There was a dairy man named Kachonda who was from Zambia. He was working together with my father, at the same farm. And I used to go with him to the dairy to see what he was doing milking cows, and I would collect some milk to feed the dogs. After he milked the cows, we collected the milk and took it to the main house. Then sometimes when I want to go back to the farm workers’ compound, I used to go with him.
When he had finished, he would play his karimba. His karimba had six keys, and the resonator was a small gourd. He cut both sides of the gourd, made a deep shape there, and put the gwariva in the middle, a little gwariva on top of a little gourd. And he would take a stick, put it in to hold the gwariva, and start playing. The songs he played were not traditional, they were recreational songs. He was singing songs which he composed himself. His language was Nsenga, which is more or less like Chewa. But was singing in Shona, because most people learn Shona when they come to live in Zimbabwe. And when he played, he sang in Shona, so Zimbabweans would understand.
So, that was the guy who first taught me to play karimba, and I was playing one song. We stayed on the farm until after my sister was born, in 1945. And the next year, we moved away from the farm. That was 1946. Then we went back to Guruve, and we were staying with our grandmother in one room, filled with so many grandchildren. And we stayed there, and I forgot how to play the karimba.