Virgil’s Town

(This story was commissioned by the East African (Travel Supplement). The premier regional  paper finally printed  it as .... Through the Eyes of a Community Leader & Bar Owner ... but they were short of space so they cut out all the good bits. This is the raw version.)

Early on a slightly drizzly Friday evening, Virgil Rugema stands near the little bar at the pool table end of club Passadena in the Gikondo suburb of Kigali, drinking Amstel beer from a short glass. So engrossed is he on the action at the pool table he seems totally oblivious of the contortionist movements of the dancers and singers entertaining patrons in the main club area behind him.

Nothing about the beady eyed average sized, casually dressed man in designer jeans and striped shirt tails suggests his prominence in any way; and only the reverence with which the club employees occasionally consult him seems to suggest he may be relevant in some way. Still, to a stranger, nothing distinguishes him as the owner of the club, another establishment out of town, and the adoration of millions of Rwandans (and northern Burundians) who listen to his nationally transmitted radio shows.

“He was the first man to open a club in this town,” Uncle Austin, MC, presenter at Radio 10 – where Virgil also works, says in an awed half whisper. “The club was in the city centre just below the main round about with the fountain and was closed because the authorities said it was attractive to school boys…. Later he opened this club and it became famous as Kwa Virigil, the only club where you can learn and dance salsa. Now there are copy cat Salsa places all over the town… that’s Kigali for you.”

            Virgil does not mention the first club, even a few days later when we pass the main round-about with the fountain on our way to the Ecole Belge (Belgian school) to pick up his lovely pre-teen daughter (his other daughter doesn’t do afternoon school today).

His is the story of a town he has deep roots in and even closer ties to; a town in which he employs over a hundred people, solves “the problems of my people” and entertains with “jokes and music on radio and fun, food and drinks at my clubs.”

He understands the brief; this is not about him. He explains though, that Club Passadena, like many other things in this town, has a personal connection to the genocide.

            “The place in Gikondo,” he says a few days later “used to be my brother’s house. He and his family were killed there and their house destroyed,” he goes on with a brave but sad smile. “Just a month before, he had just come from Pasadena in California, US. I built the club on the ruins of his house, so that people can meet there and have a drink, watch a show or even enjoy a massage or sauna all in the memory of my brother, the person who taught me to appreciate music when I was small; he was the only person in the neighbourhood who had a turntable. I named the club Passadena. The double S being my only addition to the name of the city he had come from.”      

            ******

It is early Saturday morning, the last of the month and Virgil Rugema starts the day by participating in the muganda, the once-a-month communal clean-up-your-neighbourhood exercise that’s one of the reasons Kigali is so clean. We’re in his neighbourhood of Kanombe, a far out of the city suburb near the Kigali International Airport, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. It has been a week of heavy rains and so the work today involves correcting the destruction the rain has left in its wake.

As he shovels sandy soil out of drains, rights leaning plants and spears dead leaves off the lawns, he seems a completely different Virgil from the one of the night before. People still seem to consult him a lot and he tends to lead the discussion at the closing.

“I am the leader of our Mudugudu in Kanombe,” he explains as we drive in his classic Toyota Land Cruiser GX to his next function at Remera Kiporosso, just a few kilometres down the road.  Mudugudu is what replaced Nyumba Kumi in the hierarchy of Rwandan local government. It’s administrative unit consisting of 30 to 50 houses. Several mudugudus make an Umurenge and a few umurenges make a Sector. “Kigali is made up of 3 sectors, namely Nyarugenge, Kicukiro, and Gasabo,” Virgil concludes the civic lesson as we arrive.

            Today, all the sectors are launching the new buildings recently erected to accommodate the nine year basic education system in all Rwanda. The function turns out to be a great gathering of people with all sector officials present. Virgil is the Emcee, a job he performs remarkably well in Kinyarwanda and French.

‘I am an emcee by profession,” explains the former Health Communication Consultant for PSI and UNICEF when I ask him how much he’s getting paid to do the job, “but this is not a job. It is my personal contribution to the community.”

*******

            Monday pm, we are in the Tele Dix (Radio 10) studios on the 4^th floor of the Tele Dix building, about four kilometres down the road from Kiporoso, at the turn off to Nyarutarama, the posh residential area of ambassadors and rich people.

Virgil is the “Lundiose Doctor” – lundiose being some kind of Monday hangover that he cures with a two hours dose of slow French music and chit chat in Kinyarwanda and French. His other shows include déjà vu 80s music programme on Fridays and a Vox Pop programme called Hanzaha (Around Us) on Sundays.

“Once in a while,” he says as he scrolls down his laptop to select the next song, “when people bring a dispute to me as mudugudu leader and fail to agree, I just record them and, with their consent, I air their problem and have listeners call in to suggest solutions. And it works!”

 “I can’t possibly live anywhere else but Kigali even though I hold two passports,” he says earnestly, “I’ll give you an example: If I walk out of my house alone with some money and I want to go out to a pub for a drink, I will always find someone to drink with in Kigali. Not so in other countries I’ve been to. I like the TURI KUMWE attitude of Rwandans. That’s why I run clubs, I could have got into any other business and made more money, but I stick to clubs…”

And does he make a lot of amafaranga as a radio DJ?

“The DJ at Passadena earns more money than me,” he says with a self effacing laugh. 

***

On Wednesdays after his shows, Virgil hops on his bicycle and, using panya routes, rides 20 km out of the city and back. Sometimes he rides 40 km out to Bugesera where he was born 47 years ago. Bugesera is also the unusually flat area beyond Lake Muhanzi and across the Akagera River, where a lot of people were slaughtered during the genocide in 94. There is a genocide memorial there, a small shopping centre, and, right next to the principal road, Virgil’s new club, Le Chantier, which is French for Under Construction.

“So far,” Virgil tells me as we drive out to the club right after the Landiose show, “only the bar, the kitchen and roast places, the children’s swings and the band stand are ready. But every weekend, the place is packed to capacity as people from Kigali flock here with their families. They sit at tables laid out on the grass and enjoy an afternoon away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Yes, they love the live band.”

Will the name change when the construction is finished?

“We’ll see,” he looks doubtful. “Fourteen hectares is a big area to finish construction on. There is still the pool, the sauna and massage places, accommodation and bigger play areas to do…”

As we drive back into Kigali, Virgil’s town, I can’t help seeing a metaphor of it in Virgil’s new club. Like Le Chantier, the city is fully functional and teeming with life; yet it is still massively le chantier.  ENDS.

© Lloyd Igane 2010     kreative@earthling.net