The story behind University of Rwanda hostel names

When one goes to University of Rwanda’s Huye Campus for the first time, one can get lost because of the jargon used there. The Former National University of Rwanda (NUR) which is now University of Rwanda’s College of Arts and Social sciences was the first university in the country and remained so until 1997 when University of Rwanda’s College of Sciences and Technology formerly Kigali Institute of Science and technology (KIST) was established. Everything at this campus has a nickname, from hostels, intakes and different areas around the campus. Some of the hostels like Vietnam, Cambodge, Misereor, and Kiza were built in the 1960s when the University had just been established. But how did these hostels come to be named this way? Our reporter Marie-Anne Dushimimana sought to find out. Vietnam Vietnam or Viet is a hostel reserved for female students, made of six blocs just located under the main building known as ‘Batiment Central’. Each room has two single beds, a wardrobe and a bathroom and houses female students in second or third year. Dr Jean-Paul Kwizera, a Senior Lecturer at the campus who is also a former student says the hostel was named so because it was opened in 1975 at the height of the Vietnamese war. Viet. The Vietnamese war which erupted after the Second World War was fiercely contested by communist North Vietnam supported by China and the Soviet Union against South capitalist Vietnam which was supported by USA with its allies like Australia, South Korea and Thailand among others. Vietnam is divided into six blocs named in the alphabetical order: Aba, Bana, CyuraDawe, Ejo and Fumba. According to Dr Kwizera, the bloc names form a meaningful phrase, like a short prayer to female students living there. “Dawe Cyura Aba Bana Ejo (Lord bring home these children tomorrow), it’s meaningful. Students especially the female ones meet various challenges before graduating. It’s like someone is wishing them well so as they return safe in their communities,” he said. However, Venantie Mukamunana, who studied at the college in the 1970s has a different story behind the name Viet, referring it to the very small number of female students at the time compared to male students. “Initially, female students were very few at that campus and we all lived in that hostel. It was hard for male students to find girl friends among us and sometimes they could fight each other for girls. That’s how students started joking that getting a girlfriend in the campus required fighting a Vietnamese war,” she said. Mukamunana recalls that in her particular class of languages, they were only 3 girls out of 60 students. She further adds that the names of the other blocs referred to the names of hills located in Huye district. Cambodge The hostel called Cambodge is located just below Vietnam. It’s made of five houses which are None, Oga, Rara, Sasa, and Pe. Like Vietnam, DrKwizera said this hostel was constructed during the Cambodian civil war, which later resulted into genocide. It is made of big rooms, with two single beds, and are better compared to the ones in Vietnam. Cambodge used to be a home for students who were in their last year of university. “When you arrange these names like this: None, Oga, Sasa, Rara, Pe (Today, Wash, arrange the bed, sleep, surely) you get a meaning,” Dr Kwizera said. Cambodge Misereor Misereor is a Latin word which refers to pity or showing pity or mercy. This hostel is for male students and has 3 blocs which are Hoge, Ihi and Jambo. Mukamunana says this hostel was given the name of the organization which constructed and donated it to the campus. Misereor is a religious humanitarian non-governmental organization which for over 50 years has helped people in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Misereor Kiza Kiza is a hostel located near Butare Teaching Hospital (CHUB), and it is home to students who are in their last year of medical school. “This hostel used to receive students who were finishing their medical degrees and would help treat doctors at CHUB. It is said that the origin of the name Kiza came from a Kinyarwanda verb “Gukiza”, which means treating and healing sick people,” Mukamunana said. Linda Located on Mamba hill, Linda is home to students from the agronomy department. Their classrooms and laboratories are located just near the hostel. The story behind the name of this hostel is not clear but Dr Kwizera says it is possible it was named so because one of the purposes of the faculty was to increase animal production, from a Kinyarwanda verb Kurinda. Titanic One of the most popular hostels, Titanic is located near Barthos Hotel was constructed in 1997 when Titanic, a Hollywood blockbuster had just been released. Dr Didas Kayihura, a Lecturer in the School of Law, says that at the time the hostel was completed, Titanic was a very popular movie and that is how the hostel ended up being named after the famous movie. “This hostel was very big compared to others in the campus at the time, just like the Titanic in the film,” he said. He added that all the names were invented by the students themselves. “The institution has official names for the hostels, but they were not known as students applied theirs in relation to things which were making headlines,” he said. Titanic. Nyarutarama Dr Didas Kayihura says that Nyarutarama hostel which was completed in the early 2000s was officially named Rwigema, after the Late Fred Gisa Rwigema, who was part of the soldiers who started the liberation of the country but died in the early days of the struggle. But the students named it Nyarutarama because it was constructed in a modern way, just like the houses that were being constructed in Nyarutarama, a suburb of Kigali. Benghazi Benghazi is a hostel which was constructed in 2012 and is the last to be built in College of Art and Social sciences. At the time it was completed, a coalition of western forces were at the time helping rebels in Libya to remove then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and one of the cities in Libyan- Benghazi was hotly contested by the rebels and the government forces. Apart from hostels… Intakes also had nick names from the time the campus was founded until 2016 when this culture was banned by the campus authorities. For example, in 2009 the first year intake were called “Abavangarayi” from Morgan Tsvangarai, a key figure opposition figure in Zimbabwe who contested the first round of the 2008 presidential election and later became the Prime Minister until 2013. The 2008 intake was called Mano y’inanga which was coined after people who at the time didn’t have mobile numbers that started with “0788”. The 2010 freshers were called Ibicurane, because of the Swine Flu which had hit the region at the time. In 2011, girls at the campus were referred to as ‘Nyakatsi’ from a then government policy of getting people to leave grass thatched houses for modern houses while boys were named ibigarasha, a word that is used to refer to enemies of the country whose sole purpose is to destroy it. The 2013 intake was called Abadehe, after ‘Ubudehe’ a government program which was based on a long-standing Rwandan practice and culture of collective action and mutual support to solve problems within a community. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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The story behind University of Rwanda hostel names