Category: Lifestyle

Mutsinzi Christian and Bizumuremyi Abdoukarim were arrested today in an impromptu Police operation at Kimicanga slum. The two were found smoking marijuana and were already high.

However, they claim that they don’t know why they have been arrested.

They recounted to IGIHE that they had earlier been involved in theft activities in the area but had since stopped and joined school.

The two pleaded with Police to set them free promising to stop smocking ‘crack’.

Kimicanga residents are overwhelmed by the growing incidences of theft and prostitution and alleged drug abuse in the slum neighbourhood.

Dushimiyimana Alfred operates a shop at kimicanga, he told our reporter, “We don’t feel safe living here. Government should take urgent measures to address the issues of drug abuse and prostitution here.”

He added that, “one cannot go out at night without anyone watching over him. We don’t feel safe to go out untill 6AM. If you manage to wake up early, thieves are all around still waiting to pounce.”

Dushimiyimana however,is Surprised that all these incidences take place in the presence of the Police.

Pierre Hakizimana explained,“When the night falls, most youths wear big jeans and very long socks. Small cannabis packets are tucked into socks and in big pockets of their trousers such not anyone can notice.”

Hakizimana says that prostitutes in the area sometimes engage underage boys in sex when drunk.

People who settled at the place started misbehaving in February, at the beginning of the relocation process to implement the Kigali Master plan.

Miss Yu Wenxia of China has been crowned the winner of Miss World 2012 during the pageant’s final ceremony at the Ordos Stadium Arena in the inner Mongolian city of Ordos on Aug 18, 2012.

A total of 116 contestants — the highest number ever — took to the stage during the contest

“When I was young I felt very lucky because so many people helped me and I hope in the future, I can help more children to feel lucky,” said Yu, who was wearing a glittering blue dress, after the result was announced.

Last year’s Miss World Ivian Sarcos of Venezuela handed over her crown in the futuristic Dongsheng stadium in the northeastern city of Ordos.

A DRC court has given Koffi Olomide a three-month suspended prison sentence Thursday for injuring his producer in a fight in a Kinshasa hotel.

Olomide fought in a hotel room with his music producer Diego Lubaki who was then visiting kinshasa for a few days.

Gombe court in Kinshasa heard that Olomide went to the hotel and confronted the producer, better known as “Diego Music”.

Olomide wanted to discuss Euros6000 he had paid the producer for a video that was never produced. In the process a fight broke out and several hotel security agents had to intervene. Olomide was subsequently arrested.

Lubaki said Thursday he wanted to drop the charges against Olomide, the judge continued the trial.

“He wanted to withdraw charges in favour of social peace and peace between him and the one he calls his big brother,” said one of Lubaki’s lawyers.

Still, Olomide was convicted of assault and battery but acquitted of another charge of malicious destruction, after the hotel room door was damaged in the fight.

A conviction on that charge could have earned him a much tougher sentence — up to five years in prison.

We are constantly being told about bad habits that we need to avoid in our lives like smoking, drinking too much alcohol, eating too much and not getting enough exercise.

These are all important things that are crucial for good health but there are other little daily habits that seem harmless in the short run, but which can bring problems in the long haul.

Sleeping Less: Sleep is nature’s way of revitalizing both the body and the mind after continuously working throughout the day, if you do not get enough sleep, you will inevitably become irritable, get mood swings, develop chronic fatigue and have poor performance at work.

Poor sleep patterns have even been linked to weight gain due to hormonal imbalance. Ideally, most adults are advised to sleep eight hours a day. However, some people are able to function well with about six hours or uninterrupted sleep.

It is more important to get good quality sleep as opposed to large quantities of it. Every once in a while, we are bound to sacrifice sleep due to other commitments. It should, however, not be a daily occurrence.

Skipping Breakfast: Missing meals, especially, breakfast, has been found to lead to eventual weight gain. When the body is deprived of nutrients it goes into “starvation mode” so that anything you eat is stored in the body reservoirs as fat for future use.

People who skip breakfast also have a tendency to eat high calorie snacks (cakes, mandazis, sausages…) there is also a tendency to eat too much lunch. Squeeze breakfast into your morning schedule to ensure a bright day.

Replacing water with coffee,tea,etc: Due to hectic schedules, most people find themselves fulfilling their daily fluid needs exclusively from coffee, tea and caffeinated soft drinks. A moderate amount of caffeine is not a bad thing (about two-three cups a day) as it stimulates the nervous system, keeps you alert and has been found to improve concentration.

However, too much caffeine has been found to be associated with irritability, poor sleeping habits, stomach upsets and fast heartbeat. Traditionally, we have been advised to drink eight glasses of water every day.

Water is considered ideal because it has zero calories however research shows that you do not have to restrict yourself to water alone to get your daily fluid requirement.

You can get your fluid requirements from fresh juice, milk and thin soups therefore substitute some of your caffeinated drinks with these.

Nose blowing: Ideally, you should blow your nose when you have a cold or flu. Repeated forceful nose blowing usually leads to damage of the delicate lining of the nose leading to nose bleeds. It has also been found to lead to sinus problems.

The best thing to do is to only use a handkerchief to wipe the excess mucus away. If you really must blow your nose, do it one nostril at a time.

Licking your lips: Have you noticed that when you lick dry lips, they become dry again after a few minutes and even look worse than before? This is because saliva has enzymes which normally break down the thin protective barrier of the lips. When your lips are dry, resist the natural urge to lick them. Reach for some petroleum jelly or lip balm instead.

Toothpicks: Food gets stuck in between your teeth if you have small spaces between them. Dentists have found that when you repeatedly use toothpicks to get into the spaces between your teeth, you actually damage the gum and enamel of the tooth. Dental floss is a better option.

Cleaning ears with cotton buds: Most ENT doctors (Ears, Nose and Throat specialists will advise you not to insert cotton buds into your ear to clean it. The truth is, the ear is a self cleaning organ. Ear wax is not dirt. It is the ear’s way of protecting the delicate eardrum and other internal parts of the ear from dirt and other harmful objects.

Use of cotton buds is associated with damage to the eardrum, wax impaction and even hearing loss. What you can do is clean the outside of the ear with a soft cloth daily. Even if you feel you must use cotton buds, use them only on the outside of the ear. Let your body take care of the inside.

Malawi President Joyce Banda has distanced herself from Facebook accounts bearing her names and images and asked the public to ignore and treat them as mischievous.

In a statement, government said the President is not part of Facebook community and is not using the social media platform to communicate.

“The President has other routes through which she interacts with young people to share with them her passion, vision, and aspirations for the youth,” a statement said.

Government said the three Facebook accounts purported to be those of the President are fake.

The statement noted that they bear three different birth dates for the President “ which clearly demonstrates that they were not created by her.”

For those who may have poked or sent a message to Joyce Banda accounts on Facebook thinking they were hitting on the Malawi leader were wrong because she is not part of the Facebook community.

But the Malawi leader is not hitting the keyboard to sign-up a Facebook account though she is technologically savvy leader who follows social networking services and micro-blogging sites.

Her political People’s Party has however a Facebook group page and also its official website.

Most of us actually hardly manage to mark the difference between these two and yet there is a significant one.

Not knowing the difference between living and existing shapes our lives according to the meaning that we give to these two words.

By definition, existing means that we are here in the World but not really enjoying life and seeing the different hues of life. We can sum it up by saying that existing is getting done what needs to get done, nothing more, nothing less to it! There is actually no life in existing. What exists is the leftover of life, the thoughts, the ideas…

It is when we exist that we are most affected by whatever comes our way, we depresss, we are in a hurry racing with the time, we forget our relationships.

We do what we think should get done yet we have already gone off road, forgotten what really matters the most.

While living, on the other hand, means that we are present and involved in every second of our lives.

Muhammad Ali,a well known Boxer of all times stated that we shouldn’t count the days but should make the days count.This simply encourages us to live every moment of our lives, making each second really count.

With the speed at which the World moves nowadays, it has become really hard to focus on the other side of life besides the office (work) and everything else that revolves around money.

At the end of the day, we have worked so hard, got what we needed or maybe not, but actually fail to enjoy the fruits of our hardwork, we still feel as empty after all.

Life has become a routine: waking up-work-exhaustion-sleeping kind of cycle that shuts us down from what is really happening in the real world, that routine keeps us in a kind of “boxed life”.

The life we have should be lived unlimitedly, every second that makes it should be felt and received, we should embrace all that it brings us; emotions,laughter,memories,relationships,adventure,resting,helping around us, taking chances, and the list goes on and on.

There comes a time in our lives when we have to let go of all the pointless drama and the people who create it and surround ourselves with people who make us laugh so hard that we forget the bad and focus solely on the good.

After all life is too short to be anything but happiness. Struggles, bad surprises always occur in our lives but they are just a transition, they are also part of the life we live. Nevertheless they shouldn’t take our passion for life away from us.

Most of us do exist and do not live. We ought to take a break, relax and enjoy all the gifts life presents to us, because as Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the USA said “In the end, it is not about the years in your life that count, it is the life in your years”.

On August 11th 2012, the city of Kigali was the first in Africa to host the prestigious Dîner en Blanc® event, bringing together people from different walks of life for an elegant pop-up picnic in the middle of the city.

Launched with just a handful of friends more than 20 years ago, Paris’ Dîner en Blanc® brings together nearly 15,000 people each year in some of the most prestigious locations throughout the French capital.

Now coordinated by Aymeric Pasquier and Sandy Safi, the Dîner en Blanc® events are hosted in over a dozen cities around the world. This year, Kigali was the first city in Africa to host the event.

Hosted by Illume Creative Studio, in partnership with Events Africa, Dîner en Blanc® -Kigali boasted over 375 guests all dining under the stars in the Vision 2020 estates in Gaculiro.

Guests for Dîner en Blanc® were specifically invited by the organizers to attend this unique event, and they recommended their friends to be invited as well.

Guests were required to follow the Dîner en Blanc® rules in order to ensure a seamless and wonderful evening and all participants were required to wear all white and bring their own table settings and table décor.

Participants were told to meet at one of six different pick-up points around the city and were taken by KBS buses to the main venue. The location remained a secret to ensure all guests arrived at the same time.

Once there, guests descended from the buses onto a field of all white where they were greeted with French music and welcoming hosts.

They then went to their selected tables, and immediately began decorating them and laying out their food which they brought themselves or purchased in advance from participating restaurants and food service providers Shokola Lite, Food and Stuff, Sakae, and Lalibela.

On the evening of the event, RDB CEO Clare Akamanzi tweeted “Dîner en Blanc is in line with Rwanda’s tourism strategy of being a city of choice for international events, meetings and conferences.”

Indeed, according to Joan Mazimhaka of Illume Creative Studio: “One of Illume’s goals is to change what the world sees when you Google Rwanda, and we hope this is one of the events that will accomplish that.

We also wanted to put together a fun event for Kigali’s residents, regional guests and tourists and also put Kigali on the map as an events destination.”

The highlights of the evening included a live performance by Mike Kayihura, music by DJ Eric Soul, prizes for best table and best dressed (sponsored by Serena Hotels, Canal Plus, and RDB), dancing, and the opportunity for participants to make new friends Broadcast live online by Radio 10, the event not only entertained the guests present, but members of the Diaspora were also able to tune in to the festivities live.

In addition to Tele10, other major sponsors and partners included KK Security, Positive Productions, SECAM, EABL , and Skol.

The organizers would also like to especially thank the Rwandan National Police, the Kigali City Council , and the Gaculiro Vision 2020 midugudu for their support.

Having your period is hard enough without any complications. Now you have to deal with cramps on top of the hormonal imbalances and the regular side effects.

Cramps are caused by the contraction of your uterus as it sloughs off the particle layer it had prepared for a possible pregnancy.

Here are some of the tips that may help you reduce the cramps.

Exercise: Try to exercise regularly. If you do and continue during your period you may feel less cramping.

Avoid caffeine in excess: Caffeine can upset your digestive systems which can increase the cramping sensation. By all means sip some herbal tea instead of your coffee.

Eat Fruits and Fibers: Fruit is good for you anyway; a banana for instance will help relieve the cramps due to potassium in it.

Fibers like ones found in whole grains food such as breads, pasta, and cereal or even in avocados and beans will help cleanse your body of excess hormones.

Empty your Bowels: It really helps! Most women have to use the restroom more often when their period comes and doing so can significantly decrease the severity of menstrual cramps.

Take deep Breath: This allows you to breathe through the pain. It may seem a little silly but it can really help.

Take a hot bath/shower: The hot water eases cramp pains; it can make your sore muscles feel better and so enables you to relax.

Wear loose clothes: Avoid clothes that are tight on you especially on the abdomen level. They will block the blood flow in your vessels thus accentuate the cramps pain.

Put a little pressure: Put a bottle filled of hot water or a cushion against you abdomen this will make you feel much better.

Distract yourself: Do some window shopping, watch your favorite movie and most of all laugh a lot, this is the best medicine.

Fidel Castro Odinga the Son of Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga tied the knot in an invites-only event held Saturday.

Odinga Junior and Lwam Getachew Bekele, an Ethiopian had their reception party at 6pm at a private club in Loresho, in the presence of their parents.

There had been rumours that the socialite was planning to marry his Ethiopian girlfriend for a while now, after a year and half relationship with her.

For Fidel this will be his second marriage commitment after they parted ways his first fiancée Veronica Wanjiru Ng’ang’a, after a rather public ceremony that attracted the who’s-who in society, on claims that they had irreconcilable differences.

Some had cynically seen the union at the time as a convenient arrangement since the lady came from the central region and there was an impending election.

Fortunately for the lovebirds, who have been together even at public outings together, this time the buzz is subdued.

St. Agnes hall in Rwamagana District was the place to be this Saturday 28 th July 2012. I must say there was plenty to see. The event being held was the Miss Rwanda 2012 pre-selection – Eastern Province.

The stage was beautifully adorned with the Rwandan traditional imigongo combined with a cascading array of commonly used Rwandan traditional wall decorations all cleverly set to give rise to the newly constructed runway and to further cinch the running theme of unifying Rwandan beauty and culture.

To add variety to the décor was the Kigali Live band musical instruments well set on the right side of the stage and a wall projection off to the left side of stage. For a stage that was almost non-existent this transformation was clearly breathtaking.

The event started off with a beautiful inspiring speech from the Guest of Honour: the Director of Good Governance in the Eastern Province and was immediately followed by a performance from a local group Umucyo.

These elderly women graced the stage with their elegant dance executed effortlessly and with the right doses of energy befitting women of that age. Their dance seemed to say welcome to the Eastern Province and get ready to receive our beautiful girls yet to grace the stage.

The moment we were all waiting for soon arrived and the contestants began to walk onto stage as they were called out one by one by the beautiful Anita Pendo the MC of the day.

Their walk was graceful, composed, calm and most importantly their faces were lit up by smiles that seemed to say ‘yes here we are the Eastern Province ladies born and bred and ready to take on the world’.

The catwalk was then followed by the most important part of the show: an insight of what beauty with a purpose truly means.

The contestants were taken through a series of questions by the three judges (Faustin Kagame, Claude Ndayishimiye and Jolie Murenzi) and the audience had a glimpse of how the contestants think, speak and express themselves.

Needless to say that the contestants carried themselves well and gave the judges for the first time since the pre-selections started a hard time deciding who is the fairest of them all.

The event saw five girls chosen to go on to the finals where after the top three were selected. The top five included Akineza Carmen, Umunyana Didine, Muberarugo Diane, Karangwa Tega Fidelis, and Umutesi Mubera Liliane.

The five battled it out to cinch positions in the top three and after a final judges’ deliberation, the verdict was in.

The 2nd runner up was Akineza Carmen, the 1st runner up was Karangwa Tega Fidelis and the Miss Eastern Province was Umutesi Mubera Liliane.

With three provinces done and two more to go, we can only hold our breath and wait excitedly for the final showdown on September 1st 2012.

The Northern Province pre-selections are set for August 5th 2012 in Musanze and thereafter Kigali City on the 12th August 2012.