Kigali suburbs-review

Kigali’s evolving suburbs and their social economic upturns; what attracts people to settle there and what is the most happening joints where national and international policies are deliberated upon whiling away a couple of pints of Mutzig and Amstel.

Nyarutarama’ architectural gem from shrubs, rocks and shacks

By GEORGE KAGAME

It's one in the morning in the once dull but now busy Nyarutarama nightlife and the area's near-permanent non-stop party is getting into full swing.
Reggeaton music echoes from one bar where Kigali’s new twenty-and thirty-something residents drink Mutzig beer and Uganda Waragi from the bottle.

Crossover, a mixture of new school rap and techno music belts out of another bar in an adjacent corridor; where almost identical-looking customers in black leather jeans and jackets with hoods do the same. This is the famous MTN Centre.

The facades of the palatial residential and commercial blocks in this formerly wholly-jungle area are inviting, today the shrubs and very poor housing structures which dominated this area just below a decade ago have been replaced by all glistening with coats of new plaster, paint and glass partitioning.

Boutiques selling the latest fashion accessories from Paris, New York, Milan and Hong Kong are some of the main businesses. At MTN centre particularly Kigali’s expanding ultra modern architectural designs jostle for space with new bars, restaurants, clubs and shops selling second movies or used CDs.

Down the street an up market is Green Hills Academy; an educational institution that fulfills all the requirements of an ‘international school’ to serve basically needs of the residents of Nyarutarama. As day schooling children head to class in the mornings at Green Hills on Mondays; many are thinking about their gear for a Friday night out in the adjacent MTN Centre. A stone’s throw from MTN Centre is Christian Life Assembly Church or CLA to take care of the spiritual needs of the folks here.

It is hard to imagine that just a few years ago; Nyarutarama like the nearby Kibagabaga suburb looked as if the Genocide had ended yesterday. Far from being pristine and white, the brick fronts of these buildings were non existent in the early 2000s; instead the land was covered in shrubs and rocks. Since the days of independence in the late 50s, the downtrodden residents of Kigali’s commercial life resided in this area and remained imprisoned by the lack of infrastructure here and rarely ventured out from their dingy sharks after six in the evening.

Yet if Nyarutarama is defining a new image for itself as one of Kigali’s coolest neighbourhoods and hangout joints, then it owes this reputation to the open embrace of the nocturnal adventure by Kigali city local government authorities. And thank many of the clients plying the Nyarutarama road will have pay tribute to the essential Moto operators on this route!

Nyarutarama is also unique in that unlike similar inner-city areas in Kigali like Nyamirambo or Kiyovu, the area's new cool residents are nearly all white, nearly all in their 20s and 30s and for the Africans here nearly most of them weren't even born in the city or the country even. What's more not a few of them are either students, wannabe artists, or surviving on their parents fortunes.

Many are young, essentially middle-class people from the far-flung corners of the world, and they are attracted by the quite exclusiveness of Nyarutarama and the almost faultless roads here. Yet many who reside in far off suburbs are yearning for the perceived excitement of the new MTN Centre and the newly acquired reputation of the bars there as ‘hip joints’.

Nyarutarama began its rise from the forgotten and almost empty land to the leafy zone it is today around 2001, earlier inhabitants of the area were pushed further to the countryside as the classic theory of the culture of poverty states. But those who fled to the inner city were replaced by Kigali newbies.

Gerd Mubaza, 29, is one of the suburbs tribe of new, young middle-class Rwandans. He moved from Kiyovu the other side of Kigali’s inner city, to Nyarutarama with his wife and baby son two years ago. He studied graphics and now works as a website designer in a non governmental organisation. He does not earn much money by his admission but earns enough for his accommodation; "Why did I choose Nyarutarama? If you come from a village in whih I was born (Kibungo) like I do, it's the only residential place, it's where its happening," he said.

MTN Centre
Kigali’s leading corporate class wannabes hangout at MTN as one of several attempts to dodge the lower class folk, the class with smelly armpits, poor French or English accents and an even poorer sense of fashionable attires.
Since MTN is always happening every weekend, there’s never any need for programme or Gahunda so to speak of. All the holiday makers (even from the nearby two secondary schools) have to do is dress up in the flashiest of attires and head towards Nyarutarama. (I will return to the dress code later)

I arrived at MTN centre after attending midnight prayers at the nearby Christian Life Assembly church on 1st January. Standing in the parking lot, I noticed that more teenagers came in on foot and in groups-at the hour of one o’clock the parking lot was fully occupied and I wondered who was driving these vehicles, when most clients were walking.

The majority of the boys at MTN centre are simply clad in overflowing jeans and extra large t-shirts; there are a few who are in G-Unit outfits complete with bling that is slinging around their necks; it makes them look like the famous slaves heading to the US and the Persian gulf and their chains in early 1850s.

The girls, however, seem to be a lot more fashion-conscious. Leggings, dress tops, hot pants, revealing and body-hugging tops, shorts, transparent and inviting short dresses and boots are what most of them were wearing. The hairstyles were quite as exotic as the make up on their faces.

From the way the boys and girls hold their pause while smoking and how they avoid other people looking directly at them I can tell that they just began the habit.
Many of the people around the two bars inside MTN Centre are dancing in groups of single sexes — very few groups are mixed up.

From where I am seated at the Virunga pub, I can see a group of girls whose outfits and dance moves are unmistakably from MTV Base. They dance in a similar manner to the now popular Brick and Lace and there is another circle of boys standing next to them and watching in awe. Behind me, another girl has found her friends and the shrieks of joy lose all the words that she is saying.

Most of the girls here have unusually big bags (for a night out)