Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in Bulawayo

The Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) is an annual event hosted in the city of Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe.

It features anything from delicious milk products, to showrooms of fancy new cars, to surprising condom strength tests. I attended the fair with the National AIDS Council (NAC). Our exhibit was fairly large, containing informational booths on prevention, treatment, care, nutrition, it even had an interactive advocacy and awareness booth for the Zimbabwe Young People's Network on HIV and AIDS. One of the things the youth network volunteers were doing was showing educational movies on HIV and AIDS to younger kids and leading them into discussions afterwords. It was interesting to see so many different organizations working to fight HIV and AIDS in the country being actively represented and working together in collaboration.
Also at ZITF, I met Miss Universe Zimbabwe :) and saw the President.

In addition to the fair I got to see a bit of the city as well. It seemed like a very nice town. It appeared a lot more laid back than Harare, but just as beautiful.

The way Harare is mostly Shona (the most popular Zimbabwean tribe), Bulawayo is almost entirely Ndebele (the second largest tribe in the country). The Ndebele language is very interesting. Many of the words have a clicking sound. Check out the short video I made of a few kids talking in Ndebele.

See all of my pictures from the trip to Bulawayo here.