By Austin Kaluba –

To Inuits popularly known as Eskimos, a map was a piece of wood with carved gnarls and pocks representing the coastal inlets of Greenland which enabled them to find their location.
To ancient Greeks and early Europeans, maps were flights of fancy and horror, showing beautiful beasts and savage humans of uncharted lands like Africa then derogratorily known as the ‘dark continent.’
Eighteenth Century Buddhists saw maps as moral charts juxtaposing landscapes of men’s sensual desires and ‘infinite space’.
New World colonisers like Britons and the Portuguese used maps as tools of conquest and empire, distorting size and shape to serve their self-interest, something that is being challenged now with calls for secession in former colonies.
No matter what  age, maps have always inspired that human penchant for dreaming of far-off places, for locating oneself in the universe.
In Zambia one former diasporan came up with the dream of coming up with the first Street guide of Lusaka and Livingstone after realising that such guides were non-existent in Zambia.

. Ngomalala

Something that started as a hazy dream for the female entrepreneur Josephine Chileshe Ngomalala  has now snowballed into an established company through the creation of the Streetwise Zambia Limited which is the publisher  of the Lusaka and Livingstone street guide.
The beginning was rocky for Chileshe who had just come back from Manchester in England where her husband Watson, now late had taken her when he was studying for his masters degree in economics at the University of Manchester.
“I always saw a need for a street guide map those days. When I lived in Manchester for three years, I found out that street guides and maps were used all the time,’’ she recalled.
When the couple returned to Zambia Chileshe joined Airtel but never gave up the idea of publishing a street guide.
‘ All I had was faith in myself and despite several teething problems, I had remote feelings that  I could introduce the first street guide in the country. I started making inquiries about the project in 2000’.
And true to Chileshe’s dream, with permission from the Surveyor General, Streetwise Zambia Limited was granted a go ahead in 2000 and since then the company has been producing the colourful Lusaka and Livingstone Street Guide since 2003.
The first edition of the Lusaka street guide was officially launched at Serenity Lodge in Lusaka on May 16, 2003, making it Zambia ’s first ever A to Z Street map booklet. Now in its ninth edition, the street guide is revised annually, to include new developments to the two cities and to address any omissions and commissions.
The colourful launch was graced by the then Minister of Lands Judith Kapijimpanga, the Lusaka Mayor Lieutenant Joseph Kabungo, Government officials and several advertisers who had placed adverts in the publication.
“The street guide sold well encouraging me to soldier on. The same year I left Airtel where I had been employed as a team leader, customer service to take up the job of publishing the street guide full time”, she said.
Encouraged by the sales and response from some quarters, Chileshe elected to incorporate Livingstone making the publication the Lusaka and Livingstone streetguide.
The two cities have grown with the guide both celebrating events like the United Nations World Tourism Organisation(UNWTO) and the Lusaka 100 years respectively.
The booklet contains, among others: Street maps of Lusaka and Livingstone, divided into 32 and 14 full colour maps; map legend and an index to: street names; suburb names; foreign missions; government ministries;  municipalities and places of interest.
Other features include the history of Lusaka and Livingstone, a foreword by the mayor of the two cities, a message on HIV/AIDS from the Dr. K.D. Kaunda, the first President of Zambia and security tips for travellers from the Inspector General of Police.
Needless to say the street guide is a useful tool for locating areas of interest and appropriate services with ease and  is particularly useful to tourists, potential foreign investors , international visitors, the diplomatic community and technical and executive officers of foreign corporations coming to work in the two cities.
The guide also helps ease and encourage unguided movements around the two cities, and reduces the incidence of crime against visitors as they try to find their way around.
“I feel the guide is a must have especially with Zambia successfuly co-hosting the UNWTO conference with Zimbabwe recently. It is a well known fact that every international visitor to the southern part of Africa has the Victoria Falls as one of the sites to see but we want visitors to have access to other areas of interest in the two cities’’, Chileshe said.
Chileshe, who is the director, said the guide has also benefited first time visitors to Zambia and Zambia missions abroad which stocks copies of the street guide.
Housed at 38 Carousel building along Lumumba road in the central business district of Lusaka the guide is distributed by Planet Books, Book World, the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport and some reputable book shops on the Copperbelt.
‘ We also publish customised road maps of Zambia and street maps of Lusaka, Livingstone, Ndola and Kitwe for different clients. We have established an enviable name in making maps, tailored to suit the individual customer’s needs.
Among the company’s numerous clients is  the the British High Commission, the American Embassy, World Bank, Roads Development Agency (RDA), Lafarge, AB Bank, Zamtel, National Airports, ZICTA, Dana Group of Companies, Tourism Council of Zambia, Colas (Z) limited, RTSA and ESCO.
Looking at the rocky terrain, the company has braved to get to where it is, Chileshe disclosed that she wants to go digital in future to have both local and international connections.
‘Digital mapping can also serve as a security safety for people who may not know an area so well to desist straying in an unplanned settlement,’ she said.
Streetwise Zambia Limited has ambitious plans to include the major Copperbelt towns and is already working on a Solwezi street guide following the town’s economic boom.
The director also disclosed that the company is encouraged by ZICTA’s ambitious postcode project to name streets nationally redressing the problem of many streets being unnamed.
‘ZICTA has already done a pilot project in Kalingalinga, Kamwala South in Lusaka and in selected areas in Livingstone which has been helpful to the street guide.’
Streetwise also contributes some copies to the Ministry of foreign affairs for onward transmission to missions abroad. Other copies are given to the Lusaka City Council for all councillors in Lusaka.
The company also prints foldable Zambia travel maps and also printed a Lusaka map to commemorate the 100 years of the city. It is also printing a Jubilee 50 map to celebrate the country’s half-a-century existence as a sovereign State.
“ Since the genesis of the guide, it has been a challenging experience because most indigenous Zambians don’t see the importance of the street guide. Others feel such interventions are only found in Europe which is very unfortunate. Some people even think there is a foreigner behind the company.’
With a jaunty motto of ‘ helping you find the way all the way,’ Streetwise is a must-have copy for any visitor to the two cities not to talk of Zambians who want to understand Lusaka and Livingstone well.
While the Scottish explorer David Livingstone had Susi and Chuma for guidance, the modern visitor has the Lusaka and Livingstone street guide.