[OSM-talk] Local guidance for finding places (Insarro, Ethiopia..)

[Ben Discoe]

There is a popular local restaurant which says on its website, "Many
ingredients and spices are brought directly from the town of Enssaro
in Ethiopia"

Curious, I looked for this town in OpenStreetMap.  Nothing exists with
that spelling, but a similar spelling "Insarro" gives a single node
(http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1150893606) which is apparently
just a "GeoDatabase" import (presumably GNS/GeoNames), which causes
OSM (and Google etc.) to believe there is a "locality" there.

However, there is no town there, nor even any settlements nearby.
There is a village "Lemi" to the south, and other small villages to
the north.

This raises the general question, how to find local knowledge?

The wiki page (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Ethiopia)
contains mostly dead links and points to a deserted mailing list for
Ethiopia; perhaps there is a more general East Africa, or Africa
specific OSM list or forum which actually has people?  Anyone that
would know if a town of that name actually exists, and where it might
be?

Thanks,
Ben