I usually find it challenging to locate a place in Addis at which I have not previously been before. I find that the Sub City names and woredas are of no use when trying to locate a place. Imagine yourself trying to find a café located in Bole Sub City and in woreda 14! I bet there are more than 50 potential cafes you might need to explore before you find the right one! Generally speaking, one needs to be able to know a certain hotel or some other institution nearby the place they are looking for if they are to ever going to find the place in concern. But what happens if you do not know any “well-known” reference institutions nearby the place you planning to go to? Or worse, what if you are completely new to Addis and do not know any place whatsoever in the city? I also find it funny that people (including myself) use, say, a hotel which has long ceased to exist (the building is there but has become a different institution) as a reference location. For instance, people use Imperial Hotel as a reference while the hotel has long ceased to exist and the building has a different name and is used for some other purpose. It will indeed be pretty challenging for a newcomer to find Imperial Hotel!
I have recently noticed that there are blue signs erected at the different street joints of the city. They are street names I suppose. I have tried to read some of them and find that they contain combinations of letters and numbers, which I think are pretty long to remember. While I duly appreciate the initiation to name even the narrowest and less frequented streets of the city, I also wished these signs were easier to remember. And besides, I wonder how many of the city’s residents actually use these street signs to navigate the city. Nowadays, thanks to google maps, one can navigate the city comfortably. But maybe it’s just me but street names like ‘Equatorial Guinea Street’ or ‘Djibouti Street’ are not, in my opinion, being used by residents of the city. Although the city’s administration should be commended for naming our streets, I believe there is a very long way to go before each street is named and is internalized by its residents.
It is true that Addis is a city still under construction and naming each and every street in this situation can be a futile exercise. But I still believe that some effort should be made by the administration to oblige its citizens to start using and internalizing the street names that are already into place. Take kebele IDs for instance. Only the Sub City, woreda and house number of the holder are specified on these IDs. Incorporating street names in kebele IDs can be one way of making sure that people internalize these names. Obliging various institutions to indicate street names in their contact addresses can be another way. Otherwise, all these nice street names will be nothing but mere names with no use whatsoever.
I usually wonder how exactly one communicates by phone his or her exact address to the hospital in case he or she needs a very urgent medical help. I bet it takes an unnecessarily long time before an understanding is reached between the hospital and the patient about the exact address of the patient. The lack of easily identifiable addresses can have costly consequences. If one wants to report a crime to the police he or she is witnessing, being able to easily and quickly communicate the exact address of the crime scene is crucial if the police is to quickly deploy armed forces and prevent further casualties. My point here is, street names and numbers are not luxuries. They need to be put into place and be internalized by its residents!
