Fenesi: Meet Busia's Favourite Fruit

The pulpy banana-pineapple like flavored Jack fruit first strikes one as something fit for Cameron's Avatar, almost dinosaur-like, yet with a promise of abundant vigor and life in embodiment of the tropics

At first sight, meeting the Jack Fruit aka Fenesi in Swahili, one has to take another look. And another. And another. It just doesn’t settle well. My neck craned backwards as the flat of boredom on my face was replaced by amaze-wonder. The Jack fruit is thought to originate from the flora west of the salty waters of Bay of Bengal Indian ocean. 

Here in Busia,it flourishes just north of the equator, east of the fresh waters of lake Victoria. Here, it seems like every homestead has several trees. In the street of Busia town invariably, there is always that congregation around a Fenesi vendor hacking away with a machete to reveal the sweet pulp. I am told that this Jack Fruit, the size of my head, is immature.