Navigate Bulawayo

07/10/2026

Your Assistance will be greatly appreciated 👏. A good friend indeed.

06/10/2026

Visit Water World Today

Water World Bulawayo is located at 67 Dundee Drive in the suburb of Montrose, Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe.

06/10/2026

06/10/2026

Describe your 90s/2000s Bulawayo childhood in just three words.

04/10/2026

What is a phrase or piece of slang you only ever heard from old-school Bulawayo parents or grandparents that nobody says anymore?

02/10/2026

Ever wondered why Bulawayo turns purple every October? 💜

The jacaranda isn't actually ours. It comes from South America and reached southern Africa in the late 1800s.

When Bulawayo was laid out in the 1890s, the streets were made famously wide, wide enough to turn a full span of oxen pulling a wagon. Wide streets under a hot sun needed shade, so in the early 1900s the town's planners lined avenue after avenue with jacarandas. They grow fast, survive drought, and put on a show every year.

But here's the truth: beautiful as they are, it's time to move on from them. 🌍

⚠️ The jacaranda is an alien species, and across southern Africa it's regarded as invasive
⚠️ It drinks water our dry region can't spare
⚠️ It gives little to our birds, bees and wildlife compared to local trees
⚠️ Many of the old ones are ageing, dropping branches and lifting pavements

The Bulawayo of tomorrow should be shaded by trees that belong here:

🌳 Umganu (marula)
🌳 Iphane (mopane)
🌳 Umvagazi (mukwa)
🌳 Umphafa (buffalo thorn)
🌳 Umkhiwa (wild fig)

These trees feed our wildlife, suit our rainfall, and carry our own history and culture, not someone else's.

Enjoy the purple this month. But when the next tree goes into the ground, let it be indigenous. 🇿🇼

📍Which indigenous tree would you plant on your street? Tell us 👇

29/09/2026

⛺ Bulawayo's First Bank Operated Out of a Tent

On 4 May 1894, Standard Bank of South Africa—the same institution known today as Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe—opened its very first Bulawayo branch not in a building, but under a canvas bell tent.

Why? Bulawayo was in the middle of a gold rush. Roughly 400 prospectors had flooded into the region chasing claims, with over 11,000 registered before the year was out. The city was growing faster than buildings could go up, and a bank was needed immediately—tent and all.

It didn't stay that way long. By September that same year, Standard Bank moved into a proper single-story building complete with a verandah and hitching posts out front for customers arriving on horseback.

From a tent to one of Zimbabwe's biggest banks today—that's how fast Bulawayo moved even in 1894.

Did you know your bank started under Canvas? 👇