Songs from a Zimbabwean prison on BBC radioBBC Radio 3 will be broadcasting a unique recording made by Ingwe Studios in Bulawayo – the music recording branch of Radio Dialogue in Zimbabwe – tomorrow (11 February).The broadcast will feature four tracks performed by choirs from Bulawayo, Gweru and Chukurubi, which were all brought to Harare especially for the recording. The tracks were recorded last November in the chapel of Harare Central Prison – “in the middle of a thunder storm with rain battering the iron roof,” according to Radio Dialogue’s Director,
Fr Nigel Johnson SJ. Roger Short, Senior Producer at Radio 3, described the songs, sung in the Shona and Ndebele languages, as “very moving, and brilliantly recorded”.
He has scheduled four tracks to be played on the evening of 11 February, in a programme presented by Lopa Kothari.
The first is entitled ‘Ndaive mbava’ in the Shona language and is sung by the Harare Central Prison Choir. The English translation reads: “I used to be a thief ... a mugger ... a rapist ... a prostitute. But now I repent, and turn to my living God. I humbly come to my Saviour.”
Other performers are the Whawha Young Offenders prison choir from Gweru, and the Khami Maximum Security Prison choir of Bulawayo. Nigel Johnson – a Jesuit priest originally from Britain – was among several local people who set up Radio Dialogue in 2000. It is a community radio station which produces programmes for public transport operators, bars, hair salons etc in Bulawayo and surrounding areas. It cannot broadcast in the conventional way, since non-state controlled radio stations are not licensed, but it aims to provide a channel for debate and information sharing on economic, political, social, cultural and developmental issues.
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