Gotta love My City!
Leaving our beautiful quiet leafy suburb for the CBD I was quite unprepared for the morning ahead.
My trip to town to visit the Immigration Offices has a fond memory all of its own, never to be forgotten. Having lived in Bulawayo my whole life, I used to know every nook and cranny, every street, every building, every garbage can, but slowly over the years things have changed, road names, new building are popping up.
Progress ! I love progress, we all do.
However I did not account for the closure of a road I have lived with for almost a hundred years!! I must have visited the dear old Immigration Department a thousand times, opposite the TM Hypermarket. Well our erstwhile roads department has taken it upon themselves to make this journey different, most interesting and challenging. I had heard Herbert Chitepo Street was having a makeover, possibly being turned into a one way street.
But it looks like something out of the barricades during the French Revolution..giant concrete structures painted bright yellow stripes, effectively cordon off the two sides of the road - for six whole city blocks!
Once I had found my way into the cute little government building, via a very circuitous route which involved several illegal U turns, I now made my way home, 'via the scenic route.'
From tenth Ave to 4th Avenue, I sallied forth trying to turn right to where home has always been, but the concrete barricades would not permit this. Combis, buses, Honda Vitz, hundreds of them all congregate on this road, it's the African version of Times Square or Piccadilly Circus. The entire length of the barricade, block after block, is festooned with happy menfolk perched on top of the concrete blocks, at eye level. It's 'the place to be' on a chilly winters day.
The progress was slow but I had convivial company the whole way, our Bulawayo people are always friendly and affable.
My window open, handbag happily tucked out of sight, I sallied forth to comments of 'Hello Granny', 'Morning Gogo' delightful repartee the entire way!! There's a great deal of unemployment in Bulawayo and almost every unemployed fellow was basking in the sun atop the warm concrete plinths.
Signage is difficult to locate in Bulawayo! Especially Street Names, I think they ran out of usable street sign material because the names became so very long! Wilson Street is now George Silundika Street and Borrow Street is now Samuel Parienyatwa Street and so on!!
Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo Street - this is the old "Main Street'. That's 4 full names = 33 letters. It's probably the longest official name used in the city center.
Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa Way - formerly 6th Avenue Extension, and Naison Khutshwekhaya Ndlovu Avenue - formerly 3rd Avenue.
I even saw to my surprise that Leopold Takawira Ave is now Mzilikazi Way, but I stand corrected on that one.
Anyhow back to my journey, when the barricades eventually ended, I saw a turning to the right but remembered it was possibly one of the very few one way streets in Bulawayo. No visible signage but with four lanes of cars facing me, I learned the hard way. Onwards we drove and horrors, the next turning was a market street. Now I absolutely love market streets in Bulawayo. The produce is so colourful and the towers of fruit and veg so brilliantly displayed with mathematical precision!!
Hundreds of people, pedestrians, scania push carts, lorries, trucks, jostling with motor vehicles for the tiny piece of road allowed by the cheerful vendors whose beautiful produce had encroached firmly into the narrow road.
But it was colourful, it was charismatic, it was vibrant, it was magic, It was Bulawayo.