• Which disappearing name would you like to bring back?
• Which place names would you like to see retired?

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MARCO WERMAN: Let’s go now to the answer to our Geo Quiz today about geographic names that have disappeared.  Did you find Tanganyika yet on the map?  Well, it once bordered the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria, but it’s vanished!  Harry Campbell has written a book about place names that history left behind, and Harry it’s called what, your book?

HARRY CAMPBELL:  It’s called “Whatever happened to Tanganyika?” which is actually something a friend of mine said to me once on the phone as we were discussing the subject.  I thought it had a good ring to it.

WERMAN:  Right, so whatever did happen to Tanganyika?  Let’s start off with that question?

CAMPBELL:  You want to spoil the surprise.  Okay.  It became independent, as so many African states did in the 1960s, in 1961.  But don’t forget that what we now call it is not quite the same thing, because it incorporated with Zanzibar three years later, and they simply took the “Tan” of Tanganyika and the “Zan” of Zanzibar and called it “Tanzania.”

WERMAN:  Now Harry, you’ve come up with about 50 examples in your book.  What’s the most recent name change to your mind?

CAMPBELL:  Well, there’s some which are very much kind of in progress, if you like.  There’s sort of an infamous one really, Derry, or Londonderry in Northern Ireland. That’s still very much bubbling under.  There’s some kind of procedure in progress at the moment to officially change the name from Londonderry, which is hated by the Republican community, to Derry, which is probably what most people call it, but that’s not an easy thing to do.  A lot of them seem recent to

me, even though actually they’re not when you add it up.  I still think of Yugoslavia as being recent, but unfortunately it isn’t. That’s just age, isn’t it?

WERMAN:  And what drives these name changes?  I mean, Londonderry and Derry, I mean, there’s a lot of political subtext there, isn’t there?

CAMPBELL:  A huge amount of political subtext.  Some of these things are very hot potatoes altogether and they’re to do with righting ancient injustices or the head on clash of two cultures, or changing from one language to another.  A lot of places in Eastern Europe we used to call by their Germanic name, and now we use the Slavic equivalent.  And of course the African ones often had European style names invented for them which have now been done away with.

WERMAN:  If you look at India, you’ve got the cities of Calcutta and Madras, now Kolkata and Chennai.  What’s driving that, do you think?

CAMPBELL:  Cynically, you might say that is the most overtly and really blatantly political of all, because you might ask, why did the Indian names change now, 50 years [MISSING AUDIO] very tangled web and I think many people in India would say they should just leave well alone.

WERMAN:  Are you one of those people who pines for Tanganyika as opposed to Tanzania?

CAMPBELL:  No.  By and large, I don’t have strong moral feelings about these different places, except of course to the extent that atrocities happened in them, and let me tell you, some of the stories would curl your hair.  The one feeling I do have sometimes is that nowadays, we’re possibly too quick to use a local name that just doesn’t work happily in English.

WERMAN:  For example?

CAMPBELL:  When there is a perfectly good– well, why do we have to call it Moldova as opposed to Moldavia?  It’s still the same place, you know.

WERMAN:  What drove that change?

CAMPBELL:  I think it’s just part of becoming a new nation, or throwing off the imperial shackles in the case of the Moldovans of the Soviet empire.  They want to sort of rebrand themselves and have a fresh identity.  I supposed, you know, one can sort of sympathize.  That is perfectly legitimate, but it makes people confused and uncertain.  I mean, what’s the adjective?  Are they Mold-O-vans or MOL-do-vans?  No one knows how to pronounce it.

WERMAN:  Now you call this a book of nostalgic geography, but implicit in that nostalgia is some pretty rough and tough histories.

CAMPBELL:  There are.

WERMAN:  For example, I wonder what the Congolese would say when asked, “Were times better when your capital was Leopoldville or now that it is Kinshasa?” and I think most would say, “Independence is far better than the alternative.”

CAMPBELL:  Yes, indeed, but then, of course, independence often goes awry when it’s hijacked by demagogues and tyrants and dictators, so the late and not at all lamented dictator who called Congo Zaire, at least, he called the Belgian Congo Zaire.

WERMAN:  Mobutu Sese Seko.

CAMPBELL:  Exactly.  Now he’s– that was only one of two Congos.  People don’t– people forget that there are in fact two.  There’s the People’s Republic and the Democratic Republic, or Congo Kinshasa, and Congo Brazzaville.

WERMAN:  Right.

CAMPBELL:  But yeah, Kinshasa has been through some pretty bad times.  It used to be “Kin La Belle” because it was thought to be beautiful.  It was one of the most elegant and modern African cities, but I don’t think that it still really could quite be called that.  It’s suffered quite badly over the years.

WERMAN:  Harry Campbell, are there any cases of voluntary name changes that didn’t involve colonial powers invading or conquesting an area?

CAMPBELL:  There’s a place in Montana that renamed itself Joe, so that it could be Joe, Montana.

WERMAN:  Right, I remember that, yeah.

CAMPBELL:  No, but how seriously people take these sorts of name changes, I’m not 100 percent sure.  It’s just a bit of fun, I guess.

WERMAN:  I’m wondering, you mentioned Moldova.  I’m wondering if there’s a place name that you think really should get changed.

CAMPBELL:  Well, I wonder what people think about those.  Presumably if they haven’t changed them, they’re not bothered by them.

WERMAN:  Well, that’s a great question we can share with our listeners.  What disappearing name would you like to bring back?  Which place names would you like to see retired?  So let us know.  Post your comments at The World dot org, and we can circle back with you Harry, and give you some of those answers, maybe for some further research.

CAMPBELL:  That would be great.

WERMAN:  Harry Campbell, that’s still your name, right?  You didn’t change it since this interview began?

CAMPBELL:  No, I’m sticking with it for now.  I’ll cross it out on the headed paper if I change my mind.

WERMAN:  All right, Harry Campbell, the author of “Whatever Happened to Tanganyika?” speaking to us from Glasgow, Scotland.  Thank you very much.

CAMPBELL:  You’re welcome.  Thank you.

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Andrea Crossan

My name is Andrea Crossan, and I’m a producer here at The World. As you can see, though, I’m not currently in Boston. I’m in Kenya for two weeks with the International Reporting Project. I’m criss-crossing the country with 11 other journalists, speaking to Kenyans about the problems they’re facing right now.

That list of problems is a long one. It includes health issues such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, and environmental concerns like land and water management. There is also continuing fall-out from the post-election violence that erupted here at the end of 2007.

It’s a strange situation for the people we meet. Instead of a lone journalist with a microphone, camera, or notepad, our group is like the paparazzi swarming in, with digital cameras clicking, Flip cameras rolling, and microphones being thrust forward. It’s hard to imagine how our interviewees feel about our presence. So far, people have been very polite about this media swarm. The kids are always curious, and ready to pose for pictures.

One of our first stops is the Siaya District Hospital near the city of Kisumu, which is located northwest of Nairobi on Lake Victoria. Siaya Hospital has 220 beds, and serves about 120,000 patients a year. This region of Kenya has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the country. Siaya gets money from the US Government’s PEPFAR program to do HIV tests, provide counseling, and to distribute anti-retroviral drugs. To the left, you can see that Siaya also has a circumcision clinic for men. Circumcision is a tough sell in this part of Kenya, which is predominantly populated by the Luo tribe. Historically, Luo men don’t get circumcised, so the clinic does a lot of outreach to explain the importance of circumcision in lowering the risk of HIV infection.

The next destination on our whistle-stop tour of the Kenyan countryside was a visit with Sarah Onyango Obama. Yes, she’s President Obama’s step-grandmother. She lives in a village called Kogelo, not far from Siaya. Mama Sarah, as she’s called, patiently chatted with us, through an interpreter, about her family and her life.  We had a nice visit with her under a tree in the garden of her home. She was kind enough to let us walk around the property and look at the  gravesite of President Obama’s father. Mama Sarah is a bit of a celebrity in these parts. In fact, the Obama name is everywhere. For example, later in the day we visited Senator Obama Primary School. The children there treated us to a song about a new Kenyan constitution.  It’s the national obsession. Since the forming of the coalition government last year, constitutional reform has proceeded slower than most Kenyans would like. So even young kids sing about how they want a new constitution. And on our drive back, we caught sight of a small posho mill that has adopted the Obama name. Posho is kind of a corn-meal porridge that’s a staple food in this part of the world. We never found out if the Obama name helped the mill’s sales.

No trip along the rough roads of Kenya would be complete without a flat tire. Turns out our spare tire was also flat. So we had to wait by the side of the road for a tire to be delivered to us. Luckily, some local kids were more than happy to hang out and help us pass the time. After the tire arrived, we headed back to Nairobi. We’re supposed to be visiting the Kibera slum in the coming days. Somebody should tell the local residents that a van-load of camera-wielding journalists are on their way.

Andrea traveled to Kenya in 2009 on an International Reporting Project Gatekeeper Editors Fellowship.

Asante Sana until the next post.

* I just asked my Kenyan friend Charles Chalo about posho. He tells me that posho is beans.  A typical meal is Githeri – beans mixed with maize.