Sam Levy's

 I've been feeling somewhat guilty about presenting a rather selective portrait of Zimbabwe in these posts. In the interests of fair and balanced reporting it behooves me to say that there are also plenty of wealthy suburbs in Harare, full of grand - or at least expensive - houses with immaculately kept grounds and gardens, as well as posh shops and malls. The epicentre of this poshness, catering to mostly whites, ex-pats and rich blacks, is Sam Levy's Village in Borrowdale. I went there on Sunday hunting for an Oliver Mutukudzi CD. (This could be a whole other post; it is almost impossible to find legal recordings in Zim these days. The streets and flea markets are full of vendors selling pirated cds and dvds, which has put almost all the 'record bars' out of business and devasted the local music industry.) Sam Levy's is full of upscale shops and restaurants catering to European/North American tastes, and is quite... bland. I did have an excellent veggie wrap and americano though, something unimaginable here during my previous trips.

 

The one thing I found interesting was that virtually all the white kids were running around without shoes, while the black kids all wore them.

Since I was in Borrowdale anyway, I stopped in at the race track to see how it was doing. Zimbabweans sometimes refer to the fast footwork of pantsula (an urban dance style) as 'Borrowdale', referring to the quick-stepping horses at Borrowdale Race Course.
 The last time I was here was New Year's Day, 1999. ( I remember because I came down with malaria that night.) It's much, much quieter these days; two betting windows out of about 80 were open, with only 4 or 5 races scheduled. Kind of amazing that it's still going at all, since most of the white racehorse owners have left the country. I watched one race, but alas, both my picks were out of the money.