Marriage and moving to Salisbury

Left: Wedding Day 1952, Margret & Bent Ladegaard

I lived in Bulawayo, until my marriage to a Dane, who was then working on the farm of the present Prime Minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith. Since meeting the Smiths in 1952, much has happened in their lives and ours, though of course in two quite different ways. After our marriage, we went to live in Salisbury which is the capital of Rhodesia and has a population of some 314,000 people altogether. It is a very busy commercial, industrial, farming and government centre, and a very beautiful city, with wide streets, lined with flowering trees, numerous parks, ultra moderns buildings alongside the old colonial ones and several skyscrapers which have modern contemporary architecture, but it is the many old buildings from the early days, which lend colour and history to the streets. I would like to add that many of the older type dwelling houses in the towns and on the farms, remind of the lovely old houses, colonial style, one sees here and there in Albany today.

From Salisbury it is a pleasant, few hours car drive to another mighty tourist attraction, the Kariba dam. Kariba is many things to many people. To the sightseeing tourist, the giant masonry that holds back the world largest man-made dam, makes it probably the second most important item on their list of things to see, The Victoria Falls and Game reserves hold an unequalled first place.

Victoria Falls

To Engineers, Kariba and its power station is one of the worlds greatest achievements. To fishermen, the waters of Kariba is a fabulous fishing ground, especially for the much sought after fighting tiger fish, and for the ordinary holiday maker, Kariba is the place for carefree camping holidays, by the lake or up at the super modern hotel, overlooking the lake. The construction of Kariba Dam was an act of vision and of faith. The 420 foot high Kariba Dam wall has tamed the strength of the mighty Zambesi River and has created one of the worlds largest man-made lakes, which is some 2,000 square miles in size. The construction of the enormous 420 foot high dam wall commenced in 1950, but the primitive African tribes living upstream could not be made to believe that anyone could tame these turbulent waters. It was quite unthinkable that mere men should be able to stop the mighty Zambesi from flowing and therefore, this being so, there must be some ulterior motive for the request for them to move out of the area which was eventually to be flooded and inundated with water. How could anyone really say how far the water would reach, even supposing the impossible dam were ever built?

The Kariba Dam and Dam Wall

I hope that you are finding this blog interesting so far! My apologies for not writing very much today... I have been doing some research for the blog and also looking for old photos of my mother's, still packed away in boxes! Until the next post and more about the construction of Kariba Dam, bye for now!