Gary Porter from the Stormers is apparently about to join Zimbabwe's national rugby squad through his mom's Bulawayo bloodline, and the timing lines up perfectly since the Sables just qualified for the 2027 Rugby World Cup after sitting out for 36 years. The 29-year-old lock is built like a skyscraper at 2.01 meters, and coaches are hyped about adding his top-tier experience to the roster before they face England, Wales, and Tonga in pool play.
Zimbabwe's been pulling in overseas talent with local roots lately. Ian Prior came back from Australian rugby before him, and Kyle Godwin followed through as another Aussie-based recruit. The squad grabbed back-to-back Africa Cup titles to cement themselves as the continent's number two team...
Umguza Rural Development Council agronomist Leo Maphosa says the rainy season creates perfect conditions for crops to explode with growth, but it also brings flooding and disease pressure that can wreck entire harvests if farmers slack off. He told reporters that growers in Matabeleland need to plant on raised beds, split up their nitrogen fertilizer applications to prevent nutrients from washing away, and spray fungicides every week or so when the rain gets heavy.
Maphosa is pushing biological pest controls like Bacillus subtilis instead of just hammering fields with pyrethroids, since bugs are developing resistance fast, and the chemicals kill off helpful insects. He says watermelon and butternut planting windows are basically closed...
Heany Junction villages in Umguza District are dealing with a serious spike in domestic violence because bootleg alcohol called njengu is getting sold everywhere by locals at all hours. Patience Ncube Sibanda told a crowd at the 16 Days of Activism Against GBV event that her husband gets violent after drinking the sketchy booze, and tons of other men in Ward 6 are beating up their wives and kids while drunk. The stuff is even reaching underage drinkers since villagers are hawking it out of their homes instead of just licensed spots.
Councillor Busisiwe Brown brought up digital violence as another growing problem, where people share revenge nudes of ex-partners on social media without realizing it lands them in legal trouble. She...
Bulawayo City Council shuffled around who gets to hand out land after developers kept complaining that the Town Planning Department was basically gatekeeping everything. Director Wisdom Siziba used to run the whole show, but the new policy moves major investment decisions over to City Economic Development Officer Kholisani Moyo, who apparently has better connections with people trying to dump money into the city.
Property developer Tapiwa Nyazika said the planning folks kept telling everyone to wait for tender ads that never showed up, and frustrated investors started looking at smaller towns willing to actually give them space to build stuff. The council only put out two major land tenders over five years, which left capable...
Shurugwi Town Council secretary Archibald Ncube says water infrastructure is basically falling apart while the population keeps climbing toward 30,000 people by the end of the decade. The small mining town held a planning session to map out priorities that match up with the government's National Development Strategy 2 blueprint, and aging pipes plus busted pumping systems are at the top of the list for fixes.
Council wants businesses to start going vertical with high-rise construction since there's barely any land left to expand on. They're also looking to grab road equipment and add maternity wings to some clinics that don't have them yet.
The 2022 census counted 22,000 residents, but that number is expected to jump significantly...
Mpopoma Sports Academy from Bulawayo is heading to Harare to play in the CAF Girls Integrated Football Tournament, which brings together eight under-17 squads from across Southern Africa. James Rugwevera started the whole thing a decade back when they were still scraping by on borrowed fields with volunteer coaches, and getting tapped to rep Zimbabwe at a continental event feels pretty wild for them. Their 15-year-old midfielder Tatenda Gambiza already played for the national team at COSAFA earlier this year, and she's talking like they're actually planning to win the thing.
They kick things off against Namibia's Otjiwarongo Sports Academy before facing Malawi's Luwinga Academy and then Mamelodi Sundowns from South Africa. The pool...
Nkulumane suburb in Bulawayo is getting ready for the first-ever Miss Urban Culture and Mr Urban Culture competition, which basically flips the Miss Rural Zimbabwe concept for township kids. Sipho Mazibuko is running the whole thing, and he wants contestants between 18 and 30 who are single without kids to show up looking completely natural with zero makeup, relaxers, fake lashes, or any western styling.
The pageant is pushing back against beauty trends that are messing people up physically. Mazibuko mentioned some woman who went blind in one eye after gluing on fake eyelashes with sketchy adhesive that doctors can't even remove surgically. She has to wear a pirate patch over the empty socket permanently.
Beyond the competition...
Small-scale gold miners in Zimbabwe are basically carrying the country's entire mineral output on their backs, but they're doing it with zero safety nets or insurance coverage. These guys pump out over 60 percent of the nation's gold, yet insurance companies won't touch them because most operations aren't fully formalized, and the risk levels are off the charts. Miners like Mthulisi Moyo and Ndabezinhle Ncube are begging the government and financial institutions to help them get coverage, since their families get left with nothing when someone dies underground.
The Insurance Brokers Association is trying to step in as middlemen, pushing for group schemes and mobile-payment options that could actually work with irregular mining income...
A driver for Ingwebu Breweries in Bulawayo got hit with fines totaling $260 after getting caught siphoning diesel twice from company trucks. Mengezi Mnkandla, who's 23 and lives in the Hillcrest suburb, admitted to stealing 85 liters of fuel over two separate incidents, and the court also ordered him to pay back $123 to the brewery.
The guy was supposed to be doing pickups but kept taking detours to Nketa 7, where he'd drain the tanks using a hose and containers. The first time he grabbed 35 liters, and the second run he took 59 liters, worth about $72. Security officer Shepard Sibanda represented the company when they busted him.
Western Commonage magistrate Jeconia Prince Ncube gave him until January to settle up, or he's looking at...
