Happy in Harare

A Goodbye to a Gardener

It’s Saturday afternoon, I’m trying to explain to a friend, Russell, why Ela the Garden closing the next day is sad. “This was the venue for the first event I went to”. Well first of all not really, it wasn't even the first event I went to that weekend, some time in August 2021. I try again. “You know most events on the calendar were at Ela”. That one is true but also it's been three months since I’ve put out an event calendar. It’s Sunday night. I’m seated at a fast food joint trying to untangle the mix of emotions that have grown around 15 York Avenue, also known as Ela The Garden, in the last 3 and a half years. 

Earlier today Elenni, the lady behind Ela, held one last “event”. A giving away, a yard sale if you will, of her stuff as she is leaving the country and going back to Greece. An important detour: What makes a venue, a venue? If it's the location then Ela the Garden isn’t closing, its physical location remains open. There are other stores on site which by all looks still seem functional. Is it the people behind the venue, the people that hold events maybe? Well technically in this case that’s now Katikitiki Space and when I try to explain to another friend, Talent, why Ela the Garden closing is sad he clarifies that no, Katikitiki Space is simply moving, and venturing into pop up events as well. In a way there’s nothing to mourn besides the imminent departure of a beloved figure in the creative scene. In another, much more real way, that departure changes everything. 

In August 2021 I was a pharmacist at Parirenyatwa Hospital, with a depressingly routine life. And so coming to this (technically illegal because of COVID restrictions) Nyamavhuvhu poetry open mic by Moonchild District was a real escape, not only from a 9 to 5 but also into a side of myself I hadn’t known I had. I’m seated on a cushion on a blue chair,  the centre of a crowd of strangers and two friends. I have a black mask around my eyes. Behind me is a blue metal sign of letters. I introduce myself as Pasta Legs and I’m reading a poem from my phone except it’s really an essay I’m rapidly converting to rhythm and rhyme. In one year I will have gone to so many events like this that I will eventually begin a calendar of events featuring Ela the Garden heavily, and in three years I will be giving a talk, at this same venue, about that calendar and Harare’s culture scene. But for that afternoon I’m an anonymous open mic poet with a black mask and a pounding heart, among a crowd of strangers and two friends that somehow feels like home.

For a lot of events and artists Ela was home, literally, either the first place to host them or the one that hosted them so long they became rooted. And the sheer range of fruit those roots blossomed had: I’ve experienced both deeply meaningful spiritual awakenings and shout-if-you-want-to-talk-to-the-person-next-to-you dance raves. One night I am swinging on a hammock listening to Mali music played by a South African vinyl DJ, one afternoon I’m going through a tattoo artist’s illustration guide and maybe for the first time seriously considering getting ink. I also went through the full emotional range while on those grounds, I found love, lost friends and repeated like so many others. Who hasn’t begun a story with “So we were at Ela…” 

So I was at Ela today. Things were getting sold, vinyls, metal art, cushions, two red guitars. On a pile of stuff not being sold a blue metal sign of letters poked out. When I had tried writing about that first afternoon in August 2021, which was hardly my first event but still feels like it, that blue sign seemed like a fitting metaphor. Ultimately I gave up, the garden’s magic refused to fit onto a page, it was there at 15 York Avenue, it kickstarted my love for the scene but it refused to fit onto my page. 3 years later and I suspect not just writers but venue owners will discover as I did then: you can’t Shazam magic. You can’t add this with a bit of that to recreate feeling, true feeling. And so I was at Ela the Garden today, Sunday 30th of March 2025. I met old friends and I made new friends.  I went and said goodbye to the garden’s magician. And on a pile of stuff not being sold a blue metal sign of letters that said “Happy in Harare” poked out, waiting to be moved to a new home.