This graceful white-painted city, set in the cracked plains of Matabeleland, is dying of thirst.
Stringent rationing has cut each inhabitant's water allowance by two-thirds. Neatly printed signs hanging in windows around town plead: "Save Water And Save The City."Residents complain that the government in faraway Harare, known here as Bamba Zonke or the "take-it-all" capital, is doing nothing to save Bulawayo's 850,000 people and about 3 million others who live in the surrounding countryside.
"We are on the verge of death and can no longer allow some people the luxury of procrastination," said Matabeleland North provincial governor Jevan Maseko. His province has suffered more than a decade of scarce rainfall.
Traditional animosity between the Ndebele people of southern Zimbabwe and the Shona northerners who dominate the Harare government has kept tempers on both sides short.
Local officials are trying to jog Harare into accepting a plan to divert water from the powerful Zambezi River, on Zimbabwe's northern border 310 miles from Bulawayo. But after five years, the government has not been persuaded.
"In the short term we can only hope and pray that we get good rains this coming season," Mike Ndubiwa, Town Clerk and the city's chief administrator said. "But in the middle and long-term, the government must appreciate our crisis and approve the Zambezi water project."
"We have no water here . . . and the only way we can survive and develop is to source our water from the Zambezi," added Ndubiwa.
Maseko said a green belt of corn, cotton, wheat and vegetable fields would emerge "from this desert" if it were under irrigation. Otherwise, disaster looms.
"If significant rains do not swell the dams this year, Bulawayo will run out of water during 1992," a Financial Gazette editorial said. .