Street names should reflect EAC spirit

Visiting is part of African culture and most of the ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ we first know of are simply people who come to visit our parents. As one grows, it becomes necessary to visit beyond your village and in Rwanda I can safely say that in Kigali visiting is quite hard. Not because people are not hospitable, far from that. In fact, I think, in Rwanda the concept of visiting (gusura) is more pronounced. So many telephone conversations are incomplete without uzadusura ryari (when will you visit us). What makes visiting a tough exercise is the trouble you endure to find the actual address that you are headed to especially in Kigali. There are several reasons for this. First of all, the city has witnessed so much development since 1994 that most people are still relatively new in their addresses. These same addresses also face the challenge of absent landmarks. Old structures are demolished to give way for new ones almost on a monthly basis. So, if someone says, their house is close to the big white house (inzu y’umweru) chances are high that by the time you make up your mind to visit, there will be another white house in the vicinity. The most obvious reason is that many streets, lanes or drives are not named at all. The idea of plot numbers especially in residential areas is still not that utilised and therefore finding a particular person’s physical address can be a real puzzle often saved by numerous phone calls for directions. On other occasions, your day may be saved if the Moto guy knows the exact place you are talking about or the person who lives there. In short the recent news that residents of the 20 sectors making up Kigali city are to be involved in a process of naming several streets was long over due. The business of identifying homes with the help of landmarks should stop, now that more and more people are becoming literate. I would really love to say that I live in Nyacyonga, Ssenyonga lane, house number 4 or something close to that as opposed to, “When you reach the school, you will see a big tree...” I am told residents will name the smaller streets while the other major streets will be named by the districts. Sometimes, the naming of streets takes funny trends. In some countries, it is mere numbers that one may find so hard to memorise. Elsewhere the country’s heroes or those considered as such get the privilege of having streets named after them. In Tanzania you will find so many roads and schools too, named after Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. He was a great man no doubt, but the frequency with which his name was used points more towards some kind of laziness. Actually a few years back the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Foundation asked that the name Nyerere be spared from further usage on schools, roads etc. As a community, one of the simple ways of integrating and learning more about each other could be by borrowing names from the region and using them to name our clean streets. I remember the roundabout adjacent to the US embassy was named after Martin Luther King Jr a few years back. Why not try the same with names from the region. Names from Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya and Uganda can be given to some of our streets. Not only would it spice up the city, some of the visitors from the region will feel more at home. Instead of Tanzanians renaming every corner in Dar, Arusha and Moshi as Nyerere road, they could do with a Kabalega road. At least I have seen that Kampala has got a Kimathi street. There is also Siad Barre Street but more East African names would certainly make it a cooler place in my view. The Kenyan long distance runners have made East Africa very proud and deserve to have some streets named after them. I am sure Bujumbura would do well with a Rudisha avenue. Once we have named some of our roads after the great East Africans/heroes, we can go ahead and ask our school children, who will be using these roads, “Tell the class what you know about Fred Rwigema? Why is that road named after Dedan Kimathi? And I am sure we shall live happily ever after and visit each other more. Email: ssenyonga@gmail.comBlog: www.ssenyonga.wordpress.comTwitter: @ssojo81