The Bulawayo Fountain          - 2/12/2014      <--Prev : Next-->

Leopold Takawira, formerly Selborne Avenue, is my road, I undoubtedly own it, I have driven into town along Takawira almost every day of my lengthy life!!

I know every palm, every palm swift, every wall, every shadow and nuance of the Centenary Park. I was there when it was opened by the Queen Mother in 1953, I waved my Union Jack energetically along with hundreds of school children. I watched the two shy princesses receive their diamond and silver Flame Lily Brooches.

I watched the glorious park, written about in history books, destroyed by the ravages of drought and neglect. For many years it was advisable to wear horse blinkers when driving up the road, as the ruination was just too much to bear.

However as we speak, a beautiful phoenix is rising from the ashes!!

A largish area surrounding the fountain, where the Friday weddings are traditionally filmed, has become a virtual paradise once again.

Not quite Kew Gardens, not quite the park that Municipal Horticulturalist Bob Hardman envisaged, but mighty pretty just the same.

The lawns are green, verdant and well mowed, and every flowerbed is festooned with neatly, almost regimentally planted in single file, giant orange cannas!! There are literally hundreds of them and they are all in flower right now. Along with the bright orange marmalade buses, rows and rows of brilliant red salvia bushes, they are a sight to behold indeed.

Bus loads of school children were there, in their emerald green pinnies, playing happily and enthusiastically on the soft green lawns, while every Friday and some Saturdays, wedding parties enjoy their photographic experiences around the fountain.

Somedays the trash is awful outside the park, but if one tries to pretend that the white plastic bags are snowdrops and the styrene cartons are daffodils and one feels a whole lot better about one's fellow man.

---