A new year often marks the start of new chapters. In recent weeks, many leaders and entrepreneurs we’ve spoken to in Kigali have said the same thing, in different ways: January is a moment to pause, reassess, and reset.

Around them, friends and families do something similar, filling journals with resolutions and plans. It is rarely a wrong time to reflect on what’s working and isn’t.

With The Kigalian, we’re publishing again. And Thread is part of that return. It’s designed to be a space for slower, candid exchange between our writers and contributors over the course of a month. Think of it as listening in on an ongoing conversation, writers gathered around a coffee table at one of our favourite cafés, with a bookish atmosphere, unhurried music in the background, and enough quiet to let ideas wander before they settle.

Over the past year or so, our reading shifted. We were even more drawn to work that resisted urgency: essays that complicated their own arguments, profiles that focused on how people think, books that trusted the reader with time and ambiguity. Much of it circled familiar questions: how decisions are made, how institutions shape character, and how culture and ambition quietly influence one another.

What follows here will take different forms. Some entries will be reflective, others more argumentative or observational. Some will respond directly to what came before; others will widen the frame. The aim is not tidy conclusions, but continuity of thought — ideas unfolding through conversation, given time to develop.

That image of a table and a few chairs fits. Much of what I enjoyed reading this past year came from writers who weren’t in a rush to conclude and who trusted the reader to sit with a thought a little longer. I also enjoyed reading “Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century” by W. David Marx. Thanks for the recommendation, by the way.

That feels like the right tone for this space too: notes exchanged, ideas tested, some left unresolved.

Alas, what have you been reading (or watching, for that matter) lately?

What I have been reading? Nothing to talk about.

I’ve been reading with intention this year, which is another way of saying I’ve been reading slowly and pretending it’s discipline. Sorry for being late to the party, but I must add these books to our list: my top mentions from last year will include "Dream Count" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It’s elegant, sharp, and quietly ambitious — a novel about love, ambition, and the costs of wanting more than one life at once. It lingers, which feels like a compliment these days.

I also spent time with "Slow Poison" by Mahmood Mamdani, which is slower still, but deliberately so. It traces how political violence accumulates over time, not in bursts, but through structures that normalise harm. Not light reading, but necessary reading.

Perhaps on my list this new year is "More than a Crown", Naomie Nishimwe’s memoir. I’m curious about how she frames ambition, visibility, and the labour of being watched. These are things we talk around often, but rarely examine head-on.

And while we’re at it: why did we only just now discover Chacha Imfurikiye?

Alright, Mahoro. Sounds like a beautiful season for you. It’s a long weekend in Rwanda. The first of February is Heroes’ Day, and the city feels momentarily less intent on moving forward. Fewer emails, lighter traffic, plans made without explanation.

Some people have left town; others are staying put, using the extra day for things usually postponed: visits, rest, unhurried meals. Cafés are fuller, afternoons slower. Time feels briefly negotiable. Heroes’ Day is meant to anchor national memory, but its most visible effect is this pause. A reminder that nationhood is not sustained only through commemoration, but through the shared decision to stop, remember, and resume together.

What do people actually do when time is returned to them, even briefly?

Kigali feels different these days, and you don’t need a map to notice it.
Neighbourhoods are filling up. Cafés are everywhere. People are out, but also somehow more tucked into their own corners. We meet over coffee (or tea?) more often now, not always because we want to, but because it’s one of the few easy places left to sit, talk, and take a pause.

That’s why the work happening around wetlands and green public spaces is genuinely exciting. It’s not just about making the city look better. It’s also about giving people places to exist without an entry fee. Somewhere to walk, sit, think, or just watch other people go by. Cities need that kind of openness. It keeps them human.

As Kigali grows denser, community life is shifting too. You can see it clearly in Umuganda. What used to feel like collective work in shared spaces now often leans toward cleaning our own compounds, followed by civic meetings. Less shared labour, more coordination. Less chatting while working, more listening and aligning.

That change isn’t necessarily bad. It’s urban life doing what it does. But it does raise a question: if old forms of togetherness are thinning out, where do new ones grow?

Maybe part of the answer is in those green spaces. Parks don’t replace community work, but they offer something else. A low-stakes way to be together. No agenda. No checklist. Just people sharing a place.

February is when these shifts become easier to spot. Not because anything dramatic happens, but because routines settle in. And once they do, you start to see what the city is quietly becoming.

Happy February!

I caught a glimpse of Umushyikirano early on Friday — the second and final day of the national dialogue — last week mostly to catch up on what I had missed. Much, it seems, has changed. Having been a while for years, I hadn’t even realised it now takes place at the Kigali Convention Centre, which is good news. The move alone suggests a scale that allows more people to attend in person.

I remember attending one at Parliament some ten or twelve years ago. The room felt small for a few hundred people from different walks of life. Communication leaned heavily on Rwanda TV, call-ins, and a controlled format. This time, there seemed to be more happening at once. More screens. More moving parts. More faces I didn’t recognise, including social media personalities who would once have watched from afar.

Otherwise, it still felt like the classic Umushyikirano. The president firmly at the centre, which is fair, given the format. Presentations appeared more structured, perhaps more restrained. And yet it remains one of the country’s most important national communication platforms.

What would interest me more is its next evolution. Could it grow into something closer to a conference; with breakout sessions, targeted conversations, independently run side events, perhaps even ministry-led forums happening alongside the plenary? As we speak more about citizen focus, sustainability, and long-term planning, could the design of the event itself become part of the conversation?

And what would Umushyikirano look like if participation expanded not just in numbers, but in format?