A fist fight in any part of Kigali and indeed the country is a definite non-option and we all know this fact. This is because the sort of price to be paid for such raw and base human behavior is one that is high, the end result here being that the average Kigalian will avoid a physical confrontation at all costs.

This is also because, like you all know, monkey business is neither entertained nor tolerated around here. If you’ve had the chance to visit any of the other regional capitals, you’ll have noticed this perhaps?

And this is not to say that fist fights in this city and indeed the country are just myth. They are real and they happen every day, depending on which part of the city you reside in or patronize.

What is a fist fight? A fist fight is when two angry and opposing humans agree to now drop the beer bottles in each of their hands, so as to be able to knot a tighter fist.

When holding a beer bottle, it’s like knotting a fist, only this time the fist is not tight enough because of a number of reasons:

Firstly, the bottle itself could be "sweating” after enduring a long session of chilling in the refrigerator. So it’s kind of wet and slippery–hardly the sort of stuff to guarantee a firm and tight grip.

Also, the texture of the average beer bottle is no good to the cause of having a tight grip. The smooth texture of the typical beer bottle means that your fingers can’t be secure around the bottle neck, hence the need to drop the bottle at hand to the floor and knot a tighter fist before the typical bar fight erupts. And I have not known a better catalyst for bar wars than a tightly knotted fist after a few pints of Lager.

Because of my persistent complaints about the unhandy nature of most beer bottles, making them slip out of people’s fingers like mercury, some action seems to have been undertaken in that regard. I have noticed, for instance, that there is a certain variation of the big Primus bottle that comes studded around the neck, making it more handy, especially when the bottle is wet from chilling and the holder shaky from downing one pint too many.

Since we now know the genesis of the typical bar fight, let’s delve a little into some of the specifics:

One of those specifics is the fact that no bar fight is ever complete without the element of broken bottles in the mix. Either the bottles were broken as the protagonists dropped them to the floor so as to clench tighter fists, or one of the fighters actually used the bottle in their hand as a missile, to knock down their opponent. Whichever way, bottles will always be smashed and flung around in any bar fight, I’m afraid.