Harare, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – Morning dawns and the park comes to life slowly with waking up street kids, time pushing job hunters too early for their interviews and vagabonds sleeping off hangovers.
Year round the lush green of Harare Gardens remains an abiding but ironical paradise patrolled, in impeccable smart-wear, by Jehovah’s Witnesses seeking for lost souls whilst passing by blacked out Bronco-filled derelicts.
The park has endured the trying times being faced by the country, managing to remain intact as a paradise of green lawns and tall pinesdrooping down upon the resting people.
Through-out the year Harare Gardens is maintained in its state of beauty with City Council workers irrigating the park when the rains are gone.
Previously a sure part of many weddings for photo sessions, the park has lost many customers in this new era.
This has been mainly due to the creation of private parks and wedding venues which have come up all over the City. Some of them such as Tynwald Gardens in Tynwald suburb and Sunshine Park are actually themed on the same premise as Harare Gardens.
They have sought to have fountains and pools of water whilst providing sprawling swathes of open lawns.
Lonely Planet a tourism website providing information of various sites around the world has a typical Third World description of Harare Gardens.
“This is the city’s largest park. Look for the island like stand of rainforest with its miniature Victoria Falls, often minus the water, and Zambezi Gorge. Don’t linger here after dark”.
It’s a catchy description of an enduring beauty caught in the throes of economic woes.
Nothwistanding the abiding beauty all around, they are signs of decay in some corners.
A pool of water on the east side near the NSSA building has over time evolved from being a fresh spectacle into a sludgy dredge of greenish moss and swathes of tall grass.
Opposite the pool council has also been straining to maintain regular removal of dirt that usually grows into a huge pile against the fence. The dirt proves an even bigger eyesore when the waters that flow always, past the adjacent toilet, merge with it.
It becomes a slushy river unbecoming for a place of rest and relaxation. The effects of the illicit Bronco are seen in the park too with many drunks loitering in the shades opposite Julius Nyerere.
There they lie waiting for those needful of parking cars near the National Art Gallery. Whilst waiting for the benevolence of the parking customers the drunks loiter around the park giving no one the feel of safety.
However across from the drunk guys the park reverts to its state of beauty with the grand open arena at which companies hold various events such as Expos.
Behind is the Olympic sized Les Brown swimming pool that provides a nice summertime jaunt from the hustle of every day.
Whereas the fanciful idea in the creation of parks has the ideal population of resting workers rebooting from the lawns during lunch hour and lovers refreshing vows beside flower beds, this African park is something else.
The people who frequent the park are a cosmopolitan population of the diverse Zimbabwean social levels.
They are teenagers on park benches with their laptops watching videos and playing games; they are starry eyed lovers envisioning themselves in some idyllic privacy oblivious of everyone around; they are homeless vagabonds sleeping off the pains of everyday life and they are job hunters resting weary bodies.
In the midst of this population Jehovah’s Witnesses roam around with their booklets looking for someone to save.
During the hot day they sit on the park benches together with camera men who waylay lovers blackmailing them to have photos taken by appealing to the ego of the maQW le partners.
As evening draws near and workers are going home the park slowly empties of people as the lush surroundings begin to take a more ominous nature.
Police start going around the secluded parts squinting at the bushes for any illicit activities that have included sex before.
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