Saging is Filipino for banana. The banana plant is not a tree, it is rather an herb in the Musaceae family. In my opinion, bananas from Philippines taste so much better. Growing up I often eat banana with steamed rice. It was a sweet treat for me whenever I have that food combo.

​

Instead of having thick woody trunk, the banana is called a “pseudostem”. We would often use these pseudostems to make robots, bow and arrow toys, or buildings as it can easily be bent or cut. Then using the leaves that we separated from the stem, we would make skirts and other clothes. We would play dress up and pretend we were fashion models.

In the summertime, my cousins and I would use the banana leaves outside Mama Bing and Papa Ber’s house to build an outdoor fort. We would often use the leaves as plates as we play house inside the fort and sometimes we even had a real meal in there.