The same grocery stores standing in the same places or the same food courts serving the same produce. This is good and bad as that means not much noticeable commercial/urban development has been able to take place in seven years. It also means that on top of the local economic collapse, most businesses have managed to survive the torrential downpour of financial Armageddon that the world has recently seen.
One urban creature that has started to thrive and continues to multiply all over town is the café/restaurant variety. Meeting for a beverage is a popular social, and often business-meet pastime in Harare. There are even new places hidden in residential areas where people have clearly turned their homes into cosy watering holes for the urban dweller. What I love about this is that no two are the same and they all have that homely feel. Think Obs Café in Cape Town, but usually bigger as most homes enjoy a half or full-acre of land. The generic Starbucks-like coffee chain has no place in Harare. By going to various friends’ houses around town, I am reminded just how breathtaking Harare homes and their gardens are. Green, lush and full of bird life, especially in the current rainy season!
When it comes to utilities, there is still much to be desired. Every week is riddled with power cuts that last from just a few hours to days depending on where in the city you are and the reason why it’s gone. The same goes with municipal water. When you wake up, or at any time during the day for that matter, you never know if you’ll get any water when you open the tap, or whether you’ll have light when you flick the switch. The landline phone also seems to randomly go dead from time to time. All this comes hand in hand with living in a fully developed city which seems surreal (or frustrating) for the 21st century.
I am still humbled by the general attitude Zimbabweans have towards this harsh reality. They make a plan and life goes on. People have installed huge five-thousand litre water tanks for backup along with more boreholes being sunk where they can. Power generators are the norm if people can afford them. Otherwise it’s just candles and the use of empty two-litre Mazoe juice bottles to store water. Interestingly, people are still being charged hefty bills for these services and are ironically threatened to be cut off, when there is nothing to cut off in the first place!
The roads are riddled with potholes, which I aptly refer to as craters, as the depth of these cavities is phenomenal. Not everywhere, but people have to drive slowly to make sure they don’t get caught off guard by one of these things and do their tyres damage. I’ve found this situation to be a direct cause of some drivers refusing to dip their lights at night as they prefer to blind on-coming traffic rather than miss a gaping hole in the road.
Another noticeable difference from when I left is that the streetlights are defunct so the roads are very dark at night. There are a few traffic lights that are also permanently down and you’ve got to keep your eyes peeled. When I left Zim, I used to ride a motorcycle and finding fuel was very difficult as supplies were scarce. Now that seems to be a thing of the past with more than enough fuel to meet demand. Not to mention the increase in demand for diesel to feed all those hungry power generators countrywide.
It seems Africa is slowly being patched up, day by day, leaf by leaf. I’ve even seen some of the main roads being repaired and the streets are being cleaned by municipal workers, something that has not been witnessed for years! It’s still in the early stages, but there seems to be a dawn on the horizon of this dark age that took the rainbow nation by surprise over twelve years ago.
