CANADA: Francisca Mandeya discusses her risky life as an mbira player; ‘I needed to get away from home to stay alive’

By nunatsiaq.com

At times of despair, Francisca Mandeya always has an answer. Mbira.

The Zimbabwean traditional instrument looks like a drum on one side, but it produces a mellow, ringy buzzing sound through metal keys on the other.

That sound has made life a bit easier for Mandeya whenever she has been in trouble. And she has been in trouble. A lot.

Now an Iqaluit resident, Mandeya was once a political activist in her home country of Zimbabwe.

She has often advocated through her music for peace and women’s rights in Zimbabwe, at times when agents of the Zimbabwean government would routinely ask political activists questions like: “Do you prefer long or short sleeves?”

Meaning: “Would you like your hands to be cut off from your elbows or shoulders?” Mandeya explains.

A musician, author and self-described “loudmouth,” Mandeya took time to talk about her improbable life as an mbira player.

2006: Mandeya buys a 15-key mbira with a picture of a zebra on it. She has no plans to play it — she just wants to have it on her shelf as a cultural artifact.

But as soon as she brings it home, her 15-year-old daughter picks it up and without practise starts playing something that “makes musical sense,” Mandeya says.

2007: After a few months of practise, Mandeya’s daughter is already performing at a music event in an art café in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, and she asks Mandeya to join her.

“No way,” she says initially, before standing up and singing a song that she made up on the go.

It’s about a woman Mandeya met earlier that year, who had to give birth on the floor when the hospital didn’t even have water.

She later calls it Mvura Muchipatara, Water in the Hospital. This becomes the first song Mandeya has ever written.

2010: Mandeya and her two daughters release their first album, called The Brewing Storm.

“I was just vibing with my daughters,” she says of the album, yet most of the 12 songs were part of her political activism calling for Africa to “wake up” to climate change and violations of human rights.

Shortly after, she was stopped on the street by men in a white Mercedes-Benz with a government licence plate, threatening that they could “disappear her.”

“That’s what I am talking about — you don’t live, you survive,” Mandeya says.

2014: Prosecutions by the Zimbabwean government get intolerable.

Mandeya’s office has been broken into; her friend Jestina Mukoko has been abducted by the authorities and won’t be freed until 89 days later. Meanwhile, Mandeya suffers constant harassment from the government.

She had no choice but to flee.

“I needed to get away from home to stay alive,” she says. “In my naivety, I didn’t realize how much in danger I actually was.”

She moves to Iqaluit, where her sister lives. One of the things she brings with her is the mbira with a picture of zebra on it.

2016: She performs at Iqaluit’s Alianait music festival. Mandeya will go on to appear at the festival almost every year since.

2025: Mandeya sings at the Jam Café and has a few performances lined up for the year. Also, she is working on a new album in collaboration with some Nunavut artist that is to come out in March.

“I know that it is bigger than me,” she says of the instrument.

“When I play mbira, I mostly play it selfishly for myself. To heal myself. There is no way I could live without it.”

Tip from the trade: Trust the artist in you. Even if you are still haven’t fully mastered the instrument (mbira, or any other), but you feel strongly that you want to play — just do it. Skill will come later, Mandeya says.

“Give yourself permission to let the music out.”