A weekend full with contrasts

The most of the time we are moving around in the (richer) suburbs with bigger houses behind walls and fences. We drive around with taxi’s and drivers, who pick us up from the B&B and drop us at ether a restaurant or our client organization and vice versa. And honestly, after having spent a first week only behind walls and fences, I was really happy to go out and explore Harare and surroundings in our first weekend! So we did. And indeed, we got to see a complete different side of the city…

On Saturday morning we were picked up for a walking tour through the township of Mbare. The tour started at the cemetery, on which we were shown the segregation between black and white people.

Cemetery of township of Mbare, Harare

Then we walked into the crowded streets of Mbare, with old flats and worn-down houses, many without windows. So this is the part of Harare with real poverty and street life. Everywhere television antennas on the buildings and clothes hanging to dry.

Mbare, with many old flats and worn-down houses, with television antennas and clothes hanging to dry

Concrete walls with colorful paintings and music.

Examples of colorful murals of Mbare

Many children hanging around and playing on the streets.

Mbare — Children hanging around and playing everywhere

We spoke with the owner of a local famous recording studio, who gave us the opportunity to have a look inside his dark flat without windows, where they record their reggae music.

Mbare — In and outside the local famous reggae recording studio

At some moments we felt quite uncomfortable, with many people staring at us, and whispering to each other. Especially while we were crossing the market, which was packed with stalls and people selling food and a lot of second-hand ware.

Mbare — market with people selling food and other second-hand ware

Then we drove to another part of the township where many young families live, to visit a healer, who showed us his healing practice and told us about the many people he had healed with his herbs and natural healing methods.

Part of Mbare with houses for families

Natural healer who invited us in his practice and told us about the many people he had healed and his healing methods

While we were still digesting all these impressions from Mbare, we drove to a luxury restaurant, which was part of a country club, for lunch. Really, the contrast could not have been bigger…

Harare — Country club and restaurant Lush

In the evening we went out to a music festival, which is carrying the name of all those beautifully purple colored trees that are flourishing everywhere in Harare at this time of the year: the Jacaranda. We had a lot of fun, dancing in front of the stage on popular Southern African music. Most of us met some colleagues from our host organizations on the venue as well, nice to meet them in a completely different setting.

Harare — Jacaranda music festival with a mixture of Zimbabwean stars and a famous South African DJ

On Sunday morning we left early for a safari trip into the Imire Wildlife Conservation Park. We had a beautiful sunny day and took many pictures, as the animals came really close to our car. Though for most of us the safari experience itself was rather disappointing, as the animals were being fed by the rangers and were actually not so ‘wild’ at all.

Imire Wildlife Conservation Park

Summarizing, in this first week and weekend, Zimbabwe and Harare showed us the big contrast between rich and poor in this country. There is an enormous difference between the suburbs in which we are mainly moving around with the poverty that exists in other areas of the city and the locations of Young Africa‘s (our host client) skills centres in the so-called ‘high-density areas’ (like Chitungwiza, which we visited earlier)…

I will write about our activities during the second weekend at the Victoria Falls in my next blog.