Pumula

Also known as Phumula, Pumula South.

'A resting place'. Bulawayo's first home-ownership scheme for African families, begun in 1952.

Phumula means “a resting place” — a place, by the oldest explanation we have, where many people built homes to retire to. Behind that lies a piece of history: Pumula was the city’s first home-ownership scheme for African families.

Pumula in 1960

The City Council described the scheme in a 1960 article:

• It began early in 1952, about eight miles from the centre of town.
• Families took a 30-year renewable lease, and could borrow £55 for building materials, repayable over nine and a half years at 2%.
• The loans were paid from the profits of the municipal beer halls.
• Families built their own houses. By 1960 about 600 families lived there.

The Council claimed that Bulawayo had “pioneered the idea of Home-Ownership schemes in Southern Rhodesia.” That was its own claim. What is clear is that Pumula was the city’s first. A modern account describes the city as having “grudgingly” introduced home ownership on leasehold terms, which is a different way of telling the same events.

What we don’t know yet

Did your parents or grandparents build their own house in Pumula in the 1950s? We would especially like to hear from the first families, and to see photographs of the early houses.