….Mkoba 17, the only high density suburb in Gweru with no liquor store
By Fanuel Viriri
In the middle of Mkoba’s sprawling high-density suburb, a small corner now looks nothing like the rest of Gweru.
Residents of Mkoba 17 got tired of waiting.
The road in front of them was a long, dusty stretch that everyone used as a throughway. The enterprising residents decided to close it off themselves. They gathered stones, blocked the traffic, and formed a committee.
They did not wait for the cash-strapped Gweru City Council, which is failing to deliver services. They contributed money from their own pockets, hired a truck and went to ZimAlloys to buy molten tar.
They paved it themselves.
Then they greened it. They planted trees and flowers along the edges and started cleaning their space. They added flowers and shrubs to their gardens.
Then they named their close: Little London.
Mkoba 17 has a history of its own. It is the only high-density suburb in Gweru – perhaps in all of Zimbabwe – with no nightclub or bottle store. Residents successfully petitioned Gweru City Council not to approve any. A bottle store once tried to operate there. It closed.
Mkoba 17 was established in the late 1980s and financed by CABS. Most of its residents today are pensioners – from the Air Force of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe National Army, the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the Central Intelligence Organisation, with a sprinkling of former employees of the now-defunct Beverley Building Society. They got 25-year mortgages and secured their houses.
Across Gweru, service delivery has all but collapsed under the economic hardships. The city is crumbling. Roads are potholed, buildings in the CBD are rundown and peeling.
But in one corner of Mkoba 17, residents refused to crumble with it.
They built their own Little London.
