The good and the bad of hanging out in Kigali

If you want to tell people about Kigali, there are a few things to get out of the way because no matter how spirited your communication is, people’s heart will keep hanging up just to break the ice and communicate well.

On top of that list are the girls. Yes, the girls in Kigali are unbelievably beautiful, almost perfect. They are slender and rounded in all the right places, their faces are long and graceful, and their skins are like alabaster. Ni baana beeza cyane. Ahem.

The second matter to get out of the way is the general state of Kigali city. Everything you have heard about Kigali, however outlandish, is true. A few days before I travelled there, I met a well-travelled woman in Entebbe, who told me she had never seen cleaner place in all her travels around the world.

The clean streets

She was being hyperbolic. Or so I thought. She is a Munyarwanda that fled Rwanda during the 1994 genocide after losing her entire extended family save for one sister.

She ended up in Belgium and married a white Belgian, but later relocated to Entebbe, where she lives. When she said she had never seen a cleaner city, I thought her patriotic sensibilities had shrouded her judgment. I was wrong.

Kigali city is an anomaly. The streets look like they are scrubbed with a fancy brush and expensive soap every day. Every street seems to have brand new markings and the flowers in the road islands look like they are tended by fairies. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Onto the night life

Ugandans are extremely loud

A good place to start when talking about Kigali’s night life is the sheer lack of vibes. The music is extremely low, and there is barely any dancing. The conversations too, however drunken, are so muted and discreet.

I want to pause here and say that if you find yourself wondering if it is that bad, here is a comparison for you. You know how we Ugandans seem like quiet talkers in the presence of Congolese or Nigerians? Believe it or not, in Kigali, Ugandans are the Congolese equivalent in loudness.

Cold shoulder

When you enter a pub in Kigali, the local patrons give you a wide berth as if you stink. If you pay close attention, you can feel a cold wind wafting towards you from those people. It is hard to feel at home in Kigali as a Ugandan.

We are too used to being welcoming that this cold shoulder rubs us the wrong way. What makes matters worse is the quiet manner of conversation that I mentioned earlier. It definitely feels like they are conniving.

Huge beers

One of the things that makes you realise you are in a different country when you get to Rwanda is the sheer size of their beers. Their beers are so big, they are just slightly smaller than a muzinga of Uganda Waragi. Yep. A bottle of beer in Kigali is 700ml. For full disclosure, they also have in 500ml and 300ml bottles. But why buy a 500ml beer when there is a 700ml, right? As a Ugandan a 700ml beer bottle represents liberation.

So you grab a Mützig beer with the excitement of a child in toy shop and drink it like it’s the best thing since mwenge bigere. (Because sliced bread doesn’t apply here.) It’s just exciting to feel the weight of that thing. And while the taste is boring, it gives zero hangovers no matter how many you take.

As it turns out, the boring taste is the absence of sugar. Even Primus beer has the same boring taste because Rwandese beer comes with zero sugar. Otherwise what explains the sheer absence of hangover?

Matooke chips

There are no rolex stands on the streets of Kigali. Zero. There are no young hustlers on the street sides selling barbeque. None. So, when you stagger out of a Kigali bar at 3am and you want to neutralise the alcohol with a snack, you are bound to be disappointed. You will have to ask someone familiar with the town for you to find Kigali’s street food vendors because they are not allowed to cook in the open.

And once you find such a place, (few open at a late hour) you may bump into Kigali’s best kept secret; matooke chips. Yeah, like chips, but made from matooke. They are sliced, deep fried and doused in a sauce to make them look like pork kikalaayi.

Admittedly, those chips are superior to irish potato chips. It fills you up better as a street food. Which is why you must always look out for this snack before heading to a Rwandese wedding because, as you may have heard, no food is served at Rwandese weddings. Lastly, for the good of our geopolitical relations, I will not talk about the state of toilets in Kigali. Because you will not believe me. That bad? Yep.