At Rwanda’s favourite bars, neglect the beer: Milk is what’s on faucet

As the solar scorched the hilly Rwandan capital on a latest afternoon, a bike taxi driver, two ladies in matching headscarves and an adolescent sporting headphones all individually sauntered right into a small roadside kiosk to drink the one factor on faucet: milk.
“I love milk,” mentioned Jean Bosco Nshimyemukiza, the motorbike taxi driver, as he sipped from a big glass of recent milk that left a residual white line on his higher lip. “Milk makes you calm,” he mentioned, smiling. “It reduces stress. It heals you.”
Nshimyemukiza and the others have been all seated at a milk bar, one of many tons of discovered in all places within the capital, Kigali, and scattered all throughout this small nation of 12 million individuals in central Africa. In Rwanda, milk is a beloved drink and the milk bars are a favourite place to indulge, combining the pleasures of the beverage with a communal ambiance.
Men and girls, younger and previous, sit on benches and plastic chairs all through the day, glass mugs earlier than them, gulping liters upon liters of recent milk or fermented, yogurt-like milk, regionally referred to as ikivuguto.
“When you drink milk, you always have your head straight and your ideas right.” (Jacques Nkinzingabo/The New York Times)
Some patrons drink it scorching, others prefer it chilly. Some — respecting an previous customized of ending your cup directly — chug it down shortly, whereas others sip it slowly whereas consuming snacks like desserts, chapatis and bananas.

However they take their glass, everybody involves socialize and unwind. But firstly, they drink milk. Lots of it.
“I come here when I want to relax, but also when I want to think about my future,” mentioned Nshimyemukiza, who added that he drinks no less than three liters of milk day by day. “When you drink milk, you always have your head straight and your ideas right.”
While milk bars have popped up in all places during the last decade, the drink they promote has lengthy been intrinsic to the nation’s tradition and historical past, in addition to its fashionable identification and economic system.
Over the centuries, cows have been a supply of wealth and standing — essentially the most helpful reward to confer on a buddy or a brand new household. Even royalty craved easy accessibility to take advantage of. During the Kingdom of Rwanda, which lasted for tons of of years till the final king was deposed in 1961, cows’ milk was saved in wood bottles with conical woven lids proper behind the king’s thatched palace.
Cows have been thought of so helpful they ended up in kids’s names — Munganyinka (helpful as a cow) or Inyamibwa (stunning cow) — in addition to in conventional dances, the place ladies raised their arms to emulate the giant-horned Ankole cows.
In 1994, Rwanda was the scene of a genocide, throughout which an estimated 800,000 individuals have been slaughtered inside 100 days. The majority of these killed have been ethnic Tutsis, traditionally herdsmen and wealthy in cattle.
Cattle-keeping households, and their cows, have been focused by extremists from the Hutu ethnic group who have been principally farmers, mentioned Dr. Maurice Mugabowagahunde, a historical past and anthropology researcher on the Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy.

As the nation recovered from the genocide, Rwanda’s authorities appeared to cows once more as a option to increase the economic system and battle malnutrition.
In 2006, President Paul Kagame launched the Girinka program, which goals to present each poor household one cow. The program has to date distributed over 380,000 cows nationwide, based on the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources — with contributions coming from personal corporations, support companies and international leaders together with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.
The program (Girinka means “may you have a cow” in a neighborhood language) is likely one of the improvement tasks which have garnered Kagame assist nationwide at the same time as he brooks no dissent and cracks down on rivals.
As milk manufacturing elevated on this landlocked nation, so did the quantity of people that moved to city areas for schooling and employment. And so have been born the milk bars, which allowed farmers to promote their surplus milk and let clients drink copious quantities of it to be reminded of house. Most milk bars are in Kigali, the nation’s most-populous metropolis, with 1.2 million individuals.
Steven Muvunyi grew up with 9 siblings within the Rubavu district within the nation’s west. After transferring to Kigali to attend college, he mentioned he missed being within the countryside, milking cows and ingesting milk with out limits.

“I come to the milk bars and I am overcome with nostalgia from my childhood,” he mentioned one night in late September, as he drank from an enormous mug of scorching, recent milk in downtown Kigali.
As he sat on the bar, Muvunyi, 29, who works in Rwanda’s budding know-how sector, confirmed photographs of his 2-year-old son taking a look at him whereas he drank a glass of milk at his dad and mom’ farm. He frightened, he mentioned, that kids rising up in cities wouldn’t be as related to the nation’s dairy tradition, given the straightforward entry now to pasteurized milk at supermarkets.
“I want to teach my children early the value of milk and cows,” he mentioned.
For all their attraction, the milk bars, and the dairy sector typically, have confronted rising challenges in recent times.
The coronavirus pandemic severely affected the business, notably as Rwanda instituted one of the vital stringent lockdowns in Africa. As authorities mandated an evening curfew, closed markets and banned motion between cities and districts, the economic system took successful, and Rwanda slumped into recession.
Milk processing tools at Zirakamwa Meza Dairy in Nyanza, Rwanda, Sept. 21, 2021. (Jacques Nkinzingabo/The New York Times)
More than half of Rwanda’s small- and medium-size dairy companies closed throughout the lockdown, based on the federal government. Three of the nation’s 5 greatest milk processors have been working from 21% to 46% of their capability.
The restrictions have been notably exhausting on small, unbiased milk bars. In latest years, many smaller bars had closed as company chains consolidated their grip in the marketplace.
Climate change has additionally offered challenges. In latest years, recurring droughts have left 1000’s of individuals with out meals and cows missing feed and water. Shortages of milk have surfaced nationwide.
Adverse climate circumstances over the previous 4 months have additionally meant an increase in milk costs. On common, a liter of milk on the outlets in Kigali has elevated from 500 Rwandan francs (50 cents) to 700 francs (70 cents).
For Illuminee Kayitesi, who owns a milk bar within the Nyamirambo neighborhood in Kigali, the lockdowns of the previous 12 months affected her capacity not solely to pay lease, but additionally to pay her workers and keep worthwhile sufficient for her to care for her household. The latest milk shortages additionally meant she couldn’t hold the bar’s milk cooler full most days.
While enterprise has slowly picked up as extra individuals get vaccinated and the nation reopens, “it’s still not easy,” she mentioned.
But regardless of the circumstances, Rwandans say the milk bar is right here to remain.

During the pandemic final 12 months, Ngabo Alexis Karegeya began sharing photos and movies on Twitter concerning the Rwandan attachment to cows and milk — drawing nationwide consideration. Karegeya graduated from college this 12 months with a level in enterprise administration, however nonetheless fondly remembers his days tending cows as a boy. He tweeted a photograph of himself in his commencement robe with the caption “certified cow-boy y’all.”
“Rwandans love cows and they love milk,” mentioned Karegeya, who owns 5 cows within the lush hills of his household’s house in western Rwanda and drinks three liters a day.
“The milk bar brings us together,” he mentioned. “And we will keep coming to the milk bar to drink more milk.”