Miss Rwanda is around the corner. This means that in a few weeks, a group of judges will discover who the most beautiful lady in the whole country is. What next after Miss Rwanda? If I were to suggest, I would settle for a rival contest and name it Mr Rwanda. I know that there have been “Mr Rwanda” contests in Kigali before, but this one would have to be different. Different in that the rules would have to be stricter … For anyone to qualify for Mr Rwanda, they would have to be tough as Kevlar. (Sorry, I had to start with this, because I could not resist the temptation to drop a big word; Kevlar. Well, that’s the material from which a bullet-proof jacket is made.) They should have a stone-concrete grasp of Kinyarwanda. With this one there’s no need for any further explanation. A Mr Rwanda must not be seen in a restaurant ordering for things like chips and a few brochettes and call that a meal. Leave that to Miss Rwanda and Miss Gikondo. What we need for Mr. Rwanda is a dude who enters a resto and goes ahead to heap his plate with posho or bugali. Paper weight food like chips and sausages should be left for Miss Rwanda. If he has wheels, they must be manly wheels. The car that Mr. land-of-a-thousand-hills must drive should be macho. It should neither be a Toyota Rav4, Starlet, and definitely not a Premio. If you can’t afford a manly ride, go for an old Land Rover in a dangerous mechanical condition and take it to a car pimp in Nyamirambo. In the department of physical appearance, Mr. Rwanda must not be shaped like water melon. There should be certain tightness about every aspect of his body, because for some reason, beauty contests always welcome slimmer people with more open arms. As Mr. Rwanda, you will need to have personal contact with all local musicians whose songs add value to being Rwandan. As reigning Mr. Rwanda, you will be doing a lot of humanitarian and charity work; visiting the disadvantaged; the sick in hospitals, those in detention facilities, the elderly and the infirm, the destitute, perhaps even the wounded in battle. You will be a carrier of hope to people who need it the most. On such outings, you will be accompanied by government officials from the relevant authority, religious leaders, and the NGO and humanitarian corps. But you will also need entertainment in the form of music. But the likes of Jean Paul Samputu and Knowless Butera and Adul Makanyaga are busy people and they are stars, and one thing I know of stars is that they all have big egos and operate tight schedules. This means that you could call up Knowless and she is away in Kampala, entertaining her posh Rwandan and Ugandan fans at Club Rouge. In such a case, you should have a back-up option. Call up Arthur Nkusi of the Comedy Knights and switch to comedy.
