Before whining about Nyarutarama life, it’s important to consider first things first: That just as people who hail from Rwanda are called Rwandans, and those from Kigali Kigalians, those from Nyarutarama are called Nyarutaramans.

Just past the MTN Center, as one makes the approach to the Zen Oriental Restaurant, there’s a cluster of road-side drinking parlors–the kind with huge Primus branding plates that threaten to weigh down the bar’s rickety walls. Unlike the real designated Kigali bars, which usually start their slide into slumber mode at about the midnight hour, these street watering holes never go to sleep. Why should they, when the beers and brochette all come so cheap?

Come every sunset, fun-loving but not-so-trend-conscious Nyarutaramans now squeeze their Toyota Coronas delicately by the street, then proceed to celebrate the gift of chilled beers at retail price.

I know of many people, especially foreigners, who are deeply jealous of the mass urban sprawl that is now synonymous with a resurgent, modern-day Rwanda. These same people have gone ahead to claim that what we see is indeed forceful urbanization–ghettos ruthlessly demolished by the town planning authorities to give rise to the steel and concrete structures that define the new Kigali urban sprawl.

As you can clearly see, this logic is sadly flawed, otherwise how else would I have spotted those ghetto roadside bars past the MTN Center in Nyarutarama, of all places?

MTN Center

Have you noticed the all-calming effect that the mere mention of those two words brings to anyone asking for directions to any place in Nyarutarama? Out of ten random people giving you directions to Nyarutarama, eight or nine of them will see the need to ask if you know "MTN Center in Nyarutarama”, regardless of how far off from the facility their location actually is.

And the moment the two magic words–"MTN Center” are reeled off, the person receiving the said directions immediately answers in the affirmative, before rushing to the MTN Center en route to their contact. Oh MTN Center …how proud Nyarutarama must be of you, a true land mark!Speaking of landmarks in Nyarutarama, the MTN Center may be the premier one, but that does not mean it’s alone in this league: It has to contend with the Nyarutarama lake, and that discotheque that sits above the Woodlands Supermarket but which I won’t name because that would amount to free advertising.

Nyarutarama is also that place where people jog with their dogs in tow, and earphones plugged into their ears, probably listening to work-out music. And it’s the best place to buy cheap, cute puppies from those gangs of pre-teen boys you will always find squatting mischievously along the suburb’s quiet, super mean boulevards. The other reliable puppy-hunting ground is Kimihurura.