Christmas in Nyanza, Rwanda

Christmas in Rwanda is very low key compared to the U.S. Still, it was a fun time.  On the days before Christmas, as well as Christmas Day, almost everyone wishes you “Noheri nziza n’umwaka mushya muhire” – A good Christmas and a happy & safe New Year. (“Noheri” is the Kinyarwanda way of saying “Noel”).  In return, I wished everyone the same.

On Christmas Eve, the market was abuzz with people frenetically buying and selling food for the holiday. As I squeezed my way through the market, now and then a vendor would thrust a chicken into my chest trying to get me to buy it.  Here is a load of chickens, one vendor had deposited on the sidewalk next to the bus station to attract a crowd of buyers.  Nothing like a fresh chicken for Christmas! 

On the main street, outside the market, a vendor was selling small artificial Christmas trees. A few vendors strung up colorful lights inside or outside their small shops. The town strung some blue lights on the main thoroughfare.  And, the Heritage Hotel had a string of white lights at its entrance and a Santa cutout by its front door.

However, Kigali, the capital city, was really decked out in lights, as this photo taken by  Béné the day after Christmas, shows:

Rwanda has two official holidays at Christmas: Christmas Day and Boxing Day, which is the day after Christmas and adopted from the Brits, since Rwanda is a member of the British Commonwealth of nations. Boxing Day has nothing to do with the sport of boxing, which is the first thing that came to mind for me when I heard of it. Rather, it refers to the day that the British gentry gave gifts (boxes) to their servants. Boxing refers to the act of wrapping, as opposed to the act of punching, which makes for a much more pleasant day. Here, in Rwanda, I didn’t see any boxing of either type going on. Instead, everyone was exceptionally pleasant repeating Christmas and New Year’s greetings. I was thankful to have the extra holiday to relax. However, I noticed that, on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day, many Rwandans were hard at work. For instance, the construction workers pouring concrete, hammering nails and doing other laborious work on our new school addition did not get either day off. The street cleaners (women who sweep the streets and gutters with hand brooms, often with babies on their backs, in return for a form of welfare) did not get the days off either.  And, for landscapers, cooks, servers and many vendors, it was business as usual. However, teachers (like me) and government workers were lucky to get the days off.

So, how did Béné and I celebrate the holidays? On Christmas Eve, after shopping for food, we enjoyed a late lunch at the Dayenu Hotel, gorging on salad, fish brochettes and Skol Panaché, which is a combination of beer and citrus soda and has extremely low alcohol content (.5%).  After, returning home, we gussied up in our best bar clothes (I had just purchased for the equivalent of $17 for the occasion a yellow fake leather jacket from a new shop in town) and hopped a bus to Begege, a place just outside Nyanza where the infamous Gallactico Nightclub is. I had heard of this bar from my students, but never had the nerve to go alone.  Bene, being up for anything and noting that “the bar sounded out of this world,” was excited to accompany me.  Good sport that she is, Bene did not even complain when I missed our bus stop and we had to walk close to a mile on a busy road in the dark back to the club with her wearing her nightclub shoes.

There was no cover charge, and we were welcomed immediately as we entered and escorted to a table where we could easily see and hear the band, comprised of three guitars, a drummer and a lead singer.  All of the band members were wearing matching yellow polo shirts with “0 Ambience” printed on the back; a strange name for a band, I thought because they seemed to have a lot of ambiance.  I sipped on a Skol Panaché and Béné had a Virunga beer as we enjoyed the music and chatted with a few patrons. Later, we were delighted as the modern music abruptly changed to traditional Rwandan music and dancing by three graceful Rwandan women attired in elegant flowing dresses of red and green for Christmas, followed by a wild and energetic male traditional Intore dancer, who was the highlight of the evening and exited to deafening applause.

By that time, we had to leave to get to the Catholic Church, as Béné wanted to catch the 10 p.m. mass. However, when we arrived at the church, we found the doors locked and the grounds dark and silent.  Béné had been given bad information as to the mass time; we learned that it was 6 p.m. and that we had missed it.

So, home we went, where I opened a bottle of Amarula that I had purchased for the occasion. Amarula is a South African drink made from a fruit “g)rown wild on Marula trees,” according to the label. The label goes on to explain that “Africa’s exotic Marula fruit is distilled and matured in oak barrels for two years, before being blended with a rich velvety cream to make Amarula.” The fruit, while common in South Africa, does not grow in Rwanda; but fortunately Rwandans have seen fit to import this delicious drink that tastes and looks remarkably like Bailey’s Irish Cream. According to Wikipedia, the Marula fruit has eight times the amount of vitamin C as an orange, so hopefully we got some nutrients along with our nightcap.

On Christmas morning, Béné made her signature fruit salad of pineapple, bananas, papaya, passion fruit and lime juice, which we enjoyed with amandazi (Rwandan donuts) and, of course, Rwandan coffee before we set off on our Christmas hike around town.

After a few hours of hiking, we took a break at a restaurant so tiny that it had only one small table.  We treated ourselves to ikivuguto (Rwanda’s liquid and very sour yogurt) and a chocolate bonbon to replenish any calories we might have burned during the hike.

In the evening, we walked to the New Life Bar, which happens to be owned by a work colleague of mine and is a popular hangout in town for TV soccer watchers, older students and many others. The New Life had advertised a Christmas party with a live guitarist so, party animals that Béné and I are, we went.

Again, we were instantly welcomed and given a seat where we could easily see the area where the guitarist would be but were not under the loudspeakers. While we waited the usually long time (There is no fast food in Rwanda) for our goat brochettes (which turned out to be the best ever) and our ibitoki (fried plantain), we listened to the warm-up act, which was a man singing to recordings of pop hits – a kind of one-man karaoke act, which wasn’t bad. I sipped on yet another Skol Panaché. When we finished our food and the main act had not yet started, we decided to go home, as Bene wanted to make a large cucumber and avocado salad for Christmas dinner.

Then, we watched a movie.  Since “It’s a Wonderful Life” was not playing anywhere locally, we watched on Béné’s laptop the 2009 movie “From a Whisper,” an interesting drama by Kenyan Director Wanuri Kahiu, about the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.  Wanuri Kahiu is currently renowned for her latest film “Rafiki,” a love story about two Kenyan women.  The film, a hit at Cannes, was banned in Kenya for its homosexual content, but was later allowed to play in Nairobi for only a week so that it could qualify for the Academy Awards in the category of best foreign film this year.  Unfortunately, after all that effort, it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar.

Not the usual Christmas festivities, but fun nonetheless.

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