Ellie asks me what my favourite time of day is and my immediate response is early morning. However, I also love late afternoon when the heat is beginning to subside. I have my cup of tea and go out and water all my pot plants. It's quite an arduous job as I have to ferry buckets of bath water around, but I find it very satisfying.
Bulawayo has got her best dress on at the moment. There are so many different types of trees out and it is almost as though their blossoming has been choreographed. Apparently the City Council once had a tree committee and the trees were planted strategically so there was always something in bloom. There are jacarandas in the middle of town, cassia down Cecil Avenue and bauhenia along the Hillside road, for example.
There is a lot of colour around as the syringa are in bloom as are bougainvillea, pride of India and various indigenous trees (I am not a great one for names!) The jacaranda are starting to come out and it is amazing to pick a particular tree and watch how every day it has more and more flowers on it. Everyone who has ever lived in Southern Africa will know the excitement of the jacaranda season. Even those who are allergic to them, cannot deny their beauty. Their presence signals so much more than a season and is intrinsically linked to some collective feeling of hope. Perhaps it is because they come out at the hottest time of the year or because the year is drawing to an end, that they induce some sense of relief in us, or perhaps it is reassurance that the cycle of life still continues whatever our circumstances.
The irony, of course, is that neither the jacaranda nor the syringa are indigenous. The jacarandas in the middle of town, I believe, were a present from the President of Brazil to Rhodes. If anything, they are a symbol of colonisation for wherever you go in Africa, even in quite remotes places, if you find a jacaranda tree, you will generally find a store, or a clinic, or a school, or the District Commissioner's office.
When I studied in the UK, I would come home for the long summer break and leave at the end of September. I absolutely hated leaving the beauty of September behind and going back for the start of autumn and the beginning of the dreariness. I could deal with November and December. I loved the build up to Christmas, but that funny in between stage was so hard to deal with.
P.S. I remember seeing a jacaranda in New Zealand and thinking it was completely out of place.
P.P.S A friend of mine once insisted for about an hour that jacarandas have white flowers and I insisted they did not, but apparently you can get both.
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