning of a fruitful season.