Bulawayo, the second largest city of the country has over the past years been reduced to a gloomy picture of ailing industries and massive relocation of companies from the city.
The city, which had once been the industrial hub of the country such that it was commonly referred to as koThuntuziyathunqa is now in a sorry state. Its glamorous appeal has been fading to the point that even the President last year during his inauguration speech termed the city a "scrapyard"
Company buildings have been turned into places of worship which are mainly visible in the central business district and Kelvin industrial area. The once bustling "Ntuthuziyathunqa" city, which directly translates to smoke that is rising, got its nickname due to the busy nature of the industries which continuously plummeted the atmosphere with industrial gas and smoke from large manufacturing firms such as Kango and sterling.
Currently Bulawayo is more characterised by ancient buildings that are in dire need of renovation or demolition particularly in the 1st to 4th avenues of the city. a view from the top of a high rise building will be filled with scenery of a sea of rusty roofs which give a sigh of hopelessness and an atmosphere of utter disparity worsened by the unhappy slow moving faces seen on the pavements next to the buildings. A further stumbling block to the city's royal namesake is the pollution within it. the pavements are increasingly getting filled with fruit peels and plastics, yet Bulawayo was once known for its cleanliness, not only in Zimbabwe but in Africa as a whole.
Meanwhile the capital city Harare rises and rises.
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