Written by Melaku Sahlu - Horizon Ethiopia Staff Writer
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
The definition of a neighborhood is open to several types of interpretations depending on where you get it from. From the rather informal and unconnected grouping defined solely by geographic proximity that dictionaries may be wont to use, to the familial community with bonds so strong it is almost as if it were literal family.
The True Meaning of Neighborhoods
The latter is what I remember growing up in Addis. In fact, some of my most vivid memories of childhood transpired in just such a neighborhood. It was a little street in the Old Airport area of town, one that you would almost never come through unless you were looking for somebody living on it. Backed up right against the old, military airport itself and with just one row of houses separating it from Lion Shopping Center & the main road going down to Sebeta Road and Alert (now consumed by the Ring Road).
Lion Shopping Center used to be just a quick walk over but now lies on the other side of the Ring Road. To get to it, one has to drive all the way up to Tor Hailotch Hospital, make a u-turn and come all the way back down. Price of progress?
Although it’s rock gravel road wasn’t half bad by the standards of other unpaved streets you might encounter in Addis, its residents fondly referred to the neighborhood as Korokonch (rough, unpaved road) and themselves as Korokonch-otch. Most of the households on that street didn’t just know each other as neighbors but as close friends with multiple weekly gatherings at almost all levels from the parents to the smallest kids and all points in between. Cars driving into that street on weekends, had to pause while the kids playing soccer in the middle of the street, stood down to let them pass. The patriarchs took regular walks together during the early evening and would frequently stop by for a quick visit after work or on the weekends. The mothers had gardening competitions, communed over coffee or tea a LOT and were probably most responsible for the regular happenings that would bring together the entire community for an evening or afternoon of merriment for all. And no trip down memory lane would be complete for me without recollections of the bonfires we used to have for Buhe inside one of the compounds in Korokonch.
Inevitable Change
It was while I was driving down this same street recently – over 20 years later – that it struck me how different it and indeed many other Addis neighborhoods look and feel like today. In most such areas, you see virtually no signs of community. No kids playing soccer on the street. No dads taking a leisurely stroll down the street with canes and top hats in hand. Most of the gardening I see today is either professionally done or left to the whims of the zebegna. No, today you’re much more liable to see high walled compounds with barbed wire circling the top. Expats or the upwardly mobile proliferate and many of these neighborhoods are filled with renters. In fact they have a lot more in common with the alternate definition of neighborhood that a dictionary may offer.
Modern day Korokonch. Spotlessly clean, smoothly paved road and not a soul in sight.
The blazing hot residential rental market has no doubt contributed greatly to this phenomenon as has a sizable emigration abroad by much of what used to be the middle class of the city. This market has basically meant that many families who owned their homes, rented them out to willing renters in a city that was increasingly seeing a growing market in this sector due to the growth of international organizations as well as foreign investments in the city. Many of the parents who used to occupy such homes became empty nesters when their children went abroad and subsequently moved into smaller houses while renting their own out to cash in on the hot rental market. Furthermore, a high percentage of home buyers in the newer developments sprouting up all over the city are foreign based (particularly Ethiopian Diaspora) and the majority of them do not actually live in these homes (indeed do not even reside in the country) but rent them out as well. Certainly this set of circumstances may not be evident in all segments of society but seems to be widespread enough to be of note.
The somewhat transient nature of many residents in such neighborhoods therefore has inevitably led to the degradation of the ties that traditionally bound these communities together. There also appears to be a much greater level of diversity amongst residents of these neighborhoods that is certainly not a bad thing overall but is markedly different from previous circumstances and has played a part in the aforementioned degradation as well. In my own neighborhood, the degree of homogeneity between many of the families that used to live in it was quite striking. Parents were generally in about the same age group and there was also close similarity between not just income groups but also in the types of occupations they were involved in. This level of commonality between the families in the neighborhood no doubt played a big part in the closeness this particular community experienced but was by no means unusual elsewhere either.
Inside the Korokonch neighborhood, only one family remains today of the tight knit group that gave it its namesake. And they too recently returned after renting their home out for a few years. Of the twenty some odd kids who used to patrol Korokonch, only two still live in Addis. The rest are spread all over the world and indeed some of the parents have long since emigrated away as well. Once in a while, small groups of us will meet at a wedding or other celebratory event and besides the inevitable physical effects of the passage of time, it’s almost as if not a day has passed since the last gathering we had in our old haunts. The neighborhood itself has a nicely paved road these days. But you won’t find kids playing soccer in the streets and the speed bumps would probably get in the way of the bike races we used to have on some weekends. Compounds are very well secured with high walls and barbed wire which do a great job of keeping undesirable visitors out but also seem to be keeping in much of the neighborly sentiments that made Korokonch such a special place for its residents of yesteryear.
Impact on Social Fabric
I wonder what overall impact this new ‘world order’ in our old neighborhoods has on the social fabric of Addis in general. If we had stronger neighborhoods, would we tend to understand each other a bit more? And what of the families in these neighborhoods, would they be stronger units too because of a more enveloping structure around them? Part of the reason you might not see kids in their own neighborhoods as much anymore is because many of them now hang out at places like Dembel and Friendship Mall. Small wonder for they probably do not have many friends outside of school and immediate family. Far from the watchful eye of parents and other figures of authority they are certainly more likely to be exposed to undesirable influences. And the gap between this younger generation and their parents just seems to grow wider and wider.
More and more I see families moving towards the inward looking and consequently more isolated models of family life that I see in the developed world. Interaction with the society at large tends to be bound more by context these days - through work or school and more so on an individual basis than as a family unit. I can’t help but surmise that it is to the detriment of at least some aspects of our social fabric although I am by no means an expert and the topic could certainly use expert analysis. But perhaps this is the price we have to pay for all the other benefits of development and its attendant trappings.
If there is one constant in any society in the world, it is the inevitability of change whether one chooses to accept all its parts or not. For my part, although I do accept the transformation that Addis as a city is going through on its march to progressive development, I wish I could still visit Korokonch today and see a new generation of neighbors there enjoying the fruits of gurbitina like we did way back when. Because the memories we created and the bonds we forged on that old gravel street are constants in our lives that no amount of change can diminish no matter how inexorable a force it seems.
Beautifully written....gave me a great visual image of the old "Korokonch" neighborhood ( including an array of characters spring to my overactive imagination ). We're talking an Addis "Do the right Thing" here. P.S you're doing a great job with A.Connexion, I truly enjoy the articles... Gobez.... Let me know when I should submit my article on "Yohannes Fikre" aka John Darling. LoL
P.S you're doing a great job with A.Connexion, I truly enjoy the articles... Gobez.... Let me know when I should submit my article on "Yohannes Fikre" aka John Darling. LoL