How Mbira Lessons Became Bulawayo’s Most Booked Weekend Activity

On any given Saturday morning, more than two hundred Bulawayo residents are sitting in church halls, community centres and private gardens learning mbira and marimba. The instructors include traditional musicians, NUST music graduates and a few retired professionals who learned as children and are now passing it on.

What is striking is the demographic. Roughly half the learners are over forty. Many are returning to instruments they touched briefly as children. Others — including a steady stream of South African and Botswana visitors — are starting from zero.

“It is meditation that makes a sound,” said one retired engineer, Mr Sithole, halfway through his second year of mbira lessons. “I cannot put it down.”

Several teachers report waiting lists of three to four months. “It is the most stable side income I have ever had,” laughed mbira teacher Maria Ndlovu.