Bulawayo Beats: The Mood on the Streets

It's been about a month without any worthwhile Internet, and in that time, I've completed the last 500km of my cycling trip, kicked it for a couple of weeks in rural Botswana, and have crossed the border into Zimbabwe. 

It's impossible not to have some preconceived notions about Zimbabwe. I guess that's true of most places, but Zimbabwe stands out for its notoriety on the international stage: attacks on white farmers, brutal political violence, hyperinflation, economic collapse, outbreaks of cholera, etc. Perhaps what Zimbabwe is most known for is the old man who has been in power for over three decades and has presided over one of the most staggering declines in human development outside those societies engaged in open conflict: Robert Mugabe. 

The old man is one of the dinosaurs of African politics, and Mugabe has built a reputation as the head of one of the most repressive states on the continent. You only have to research Gukurahundi, or the Third Chimerunga to come to terms with the blood that has been spilled here since independence.

Knowing all this, it was with real trepidation that I decided to cross the border from Francistown and set up shop in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city and the main stronghold of opposition to Mugabe's rule.

Hint: It's kind of a fixer-upper.

I've been to some pretty tense places in the world. I've lived in Jos, which has experienced some of Nigeria's worst interethnic violence over the last ten years. I traveled through Côte d'Ivoire on the eve of a renewed civil war. I spent time in Liberia and Sierra Leone, two countries slowly rebuilding after decades of savage violence at the hands of brutal warlords. Hell, I even unwittingly crossed into Guinea-Bissau about an hour before a coup d'etat threatened to bring down the biggest little narco-state in the world.

All my past experiences, however, were born of chaos, and as frightening as it may seem, if you know how to navigate chaos, it becomes relatively predictable. I can't say the same of a police state, where violence is directed and the men with guns seem so much more dangerous. 

I've been in Bulawayo nearly a week now, and I'm not dead yet. This is what I've learned so far.

In all my travels, everyone I've ever heard speak about Zimbabwe invariably says something along the lines of, "The scenery is unbelievably beautiful. The people are the friendliest in Africa. It's a shame what the country has become." That statement is more true than I could have imagined.

This country is stupidly beautiful. It's winter here, though if you were coming from a temperate climate, you wouldn't know it. To me, it feels like an autumn day in England (at least on one of the rare days when it isn't raining). During the day, it's dry, sunny, and warm. At night, the temperatures fall to just above freezing. To me, it's perfect, but Zimbabweans seem to have inherited the English predisposition to complain about anything and everything. I recently overheard someone at a cafe say, "See, this is the problem with the weather during this time of year. If you sit in the sun, you get too hot, but if you sit in the shade, you need a jumper." You've heard of 'first world problems,' this is a decidedly 'privileged Zimbabwean problem.'

The people are also ridiculously friendly. I seem to have learned over the course of many travels (to my detriment) to ignore most people who accost me on the street. "Excuse me, sir, how are you..." often leads to a market stall selling trinkets, a Moroccan rug dealer, or a man who will perform back alley exorcisms (Nigeria can be a very, very strange place).

I've become so used to this kind of street harassment that I often shrug it off and ignore 98% of people I pass by on any given day (a habit that has served me well in New York and London). So when I was stopped in the street by a young guy with dreadlocks, asking me if I'd like to come to a watch his traditional dance group rehearse, I immediately thought, "Right, how much is this going to cost me slash where will you take my harvested organs?"

To my surprise, my organs were not harvested, nor was I made to sit and drink tea while someone tried to foist an old djembe on me. It was a rehearsal for a music and dance troupe who performed traditional Shona, Ndebele, Kalanga, and Tswana dances. They'd traveled all around Africa and even into Europe for competitions, and damn, were they good. They asked nothing of me and were just excited to meet me and have me in their company. I haven't felt so welcome among strangers in a long time.

Other Zimbabweans just seem to really love people. Not since I was in West Africa have I had so many strangers greet me on the streets or from moving vehicles, but whereas in West Africa I always had the fleeting suspicion that my rarity as a white foreigner evoked normally reserved smiles and excited shrieking children, in Zimbabwe, I feel like a well-known neighbor out for a stroll. 

Like any beloved neighbor, the people on the street are quick with a joke and a wink to lead you through the drudgery of the everyday. Crossing through a busy parking area, I found myself trapped behind a car that was attempting to pull out of a parking space and into traffic. Forward a bit, then reverse, a bit to the side, do a quick three pointer, wait, go, stop, back again, stop, wait for it...wait for it...reverse one more time for good measure, drop the clutch, and...damn, stalled. Having to break stride and try to find a way around this idiot, a man in a suit casually remarked, without even looking my way, "Ya, the traffic here is annoying," before continuing on his way without another word. I imagine his quip brought a wry smile to his face, matching the one on my own.

Then there's the other side of the coin. The landscape is beautiful; the people are amazingly friendly. It's just a shame what's become of the country.

Bulawayo is like a city trapped in time. I haven't experienced anything quite like it. The closest memory I can find is that of the Liberian capital, Monrovia. There, as here, walking about gives you the sense that the city planners decided sometime in the mid-1980s that they just weren't going to bother building anything anymore. There are literally no modern buildings, nothing new and exciting, just cheap steel, cheaper concrete, and faded paint. You get this vibe like the cities' civil engineers just up and decided, "Meh...good enough"  and went on to do other things. 

In Monrovia, you could understand this. Other things included 'not dying,' as various rebel groups rampaged through the city. The bullet holes that pockmark nearly every building are a constant reminder of the country's civil war and the two decades of hell meted out by the various warring factions. In Bulawayo, there's no such evidence, nor, unless you study the country's economic history and the city's role in manufacturing for commercial agriculture, any overt reason as to why the city is a throwback to Margaret Thatcher, Live Aid, and early episodes of "MacGyver." 

Sometimes, this kind of 'stuck in time' atmosphere is appealing. The village center in my home town hasn't changed much since the turn of the century, and if you passed through, you might consider it 'quaint.' It's maintained its 'Americana' appeal through a series of family businesses - a pharmacy, a hardware store, a clock shop. Get anymore quaint and you'd expect to find a toffee shop next to a cobbler's. 

No one, on the other hand, sees architecture from the late 70s and thinks, "Oh that's quaint." Certainly not in a country's second-largest city. Instead, you have to sit back and wonder, "What happened? Why has this city died? Why has it suffered like this?"

And who designed those streetlamps?

Stop and think about it for a moment. We're so used to development and construction that it's difficult to imagine any prosperous urban landscape as anything other than what it is at our present moment. Memory is imperfect, and unless you're specially attuned to the creative destruction of the modern city, it's hard to remember that that Starbucks used to be a newspaper agent's, that that boutique used to be a hardware store, or that that ATM used to be a telephone booth that stank of hobo piss. Maybe you can remember specific examples of what used to be, but when an entire neighborhood has changed, it's difficult to piece together the previous landscape of the street.

Not so, Bulawayo. If you could travel back ten years, then twenty, you'd find the same buildings, maybe with a fresher coat of paint. Maybe the clock on city hall would still be working, instead of being stuck at 4:35 on one side and 11:22 on the other. Other than that, your only clues would be the current fashions and cell phones.

Doesn't matter. Africa time.

The city is haunted by a former prosperity and seems to manifest the old cliche 'down on its heels.' Sidewalks are cracked; the roads are filled with potholes. The streetlights are mostly broken, their faded blue paint wracked with rust and decay. You see a strange mix of cars that speak to the disparity of wealth in the country: a brand new Mercedes Benz next to a well cared for but worn Nissan Sunny, Toyota Landcruisers standing alongside ancient Mazdas, all of them parked behind meters that haven't worked for decades.

Probably for good reason..

The large park in the center of town has the feel of an abandoned Soviet-era amusement park. Weeds choke out any flowers that might have been, termites swarm over grass and tree, the playgrounds and monuments are littered with styrofoam takeaway containers, cans, and broken bottles.

Brought to you by Stalin's ghost...

the lovely people at Chernobyl...

and depressing monuments worldwide.

For me, Bulawayo may be synonymous with 'neglect' or 'decay,' and I have to wonder whether this city is indicative of what's happened in the rest of the country. I've heard that there haven't been any new roads built since independence, that sanitation, water, and electricity have all suffered from years of austerity, not the kind we speak of in the west, where politicians tell us we have to tighten our belts, but the kind of austerity that comes instead from literally having no money left in the bank. Recently, Zimbabwe's finance minister admitted that the entire country had $217 left in the treasury. That's less money to run a country than I pulled out of an ATM last week. I recently met an education official who confided that the Ministry of Education had $20,000 to spend for the entire month of May. That's supposed to cover books, teachers' salaries, infrastructure improvements, etc. It invariably doesn't.

It'd be easy to get down on Zimbabwe in general and Bulawayo in particular, but that's not my intent. I've loved the last few days I've spent here, in part because of the beautiful weather and the beautiful character of the people. 

There's another reason as well though, one that leaves me optimistic for the future. Everywhere I've gone in Bulawayo, I've seen people on bikes. You look alongside major roads, and there are cycle lanes running in every direction. Indeed, there are cycle lanes everywhere. They're ancient, for sure. Most of the signs are rusted and worn, but the paths are in great shape and can take you wherever you want to go. It's incredible to see so many people cycling, more than I'd see in most major American and even some European cities. Certainly more than I've seen anywhere else in Africa. At a time when Americans are introducing bike shares to cities like Chicago, DC, and New York, arguing over cycle lanes, traffic restrictions, helmets, and whether or not cyclists should be treated as pedestrians, vehicles, or some kind of hybrid motopeople, the people of Bulawayo are just cycling along to work and school without any thought as to whether they're being progressive, health conscious, or environmental. For them, it's just the best way to get around. 

And look like the f***ing boss while doing it.

And I know that many are on bikes because they can't afford cars, that if the city hadn't suffered through thirty years of mismanagement and neglect that the streets might be crammed with all manner of vehicles spitting out smog and carcinogens, but here's the thing: modern life is cyclical. We pick up new habits to save time or better our health, and then put them down again when we realize that, actually, the old ways were better. Our cities sprawl and we leave public transport for personal vehicles before we get tired of sitting in traffic for three hours and we start to wonder if maybe it'd be nicer to live closer to work in a revitalized downtown. We ditch butter for margarine before we realize that margarine tastes terrible and only kills you quicker. We eat more meat because we can afford it and it's cheaper before realizing that the meat industry is actually terrible and all that beef is clogging our arteries. We move to office jobs from the blue collar world of physical exhaustion at the end of the day only to realize that we need now to get some kind of exercise or risk turning into a soft, pasty pile of dough. Sometimes you just need to hit bottom before creative destruction kicks in and you can build yourself up again.

In that regard, Bulawayo may be well positioned to rise into a progressive, modern city. Don't make any mistake: Bulawayo will rebound. It's decline came about in part because of violence and instability, because of disastrous fiscal policies and hyperinflation, but like the rest of the country, it is well positioned for a renaissance. The only question is whether the economic and political climate will bless the city with rain after such a prolonged drought (metaphorically speaking). 

We can rebuild it...we have the technology.

I think it will come about. For some reason, the bike lanes give me hope. In this beautiful land, with brilliant, friendly people, you have to believe that the better angels of our nature can overcome the demons in office. I'm optimistic that can happen, and I'm looking forward to the day it does.