She laid down her legal boots and ventured into the virtual unknown

After law school, Bwiza Woodward enrolled at a private law chamber, “for experience only”. She did not have law at heart because she likes working on her feet, not wearing suits and sitting in office. That way, she laid down her legal boots and ventured into the virtual unknown, writes Moses OpoboTHEY SAY RESILIENCE is falling down six times and then rising up seven times. On the night of May 27, 2012, Bwiza Woodward, better known as Mami, had a “fall”. On that fateful night, a mysterious fire gutted Executive Car Wash, a popular bar and restaurant in Kigali, then owned jointly by Mami and her British hubby, Keith Woodward. Unknown to her, the fire was just the beginning of their woes. Following the incident, the owner of the burnt down building took back his property after the two parties disagreed over fire insurance. The fire happened just one year after opening shop, when things were just beginning to look up for the bar, famed over the years for its dedication to Nyama choma, the barbecue meat delicacy of Kenyan origin.Bwiza was devastated after the fire. She recalls that many of her friends, perhaps out of sympathy advised her to find something else to do, if only to take a breather from the ill-fated bar business. She had different plans altogether. She planned on soldiering on in the bar business.Boma gastropub is bornBoma is located between Papyrus Bar and Mamba Club in the heart of Kiyovu’s bar/nightclub district. It is a residential house-turned bar, not quite as large as the name Boma had initially led me to imagine, for I have always thought of Boma in terms of a large place. Actually, Boma is a Kiswahili word that means “a meeting place.” Boma, like the second part of the name suggests, is a “gastropub”. And gastropub is a word that I thought had something to do with bad stomach acids, but I was wrong. This is basically a pub that serves ‘gourmet’ food instead of the standard pub bites and nibbles.A popular concept in the UK, gastropubs are where one is likely to eat farm fresh ingredients, real sauce (not brown gravy), and actual vegetables that have not been fried, etc. At Boma, all food is cooked without salt as a matter of policy.The kitchen here takes a prominent position. It is where Bwiza is to be found on most occasions. “I trust my kitchen,” she boasts. “I like cooking too much. I’m more in the kitchen than the bar.”A first born in her family, she had to learn cooking earlier in life. “From that tender age, people were telling me I’m a good cook,” she says, adding that her favorite is African foods.Patrons coming to Boma do so in groups, to eat, no, feast on nyama choma, Ikinono (cow hooves), gisafuliya (steamed whole chicken stuffed with vegetables and spices), ugali, akabenzi, and michopo, a Burundian special of steamed beef. Other than a gastropub, one could choose to name Boma a “hangover bar”, for that is what it evolves into, especially on weekend mornings. Rooted in hospitality“I like business,” Mami says rather casually, like she is talking of the obvious. Equally, she likes cooking. While still in high school, she always looked forward to holidays, when she would go to one of her mum’s restaurants to lend a hand, usually in the kitchen. “She (mum) owned several restaurants, in which I worked as a chef. I liked making mandazi, samaki (fish stew), and supervising kitchen staff,” she recalls. “I like to feed people and to see them enjoying. That is all the reason why I did the work. Otherwise, my mum never paid me directly for it.”When she went to university, her mother, knowing her daughter’s love for business gave her a small start-up capital to invest. “I realised that bar business requires a lot of time, so as a student (she was pursuing law), I dropped the idea. I had to think of something that could accommodate my studies.” She went in for Plan B instead. “I bought stuff and opened a style shop in town. I supplied both to retail outlets and clothes vendors.” After law school, she enrolled at a private law chamber, “for experience only”. “I did not have law at heart because I like working on my feet, not wearing suits and sitting in office,” she notes. That way, she laid down her legal boots and ventured into the virtual unknown. Basically, she went scouting for business ideas. One of the places she went for this is Kenya, in 2009. “In Nairobi, I visited a place called Mororongo, where I discovered that all bars had nyama choma. It was from here that it occurred to me that meat is a very African food.” She also noted a thing or two about the Kenyans’ drinking habits. “Kenyan bars are very noisy compared to those in Kigali, and people drink more. One reason is that beer there is very cheap, especially when one goes to the small pubs. She also noticed that Kenyans are “very aggressive when drunk.” She went to a few more places, getting better acquainted with the workings of the bar/food business. While she returned from her rounds, she used her mum’s restaurants as some kind of training ground, from which she tried to put into practice whatever she would have learnt. After the skills she attained became second nature to her, she decided to venture out and try it on her own.