Zimbabwe housing: An introduction to a Harare suburban house

I have lived in Harare's surburbs, Zimbabwe's capital for the greater part of my life. Heavily influenced by our colonial past and middle class citizen's needs for privacy and security. Surburban houses are a great place to raise families and recover from a hard days work at the office or school.

Let's start at the entrance, most houses have an electric or manual gate. In the former, an intercom is used to communicate with people who wish to enter the property. Jurawalls, a type of durable concrete wall are the most common barrier used to divide and protect the property. On top of the wall, metal spikes, shards of glass or mini-electric fences are installed to disuade burglars from trying their luck. Some neighbourhoods have private security for added protection or hire a guard individually.

Jurawalls durable walls

Inside, houses have gardens filled with lawn grass, mostly exotic trees and plants. I grew up in many houses that have swimming pools, which are a great place to cool down on a hot summer's day. If you like gardening, you can convert some of your property to grow vegetables or even food producing trees such as peacan, avocado, banana and mango trees.

Pools. A great place to chill and have a splash.

You might observe that this is a lot of work to maintain, that's where domestic workers come into play. People usually hire a gardener and a maid. The former takes care of the garden and any physical labour needed, while the latter usually cleans the house, does your laundry and cooks if that is part of their skill set.

Gardens are usually full of exotic plants.

When it comes to the actual houses, they are red brick houses with tiled roofs. Wooden tiles are a common surface in most rooms , while the kitchen and bathroom floors are made of marble tiles or an imitation material. A typical house will have: A living room, kitchen, hallway, bathroom, veranda and three to four rooms.

One advantage of these type of houses is that they were designed to keep the interior cool during the hot summer days. Unfortunately this backfires in the winter since temperatures drop drastically at night. There is a chimney in most living rooms, but it does not heat up the whole house, so people use thick/electric blankets, hot water bottles and electric heaters to keep warm.

The suburban areas like most of Zimbabwe experience electricity and water cuts. People in these areas can usually afford a gas generator or solar panel converter to keep the lights on during these cuts. Boreholes, a large tank that get's it's water from an underground source are usually a cleaner source of drinking water than the municipal water.

Water cut? No problem, borehole to the rescue!

This first post of Zimbabwe's housing options was meant to give you a taste of the type of dwellings the Harare middle class live in. In the next posts, we will look at alternative houses inspired by rural practices, city living and many other interesting ways that people live in this beautiful country.