The Banana Girls chronicles 2003 days in the lives of two bosom friends, Rehema and Fatuma, and millions of days in the existence of the banana, the fruit which, eaten either ripe or cooked, the girls at some point determine will be the only solid component of their daily diets. The banana becomes not only the symbol of ideal nutrition but also, by turns, of social engineering and neo-imperialist exploitation. \u2026Rehema and Fatuma are Tanzanians by nationality and brainboxes by genetic coding, with an enduring monopoly of either the first or second position in any examination for which they sit. They excel in Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics particularly and are always the first two to solve any mathematical or scientific challenges that are presented to their successive year groups and, by extension, to readers of the book.<\/p>\n
\u2026 As the days go by, Rehema and Fatuma abandon junk food forever, they also adopt wholesome tastes in what they watch and what they listen to, and they make a good friend, Alice, who, unlike them, is from a rich family but who is adequately informed to join them as committed activists in the BLF, the Banana Liberation Front. Their activism lands them in jail. All three girls see through the machinations of their own government to oppress their own people and of global capitalism to bring about r\u00e9gime change, the better to sustain a stranglehold over poorer economies and to prop up aptly named \u2018banana republics\u2019. One malevolent operator is pointed out by name: he is President Ronald Grump of the United States of America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Banana Girls chronicles 2003 days in the lives of two bosom friends, Rehema and Fatuma, and millions of days in the existence of the banana, the fruit which, eaten either ripe or cooked, the girls at some point determine will be the only solid component of their daily diets. The banana becomes not only the symbol of ideal nutrition but also, by turns, of social engineering and neo-imperialist exploitation. \u2026Rehema and Fatuma are Tanzanians by nationality and brainboxes by genetic coding, with an enduring monopoly of either the first or second position in any examination for which they sit. They excel in Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics particularly and are always the first two to solve any mathematical or scientific challenges that are presented to their successive year groups and, by extension, to readers of the book.<\/p>\n
\u2026 As the days go by, Rehema and Fatuma abandon junk food forever, they also adopt wholesome tastes in what they watch and what they listen to, and they make a good friend, Alice, who, unlike them, is from a rich family but who is adequately informed to join them as committed activists in the BLF, the Banana Liberation Front. Their activism lands them in jail. All three girls see through the machinations of their own government to oppress their own people and of global capitalism to bring about r\u00e9gime change, the better to sustain a stranglehold over poorer economies and to prop up aptly named \u2018banana republics\u2019. One malevolent operator is pointed out by name: he is President Ronald Grump of the United States of America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":18089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[141,630,314,445,200,185,459,135],"product_tag":[],"authors":[203],"publisher":[330],"class_list":["post-18088","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-african","product_cat-black-women","product_cat-decolonisation","product_cat-development","product_cat-fiction","product_cat-food-sovereignty","product_cat-politics","product_cat-social-science","authors-karim-hirji","publisher-awaaz","first","instock","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-variable","has-default-attributes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/18088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=18088"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=18088"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=18088"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=18088"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darajapress.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=18088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}