Editor,

RE: "Do you know the origin of your district name?” (The New Times, September 11).

Yes, it is very helpful to point out interesting things for which each of our districts is known. But trying to tie such interesting points or features to the origins of the district’s name when there is no such relationship takes away rather than adds to our understanding of why the district’s current name.

It would also be valuable for younger readers (and not so young but equally lacking in knowledge) to try and provide Rwanda’s previous administrative units (for example, Nduga, Mayaga, Bwanacyambwe, Buganza, Buliza, Bufundu, Gisaka, Kinyaga, Bwisha, Budaha, Ndorwa, Marangara, etc.) and how, over different historical periods, our internal borders and names of administrative units have changed even as the territory they covered had been re-divided and restructured across newer administrative units with changed names.

Now that would be a really useful piece of historical clarification.

When older Rwandans speak of contemporary internal administrative units, many younger compatriots (and not a few older ones) cannot grasp the areas those units covered and how they relate to today’s local government units.

Mwene Kalinda

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This is a very interesting article indeed. It will be more instructive to put this in a historical perspective and give the meaning of the previous prefecture denominations such as Gitarama, Ruhengeri, Butare, Gikongoro and the story behind their introduction after 1959.

Rwema