Pius Nyondo is a Malawian writer, poet and online journalist. In 2012, he became the country's youngest person to win the First Merchant Bank Short Story Award - Malawi's most prestigious literary award for short fiction. Presently, he corresponds for www.nyasatimes.com
Sunday 12 May 2013
We got sold
By Pius Nyondo
It was still very early in the morning, and light rain made dawn look darker than usual. My muscles rippled at the cold. I rose to my feet and let out a low guttural roar of tiredness, hunger and anger. I felt great pain all over my body, especially my chest. Pain that had emanated from my nightlong direct contact with the reed-made mat I had slept on.
I slept on a mat back home; the same kind of mat that was here. But this one did not accord me the comfort I had when back home. Back home, I had nice dreams when lying on my mat. It was not the case here. I had actually dreamt nothing. Totally nothing.
Even the floor; it was so dusty as early as it was. Mother could not leave the floor like this for a long time. She sprinkled water on the floor every time we went to sleep, and every time we woke up. From the way this place looked like, one could easily conclude that there were no mothers here. No mothers.
Where was I? I finally asked my blank mind, and expectedly, got no answer. A shiver zipped up my spine, and I felt a hollow, aching sensation in the centre of my chest. I felt like vomiting. But there was nothing I could have vomited. My stomach was very, very empty. It even produced strange noises.
Across the room, I caught sight of three familiar bodies, September, Can and Chimwemwe. With my half-opened eyes, I saw their chests rising and falling with rapid, choppy breaths. I felt like shouting, but then a voice from within instructed me not to. I was just hopeless. I was just helpless. I was weak. Yes, I could not do a thing.
What was happening? Just yesterday I had been home, with my poor mother, laughing and arguing and sniffing and sighing and shaking my head in disgust. Just yesterday I had been playing on the banks of the river that snaked through our village, moulding people, cows and cars with September, Can and Chimwemwe. It was just yesterday.
My heart raced. Could it be that mother really offered me to the man she had said wanted me to work on his farm? It was just yesterday that mother had broken the news about one estate owner who wanted children to work on his farm. Mother had said the man was nice, that the man was rich, and that the man would wipe out all our poverty if I went with him. Mother had spoken highly of the man, saying the man was God-sent.
I had sniffed, sighed and shaken my head in disgust. What about school? What about my ambition of becoming the editor of The Nation newspaper? I had asked my mother: What about her, wouldn’t she miss me? You see, I wanted to move out of my poor village at my earliest opportunity. I wanted to be like Uncle Blantyre. He owned a good car. Mother once told me he had a big house in the City of Blantyre, the largest city in our country. September and Can said Uncle Blantyre had a beautiful wife too. I wanted all that. And I couldn’t get all that by working on somebody’s farm. Uncle Blantyre did not work on somebody’s farm. He had worked hard in school.
Shoving my hands into my shorts pockets, I had walked out. I was bitter with mother for wanting to sell me off. I had ran down to the river where September, Can, Chimwemwe and I had agreed to meet.
They were not there. I waited and waited. And when they came, they all wore sombre faces. They wore worried looks. They were upset as I was, or even worse than I was.
“Why do our parents want to sell us off?” asked Chimwemwe, tears rolling down her chubby cheeks.
“Perhaps it’s because of our poverty.” I answered. “May be they want to raise money for our school.”
“Have they told you too?”
I nodded. There was a moment of silence. We talked no more. We all walked to the anthill just a few yards from the river, collected some clay, soaked it in water, and then started moulding.
“When the man comes, I’ll run away.” Chimwemwe who was the youngest amongst the four of us spoke after the long silence. “Or I will hide under my bed.”
“What if there’s a snake under your bed?” September asked her.
“I’ll scream.”
“And you think they’ll not hear you?”
“I’ll pray to God that they don’t hear me.”
“What if God does not hear you?”
Chimwemwe stopped her moulding and then, as if filled with some divine inspiration shot back.
“God hears our prayers all the time, that’s what the Sunday school teacher said.”
Another graveyard silence followed. When our moulding got less exciting, we dispersed to our homes. But with a resolution that we would all refuse if our parents asked us again to go and work on the rich man’s farm. All of us, it seemed, hungered for education which our teachers told us was the only key to success.
Chimwemwe was in Standard Four, September and Can were in Standard Five, and I was in Standard Six.
When mother asked me to go and work on the rich man’s farm once again that evening, I refused. She became bitter with. I could read the bitterness in her eyes. But then, strangely, she had told me to forget about all that. Mother had given me food, rice with chicken, which I had eaten hungrily. That was a meal that came once a year and thrice in three years, only on Christmas….
Then I don’t know what happened next.
But all that happened yesterday. Today, this morning, I could not just understand my predicament.
*****
I was about to amble out of the room when I heard heavy deadly footsteps approaching. I ran back to the mat, closed my eyes, and pretended to be dead asleep.
“Attention!” a heavily built old man forced the door open.
I was the first to open my eyes, and the first to see him. He wore his grey hair in a briskly crew cut. Clenched in his hands was a deadly machete, pointed at no one of us in particular.
“Attention!” September, Can and Chimwemwe jumped up. The looks on our faces were all weird. They were looks of shock. Looks of apprehension.
“Welcome to Lundazi and to this lovely tobacco estate,” the old man forced a smile which, still more, could not make him look any saintly. “You’ll all address me as Commander!”
“I want to see my mother! I want to go home!” Chimwemwe cried.
But the Commander, it seemed, was not the soft and sentimental type. He gave Chimwemwe a stern look, did the same to me, and then to everyone in the room. He had no heart at all.
My heart began to pace rapidly. Yes, this was it. Our parents had sold us off.
“You’re not here to cry, you small rat!” the Commander bellowed at Chimwemwe. “You’ve come here to work on this tobacco estate. I’ve paid your mothers huge chunks of money to let me have you, ok?”
It was a question directed at no one in particular, and one that needed not to be answered. The Commander then walked to the door, called out a funny name, and then a moment later a skinny young boy joined us in the room. He looked twelve or thirteen years.
“This is Jackie Chan,” The Commander said while patting the skinny young boy on the back. And the Commander went ahead. “He’s the Second-in-Command here and his orders must be obeyed without question!”
“Liar,” Can said sarcastically. “Jackie Chan is only found in movies.”
“You call the Commander a liar?” Jackie Chan snarled. He gave Can two successive slaps. Can cried disturbingly.
“Listen, we’re not here to play jokes. Should anyone try to do something fishy I’ll not hesitate but blow his or her brains out!” warned Jackie Chan, his eyes looking like those of a poisonous snake.
At his command, we walked out of the room after him. Jackie Chan was such an unusual character. The small boy did not have his shirt on as chilly as it was.
It was still relatively dark, and the morning birds were still tweeting and twittering. We walked till we reached what looked like a tobacco barn. At first, I thought we were going to have breakfast. But when I saw children of my age with plates full of fertilizer, my dream got raped.
I had not eaten for two days now, and the idea of spending another day without food really suffocated me. With the little experience I had so far, of staying with these people, it was suicidal to ask them any stupid question. Asking for food, I must confess, sounded like one of such stupid questions one would ask them.
We walked closer and closer to the shed. When the children saw us, they stopped what they were doing and started talking in low tones. They were no doubt gossiping. They looked quite young, younger than our own Chimwemwe. Yet their faces seemed to have outgrown their ages; they looked like grannies facially and children physically. They wore worn out dresses, shorts and shirts. While the condition of the girls seemed much better, as their clothes only managed to flatten their tender breasts; the situation was sad for the boys like us. Their shorts were badly torn, such that they laid bare their dirty buttocks for all of us to see.
In two to three months, I told myself, I would surely become like these boys.
“Listen everybody,” the Commander called for order, whilst Jackie Chan watched. “I’m glad to announce that we’ve been joined by new members. They’re from Kaporo, and I’m sure you’ll get to know them better as you get along.”
The Commander then turned to us. “These are your new mothers, friends, fathers, and relatives.”
As Jackie Chan and the Commander left, we joined our weary friends.
We later learnt from them that they had been on their way from school when they had met the Commander who had given them some sweets. The next time they had opened their eyes, they said, they were on this tobacco estate. They said they missed home too, and that they wanted to see their parents. They also told us that they had been on the tobacco estate for six months.
The Commander, so we were told, was a merciless man. I shuddered when our friends told us that he had impregnated one of their friends who had died because she was too young to deliver a child. We were told that the Commander had a stony heart, a wicked sexual appetite, and to sum it all, a devil's incarnate. We agreed.
“We heard a cry in there,” the boy who introduced himself as Misfortune faced me. “Was anything the matter?”
“He slapped our friend.”
“He does the same to us, sorry my friend.” Misfortune told Can.
“Is there no police around here?”
“Police?” he looked stunned, as if he had never heard of police before.
And then he told us more. There was no police around because Lundazi was very far from the district headquarters at Mzimba.
We talked and talked and talked, as we applied fertilizer. Chimwemwe was tired, so too was September and Can. It was a back-breaking job, one that even adults desisted back home.
From what Misfortune told us, escaping from this place was out of question. Even if one managed to leave the boundaries of the estate, he or she would not go further than that. Lundazi was heavily forested. Lions, tigers, elephants and many such killer animals roamed all over the place, ready to bring to death any escapee. According to Misfortune, the best was to accept our predicament.
“I’ll pray to God that my father comes back to rescue us.” Chimwemwe spoke out with the confidence of black ants.
“Where’s your father?”
“In South Africa,” Chimwemwe responded with a grin. “Mother said that he works in the gold mines.”
There was a moment of silence.
“And you, Mwayi,” Misfortune turned to me. “Where’s your father?”
“He’s dead. He died before I was born.”
Misfortune paused awhile, and shot me a pitiful gaze. “My father is dead too.”
We were, it seemed, children who were growing up with no idea of what fatherly love felt like. Children who each time went to play with peers who had their fathers around were mocked fatherless. We had all been raised by our mothers who many a time failed to get the best for us; mothers who did not really love us, and ended in selling us off.
“Do you have any idea how much the Commander gives our mothers?” I asked Misfortune.
“I don’t know,” Misfortune shot me another pitiful gaze, cleared his throat and shook his head. We kept on working. It got unusually hot. My back was aching like hell, so too was my head. I was about to sit down when I caught sight of Jackie Chan approaching us, his machete in hands.
“Listen everyone!” he shouted. “You’ll break for lunch now, and resume work immediately afterwards. I give you thirty minutes.”
When Jackie Chan was gone, Misfortune whispered into my ears, ‘We come from the same village.”
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
Misfortune nodded, putting down the plate with fertilizer.
“He’s changed badly,” he said. “He was a good boy but then the Commander taught him to smoke Chamba. He no longer regards us as friends.”
Chimwemwe, Can and September, and two other boys we had found with Misfortune, were already seated beside the plates piled on top of each other.
“Is there a toilet around here?” I asked Misfortune.
He shot me a surprised look, as if he had never been asked the question all his life.
“We do it in that river.” He said, pointing at a river that could be heard flowing just at the edge of the estate.
“You do it in the river?” Misfortune shook his head, sat down, and washed his hands.
“But we’ll not wait for you.” He said matter-of-factly.
I rushed to the river, did what was supposed to be done in a toilet and frantically walked back to the tobacco barn. We ate our meal in silence, Mgaiwa paired with undercooked beans.
“I want drinking water, where’s the borehole?” Chimwemwe asked Misfortune.
“We drink from that river.” Misfortune pointed at the same river he had told us was a toilet.
But Chimwemwe, it seemed, was too thirsty. She was already gone to quench her thirst.
*****
That night we did not sleep. Chimwemwe was convulsing and seething in pain, complaining of abdominal pains. I knew what it was. I was in Standard Six. I shouldered Chimwemwe, paused for an incoherent prayer and walked towards the door.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Misfortune asked me, utterly perplexed.
“I’m taking her to the hospital.” I shot back, Misfortune did not object. In no time I was gone.
I managed to sneak out unnoticed, crossed the river at the edge of the tobacco estate and headed southwards. I could hear lions roaring but I still walked on. Chimwemwe’s groans infused immeasurable willpower in me.
After hours and hours of walking, I heard a cough. I hid. Then I saw a man pushing a bicycle overloaded with bags of charcoal.
I wanted to tell the man that what he was doing was bad for the world. That it was contributing to Global Warming. I wanted to tell him never to fell trees carelessly again but I could not. I was afraid of him but more importantly, I needed his help.
It was still very early in the morning, and light rain made dawn look darker than usual. My muscles rippled at the cold. I rose to my feet and let out a low guttural roar of tiredness, hunger and anger. I felt great pain all over my body, especially my chest. Pain that had emanated from my nightlong direct contact with the reed-made mat I had slept on.
I slept on a mat back home; the same kind of mat that was here. But this one did not accord me the comfort I had when back home. Back home, I had nice dreams when lying on my mat. It was not the case here. I had actually dreamt nothing. Totally nothing.
Even the floor; it was so dusty as early as it was. Mother could not leave the floor like this for a long time. She sprinkled water on the floor every time we went to sleep, and every time we woke up. From the way this place looked like, one could easily conclude that there were no mothers here. No mothers.
Where was I? I finally asked my blank mind, and expectedly, got no answer. A shiver zipped up my spine, and I felt a hollow, aching sensation in the centre of my chest. I felt like vomiting. But there was nothing I could have vomited. My stomach was very, very empty. It even produced strange noises.
Across the room, I caught sight of three familiar bodies, September, Can and Chimwemwe. With my half-opened eyes, I saw their chests rising and falling with rapid, choppy breaths. I felt like shouting, but then a voice from within instructed me not to. I was just hopeless. I was just helpless. I was weak. Yes, I could not do a thing.
What was happening? Just yesterday I had been home, with my poor mother, laughing and arguing and sniffing and sighing and shaking my head in disgust. Just yesterday I had been playing on the banks of the river that snaked through our village, moulding people, cows and cars with September, Can and Chimwemwe. It was just yesterday.
My heart raced. Could it be that mother really offered me to the man she had said wanted me to work on his farm? It was just yesterday that mother had broken the news about one estate owner who wanted children to work on his farm. Mother had said the man was nice, that the man was rich, and that the man would wipe out all our poverty if I went with him. Mother had spoken highly of the man, saying the man was God-sent.
I had sniffed, sighed and shaken my head in disgust. What about school? What about my ambition of becoming the editor of The Nation newspaper? I had asked my mother: What about her, wouldn’t she miss me? You see, I wanted to move out of my poor village at my earliest opportunity. I wanted to be like Uncle Blantyre. He owned a good car. Mother once told me he had a big house in the City of Blantyre, the largest city in our country. September and Can said Uncle Blantyre had a beautiful wife too. I wanted all that. And I couldn’t get all that by working on somebody’s farm. Uncle Blantyre did not work on somebody’s farm. He had worked hard in school.
Shoving my hands into my shorts pockets, I had walked out. I was bitter with mother for wanting to sell me off. I had ran down to the river where September, Can, Chimwemwe and I had agreed to meet.
They were not there. I waited and waited. And when they came, they all wore sombre faces. They wore worried looks. They were upset as I was, or even worse than I was.
“Why do our parents want to sell us off?” asked Chimwemwe, tears rolling down her chubby cheeks.
“Perhaps it’s because of our poverty.” I answered. “May be they want to raise money for our school.”
“Have they told you too?”
I nodded. There was a moment of silence. We talked no more. We all walked to the anthill just a few yards from the river, collected some clay, soaked it in water, and then started moulding.
“When the man comes, I’ll run away.” Chimwemwe who was the youngest amongst the four of us spoke after the long silence. “Or I will hide under my bed.”
“What if there’s a snake under your bed?” September asked her.
“I’ll scream.”
“And you think they’ll not hear you?”
“I’ll pray to God that they don’t hear me.”
“What if God does not hear you?”
Chimwemwe stopped her moulding and then, as if filled with some divine inspiration shot back.
“God hears our prayers all the time, that’s what the Sunday school teacher said.”
Another graveyard silence followed. When our moulding got less exciting, we dispersed to our homes. But with a resolution that we would all refuse if our parents asked us again to go and work on the rich man’s farm. All of us, it seemed, hungered for education which our teachers told us was the only key to success.
Chimwemwe was in Standard Four, September and Can were in Standard Five, and I was in Standard Six.
When mother asked me to go and work on the rich man’s farm once again that evening, I refused. She became bitter with. I could read the bitterness in her eyes. But then, strangely, she had told me to forget about all that. Mother had given me food, rice with chicken, which I had eaten hungrily. That was a meal that came once a year and thrice in three years, only on Christmas….
Then I don’t know what happened next.
But all that happened yesterday. Today, this morning, I could not just understand my predicament.
*****
I was about to amble out of the room when I heard heavy deadly footsteps approaching. I ran back to the mat, closed my eyes, and pretended to be dead asleep.
“Attention!” a heavily built old man forced the door open.
I was the first to open my eyes, and the first to see him. He wore his grey hair in a briskly crew cut. Clenched in his hands was a deadly machete, pointed at no one of us in particular.
“Attention!” September, Can and Chimwemwe jumped up. The looks on our faces were all weird. They were looks of shock. Looks of apprehension.
“Welcome to Lundazi and to this lovely tobacco estate,” the old man forced a smile which, still more, could not make him look any saintly. “You’ll all address me as Commander!”
“I want to see my mother! I want to go home!” Chimwemwe cried.
But the Commander, it seemed, was not the soft and sentimental type. He gave Chimwemwe a stern look, did the same to me, and then to everyone in the room. He had no heart at all.
My heart began to pace rapidly. Yes, this was it. Our parents had sold us off.
“You’re not here to cry, you small rat!” the Commander bellowed at Chimwemwe. “You’ve come here to work on this tobacco estate. I’ve paid your mothers huge chunks of money to let me have you, ok?”
It was a question directed at no one in particular, and one that needed not to be answered. The Commander then walked to the door, called out a funny name, and then a moment later a skinny young boy joined us in the room. He looked twelve or thirteen years.
“This is Jackie Chan,” The Commander said while patting the skinny young boy on the back. And the Commander went ahead. “He’s the Second-in-Command here and his orders must be obeyed without question!”
“Liar,” Can said sarcastically. “Jackie Chan is only found in movies.”
“You call the Commander a liar?” Jackie Chan snarled. He gave Can two successive slaps. Can cried disturbingly.
“Listen, we’re not here to play jokes. Should anyone try to do something fishy I’ll not hesitate but blow his or her brains out!” warned Jackie Chan, his eyes looking like those of a poisonous snake.
At his command, we walked out of the room after him. Jackie Chan was such an unusual character. The small boy did not have his shirt on as chilly as it was.
It was still relatively dark, and the morning birds were still tweeting and twittering. We walked till we reached what looked like a tobacco barn. At first, I thought we were going to have breakfast. But when I saw children of my age with plates full of fertilizer, my dream got raped.
I had not eaten for two days now, and the idea of spending another day without food really suffocated me. With the little experience I had so far, of staying with these people, it was suicidal to ask them any stupid question. Asking for food, I must confess, sounded like one of such stupid questions one would ask them.
We walked closer and closer to the shed. When the children saw us, they stopped what they were doing and started talking in low tones. They were no doubt gossiping. They looked quite young, younger than our own Chimwemwe. Yet their faces seemed to have outgrown their ages; they looked like grannies facially and children physically. They wore worn out dresses, shorts and shirts. While the condition of the girls seemed much better, as their clothes only managed to flatten their tender breasts; the situation was sad for the boys like us. Their shorts were badly torn, such that they laid bare their dirty buttocks for all of us to see.
In two to three months, I told myself, I would surely become like these boys.
“Listen everybody,” the Commander called for order, whilst Jackie Chan watched. “I’m glad to announce that we’ve been joined by new members. They’re from Kaporo, and I’m sure you’ll get to know them better as you get along.”
The Commander then turned to us. “These are your new mothers, friends, fathers, and relatives.”
As Jackie Chan and the Commander left, we joined our weary friends.
We later learnt from them that they had been on their way from school when they had met the Commander who had given them some sweets. The next time they had opened their eyes, they said, they were on this tobacco estate. They said they missed home too, and that they wanted to see their parents. They also told us that they had been on the tobacco estate for six months.
The Commander, so we were told, was a merciless man. I shuddered when our friends told us that he had impregnated one of their friends who had died because she was too young to deliver a child. We were told that the Commander had a stony heart, a wicked sexual appetite, and to sum it all, a devil's incarnate. We agreed.
“We heard a cry in there,” the boy who introduced himself as Misfortune faced me. “Was anything the matter?”
“He slapped our friend.”
“He does the same to us, sorry my friend.” Misfortune told Can.
“Is there no police around here?”
“Police?” he looked stunned, as if he had never heard of police before.
And then he told us more. There was no police around because Lundazi was very far from the district headquarters at Mzimba.
We talked and talked and talked, as we applied fertilizer. Chimwemwe was tired, so too was September and Can. It was a back-breaking job, one that even adults desisted back home.
From what Misfortune told us, escaping from this place was out of question. Even if one managed to leave the boundaries of the estate, he or she would not go further than that. Lundazi was heavily forested. Lions, tigers, elephants and many such killer animals roamed all over the place, ready to bring to death any escapee. According to Misfortune, the best was to accept our predicament.
“I’ll pray to God that my father comes back to rescue us.” Chimwemwe spoke out with the confidence of black ants.
“Where’s your father?”
“In South Africa,” Chimwemwe responded with a grin. “Mother said that he works in the gold mines.”
There was a moment of silence.
“And you, Mwayi,” Misfortune turned to me. “Where’s your father?”
“He’s dead. He died before I was born.”
Misfortune paused awhile, and shot me a pitiful gaze. “My father is dead too.”
Then we felt like members of the same family. Almost everybody's father had
once been to the gold mines in South Africa. My father had died there, so too
Misfortune's father. Chimwemwe, September, Can and the rest of the children we
had found fathers were also in South Africa working in the gold mines.
We were, it seemed, children who were growing up with no idea of what fatherly love felt like. Children who each time went to play with peers who had their fathers around were mocked fatherless. We had all been raised by our mothers who many a time failed to get the best for us; mothers who did not really love us, and ended in selling us off.
“Do you have any idea how much the Commander gives our mothers?” I asked Misfortune.
“I don’t know,” Misfortune shot me another pitiful gaze, cleared his throat and shook his head. We kept on working. It got unusually hot. My back was aching like hell, so too was my head. I was about to sit down when I caught sight of Jackie Chan approaching us, his machete in hands.
“Listen everyone!” he shouted. “You’ll break for lunch now, and resume work immediately afterwards. I give you thirty minutes.”
When Jackie Chan was gone, Misfortune whispered into my ears, ‘We come from the same village.”
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
Misfortune nodded, putting down the plate with fertilizer.
“He’s changed badly,” he said. “He was a good boy but then the Commander taught him to smoke Chamba. He no longer regards us as friends.”
Chimwemwe, Can and September, and two other boys we had found with Misfortune, were already seated beside the plates piled on top of each other.
“Is there a toilet around here?” I asked Misfortune.
He shot me a surprised look, as if he had never been asked the question all his life.
“We do it in that river.” He said, pointing at a river that could be heard flowing just at the edge of the estate.
“You do it in the river?” Misfortune shook his head, sat down, and washed his hands.
“But we’ll not wait for you.” He said matter-of-factly.
I rushed to the river, did what was supposed to be done in a toilet and frantically walked back to the tobacco barn. We ate our meal in silence, Mgaiwa paired with undercooked beans.
“I want drinking water, where’s the borehole?” Chimwemwe asked Misfortune.
“We drink from that river.” Misfortune pointed at the same river he had told us was a toilet.
But Chimwemwe, it seemed, was too thirsty. She was already gone to quench her thirst.
*****
That night we did not sleep. Chimwemwe was convulsing and seething in pain, complaining of abdominal pains. I knew what it was. I was in Standard Six. I shouldered Chimwemwe, paused for an incoherent prayer and walked towards the door.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Misfortune asked me, utterly perplexed.
“I’m taking her to the hospital.” I shot back, Misfortune did not object. In no time I was gone.
I managed to sneak out unnoticed, crossed the river at the edge of the tobacco estate and headed southwards. I could hear lions roaring but I still walked on. Chimwemwe’s groans infused immeasurable willpower in me.
After hours and hours of walking, I heard a cough. I hid. Then I saw a man pushing a bicycle overloaded with bags of charcoal.
I wanted to tell the man that what he was doing was bad for the world. That it was contributing to Global Warming. I wanted to tell him never to fell trees carelessly again but I could not. I was afraid of him but more importantly, I needed his help.
His bicycle looked worse than the one my father owned before he had died. The
bicycle my ruthless uncle had grabbed from my mother and I soon after my father
had been buried. I remember we owned a YI FNG radio, a few mug cups and a large
piece of land. My father’s brother had grabbed these treasures we had from us,
leaving us helpless.
“Excuse me, Pa,” I heard myself saying. “Does this path lead to town?”
The man gave me a surprised look. “It does, but you can only get there tomorrow evening.”
I was terrified. The Commander and Jackie Chan would start tracking me; probably they were already even doing it now.
“Are you from the tobacco estate?” The man asked. I nodded.
“You know it?” I asked him. “Then why don’t you report the tobacco estate owner to the police for ill-treating us?”
“I would have loved to my son.”
“And what stops you?”
“Because the owner of that estate is our Member of Parliament.”
“And so?”
“We’ve tried to report him to the police several times,” the man said sadly. “But each time we’ve done so police officers have told us there’s nothing they can do.”
“Why? How?”
“I don’t know,” sighed the man. “But we all now know that our MP bribes the police and all concerned parties not to pursue his case farther.”
There was graveyard silence.
“By the way,” the man spoke again. “What’s the problem with your sister?”
“Oh,” I sighed, weighed down by distress. “I think it’s Cholera.”
The old man stopped his bicycle, offloaded his bags of charcoal, and then said to me. “Let’s put her on the bicycle.”
I sighed with relief, and joy. I hurriedly put Chimwemwe on the bicycle but then, as I set her free, the young girl sprawled to the ground.
“Chimwemwe! Chimwemwe!” I called and shook her body vigorously but it was stiff and cold.
“She’s dead,” the man said with finality, grief-stricken too.
Just then, I heard heavy footsteps approach us, the same deadly heavy footsteps I had heard earlier that morning. I did not know whether to shout or cry or ran away.
“Excuse me, Pa,” I heard myself saying. “Does this path lead to town?”
The man gave me a surprised look. “It does, but you can only get there tomorrow evening.”
I was terrified. The Commander and Jackie Chan would start tracking me; probably they were already even doing it now.
“Are you from the tobacco estate?” The man asked. I nodded.
“You know it?” I asked him. “Then why don’t you report the tobacco estate owner to the police for ill-treating us?”
“I would have loved to my son.”
“And what stops you?”
“Because the owner of that estate is our Member of Parliament.”
“And so?”
“We’ve tried to report him to the police several times,” the man said sadly. “But each time we’ve done so police officers have told us there’s nothing they can do.”
“Why? How?”
“I don’t know,” sighed the man. “But we all now know that our MP bribes the police and all concerned parties not to pursue his case farther.”
There was graveyard silence.
“By the way,” the man spoke again. “What’s the problem with your sister?”
“Oh,” I sighed, weighed down by distress. “I think it’s Cholera.”
The old man stopped his bicycle, offloaded his bags of charcoal, and then said to me. “Let’s put her on the bicycle.”
I sighed with relief, and joy. I hurriedly put Chimwemwe on the bicycle but then, as I set her free, the young girl sprawled to the ground.
“Chimwemwe! Chimwemwe!” I called and shook her body vigorously but it was stiff and cold.
“She’s dead,” the man said with finality, grief-stricken too.
Just then, I heard heavy footsteps approach us, the same deadly heavy footsteps I had heard earlier that morning. I did not know whether to shout or cry or ran away.
And there was darkness
By Pius Nyondo
After a nightlong task of staying awake in the name of protecting a China shop from thugs and armed robbers, I had to compensate myself. And for me, compensation meant stopping over at Paris Club International, Cool Running or Chipwirikiti for 'one or two'.
Often times, I had solemnly sworn not to stop over at these places. But each time I did so, I surprisingly found myself at these ‘synagogues’, downing bottles of cold ones like there is no tomorrow.
Often times, I had solemnly sworn not to stop over at these places. But each time I did so, I surprisingly found myself at these ‘synagogues’, downing bottles of cold ones like there is no tomorrow.
Actually, the sordid behaviour had almost cost me my job one day. I had branched at Paris Club International for ‘one or two’, ahead of a miserable night of waiting for thieves and engaging myself in battles with mosquitoes. I had ordered for one, thinking I had some money but there was none. I had walked out fuming.
I was an hour or two late, and I would surely be some three or four hours late by the time of my arrival at Shi Chwang General Dealers; my work place. As I walked closer towards the building, my heart raced. Standing, just beside the main entrance was the boss himself, Ti Ling.
I panicked. He never really bothered to check on me. I was his good boy. I had impressed him so much during my early days as watchman at the shop so much so that he really never bothered to mark my ‘register’. Some jealous fool must surely have told my boss that I had not reported for work, I told myself, trying to figure out who it could be.
"Bwana...," I wanted to cook up a lie.
"Nava kuti ukugwira chito bwino kwambiri. Ona, unali keseli kuona ngati zitu zili bwino. Nikukwezera malipiro ako,"
(I’m told you are very diligent. See, you were behind the shop checking if everything is okay. I’ll raise your pay this month-end.) Bwana Ling said. I sighed. He struggled to communicate to me, and I struggled to get what he always tried to say to me; I being a Standard 4 drop out.
"Nikudikila mkazi wanga ali paselipa," he continued. "Timapanga stock-taking." (We were stock-taking.)
"Ok Bwana," I gave him a fake salute, knowing my delinquency wouldn't be laid bare.
Just then, his wife; a good looking young girl, whom resources allowing, I wouldn't hesitate to grab from my boss, appeared. She was dressed in a very tempting miniskirt, a beauty revealing blouse, and lipstick that was so inviting. Seeing her, I must confess, always made me curse myself for being poor. Good looking women like her need men who breathe. Men who can donate. Men who have. And not a mere church rat like me.
That aside, I mean the fact that I was jealous with my boss over his beautiful wife, I liked Bwana Ling. He was a good man. As I saw them leave, I thanked my stars for being his employee. I was better paid compared to my other colleagues who worked for other China shops. Once in a while, Bwana Ling gave me a China T-shirt or a pair of shoes for the ‘dedication’ I had towards my job.
Bwana Ti Ling, a short man with a very ugly face, had come to the Republic of Mwatitha from China as a foreman for a construction company that had been assigned to do one of the roads in the rural parts of the country. When the road construction was over, Ling did not want to go.
Bwana Ti Ling, a short man with a very ugly face, had come to the Republic of Mwatitha from China as a foreman for a construction company that had been assigned to do one of the roads in the rural parts of the country. When the road construction was over, Ling did not want to go.
Actually, a few months before they had completed the construction of the road, Ling had fallen head-over-heels for one native girl in the area; my mistress now. A story is told that she used to sell bananas at the Chinese camp where Ling was a regular customer. But Ling went deeper. He loved Esitele. Got her pregnant and then married her. When his colleagues were leaving for China, Ling decided to remain behind a re-married man, for rumour had it that he was a father of thirteen children back in China.
So, that's how I survived that day. Ling had been waiting for his wife. He said I was a hard worker. Yes. That day they had been ‘stock-taking’. Up to date, I don't even know what kind of animal 'stock-taking' is. You see, the thing is, every time Bwana Ling spoke to me, it was either he was commending me on some job well done, or he was sending me to buy some meat for him, nothing else.
He asked me to fetch frogs, monitor lizards, snakes and all those kinds of weird animals for him. In short; reptiles, mammals, amphibians and all other living things you can think of. I carried his orders to the letter. The beauty of it all is that he already had his customers. My simple task was to collect from them, and deliver to him.
That's why, when he had mentioned 'stock-taking’ that afternoon, I expected him to dip into his pockets and give to me some bank notes for 'stock-taking.' He did not. His wife appeared, and they left, leaving me in suspense. Up to date, I tell you, I am still trying to figure out what kind of animal 'stock-taking' can be. But, of course, I have a clue. The ‘S’ sound. It must have something to do with snakes. Bwana Ling loved snakes.
****
This evening, seating comfortably at a corner in Paris Club International; I had nothing to worry about. I didn’t have to carry my knobkerrie and machete to follow thugs and armed robbers. I had lied to Bwana Ling that my wife was seriously sick and thus I had to take care of our three children. Being the good man that he was and me the ‘good boy’ that I was, Bwana Ling gave me a four-day holiday plus an allowance to see myself through during my 'trying times.'
But I had cooked up the whole thing. I just wanted to have some fun. It was Christmas time. I was neither married nor had three children. I was only a poor bachelor housed in one of the shacks in the slams of Luwinga; a city that only looked beautiful when one was drunk.
I was only about three weeks old in the city, and I felt home and welcome every time I emptied an extra bottle of Kuchekuche beer-that brand of alcohol that never wants one to leave it and go to sleep. Before, I had been a tenant in one of the tobacco growing areas in the countryside. I went unpaid for five and half years and decided enough was enough. I left for ‘greener pastures’ and settled in this city of Luwinga.
Reason why I was not yet married at 32? Simple. I had no trust in women, except my mother and Mary the Mother of Jesus. I loved my first girl at 13, the next at 18 and the last at 22. The worst one was that girl I loved when I was eighteen - Brenda. I loved her. She never loved me in return. I smiled. She never smiled. I tried to make her laugh. She couldn’t just succumb. At one point she nearly killed my mother with hypertension when she had lied against my father that he was responsible for her...
I don’t like talking about that shit. She was not only a liar, but also the Devil’s incarnate capable of plotting any kind of evil. Since then, I declared to myself: No women for the rest of your life, Mavuto-they are all traitors, murderers. Like poisonous snakes, they can kill, just for the sake of killing, without eating you. Drink beer, more beer and the Most High will be happy with your spirit for saving his precious water.
I was downing my fifth bottle, when I saw Goodson, my workmate at Shi Chwang General Dealers approaching. He was a shop attendant, and earned a more meager pay than I did. I wanted to hide, but then I realized that he was too drunk to distinguish between good and evil. Walking beside him was a sick-looking girl, so nauseating. Actually, everyone in Paris Club International had his gaze on the ‘couple’, which had now sat just beside me.
"Mavuto!" He joyously extended his hand. I hesitated, but offered it all the same. What could I have done after all?
"Can't he realize that this girl is very sick?" An elderly gentleman standing next to my workmate said in a tone that was low to him but one which was heard by everybody. And just then, everybody turned towards our direction.
"These are the things we men don’t see when drunk," some loud mouth in the bar shouted.
Goodson did not move an inch. I have already mentioned, he couldn't distinguish between good and evil, lovely and ugly. He turned to me instead.
"...hey! You told Bwana that your wife is sick." I was wrong. He was not as recklessly drunk as I thought. Everyone turned to me. I looked down.
"Mavuto," he went on. "Taste a beautiful girl like this one and see that girls are good!"
The 'beautiful girl' who was standing beside him, whom Goodson would 'taste and see that she is good' sooner than later smiled. Everyone laughed.
"For how long," my workmate, it seemed, wanted to injure me more. "Are you going to remain unmarried? Don't you know that all bachelors are fools?"
Much as I didn't like women personally, I felt bad when someone laid bare my attitude towards women in public. That’s why I wanted Goodson, my workmate, to leave.
The whole bar was sent into stitches of laughter once again.
Enough was enough. I rose to my feet, aimed a blow at Goodson which sent him sprawling to the ground. Then a dead silence enveloped the bar. Dead silence. The 'beautiful girl' who had come with him was trying to shake Goodson up but to no avail.
Something told me to run, and I started doing so. And I was not looking back. Behind me, I could hear drunkards shouting, shouting so loud and hard.
Something told me to run, and I started doing so. And I was not looking back. Behind me, I could hear drunkards shouting, shouting so loud and hard.
My direction was home. I was considerably drunk, so I thought going home was the safest thing I could do.
I had run and run, and I was heavily panting now. But I had now reached a bridge which I had to cross before reaching my house, my shack I should rightly put it. This bridge frightened me and yet, I had to cross it before I could get home. I was here now, and very afraid.
I had not even reached the middle of the bridge when I saw three men with a torch flashing their light directly at me.
"Hey, can't you see that you are injuring my eyes?" I said under the influence.
They didn't respond. I got nervous.
One of them fished a knife from his jacket and threw it at me. It came straight to my chest. I fell down in pain. I looked back and saw what looked like a police van move towards our direction.
"Shit!" I faintly heard one of them say. "Somebody tipped the police about our presence here. Finish this bastard and let's vacate this place."
I felt very great pain in my stomach, pain that was really ‘finishing’ me. And then there was darkness...
From a romantically challenged
By Pius Nyondo
Dearest,
I've tried enough
But still no relief
I'm still that love moron
Romantically impotent
Dearest,
But I tried
Liking her Facebook updates, commenting...
I called her, sent her something...
For her lipstick, leggings...
To no avail
Dearest,
Is it because I failed,
To tell her by word of mouth?
But dear,
You once told me,
That actions speak louder than words.
Dearest,
If it were an exam,
I would have failed.
Fortuanately it is not
It is just an art
Masquadering as love
Yours faithfully...
#Inspired by Ndongolera C. Mwangupili's Letters to a Comrade.
Tuesday 7 May 2013
Malawi's Peer Gynt literary competition deadline Wed
By Albert Sharra, The Nation
Malawi Writers Union (Mawu) has said the deadline for submission of entries into the first ever Peer Gynt literary competition is 5pm Wednesday.
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| Sambalikagwa Mvona |
According to an earlier announcement, all entries into the competition which is an adaptation of a popular Norwegian five- act play by Henrik Ibsen were supposed to be submitted by last week Friday.
Mawu president Sambalikagwa Mvona on Monday said his office extended the deadline of the competition to give a chance to some writers who are sending their entries through post office and couriers.
"We were expected to close by weekend, but I have been receiving contacts from various people asking if we have got their entries. Others were saying they had sent through courier and to be fair we just decided to extend the deadline by three days, and we believe there would be no excuses after today," he said.
However, the president said the response for entries is very overwhelming. He said he has received many entries and will be disclosing the total figure of the entries by close of business Wednesday.
The competition is open to any person and the minimum words for each entry is 40 000. According to Mvona the objective is to produce an adult book manuscript which can be used in secondary schools and colleges.
"We want to promote reading culture among students and graduates by providing new and local publications. This is one of the ways of doing it. We will make sure all best manuscripts are available in schools and libraries of the country," he said.
Mvona said the best three manuscripts will be sent outside the country for final editing and designing and will be printed into novels.
Apart from that, the best three will be awarded K500 000 (about $420), K300 000 (about $714) and K200 000 (about $476) cash respectively. Mvona added that there are also three consolation prizes to manuscripts on position four to six. The three will receive K50 000 (about $119) each.
He also said there is also a possibility of publishing the three in form of novels.
The good, the bad of porn.
In this second article in the series on pornography in Malawi, PIUS NYONDO discusses the impact of sexually explicit content on people.
Grammy-winning gospel singer Kirk Franklin, confessing in a November 30 2005 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, said he had been addicted to pornography as early as when he was eight years old.
Nothing could take him away from sexually explicit videos, Franklin said. Even after he married a woman he truly loved, he continued to watch the videos secretly.
In an attempt to break free from the habit, he drove to a dumpster in the middle of the night and threw away his porn collection. But the same night, Franklin returned to his car, drove back to the dumpster and gathered it all back up.
Digging through the trash in the middle of the night was the turning point for Franklin. It pushed him to share his struggles with his wife, and together they worked through his addiction.
Franklin’s tale is one most pornography addicts in Malawi may wish to share, but lack the courage to do so. For many in the country, porn addiction is an ugly reality they just cannot escape.
Experts say pornography is an addictive habit from which it is difficult to escape. They also say the habit sometimes exacts a huge toll on the addicts.
Pros and cons
Associate professor Chiwoza Bandawe, who teaches clinical psychology at the College of Medicine, said research has found that watching pornography has both positive and negative impact.
Bandawe cited increased sexual arousal and sexual behaviours as the positive effects of pornography.
He said higher performance anxiety and devaluing of partner attractiveness are some negative effects of watching pornography.
"The very latest research by Staley & Prause released in December 2012 indicates reports of negative emotions such as guilt and anxiety after viewing porn," said Bandawe.
He said a recent study conducted by Wright, which surveyed the use of porn in the USA between 1973 and 2010, confirmed that pornography creates a more permissive attitude towards sex.
"Pornography consumption was associated with having more positive attitudes towards teenage sex, adult premarital sex and extramarital sex. Pornographic consumption was also positively related to actually engaging in extramarital sex.
"In line with public health researchers’ concerns, pornography consumption was associated with having more sexual partners and engaging in paid sex behaviours.
"With regard to internet porn (IP), Short and colleagues find that its use has increased over the past 10 years. The effects of IP use are widespread and are both negative (e.g., relationship and interpersonal distress) and positive (e.g., increases in sexual knowledge and attitudes toward sex)," said Bandawe.
Porn exposure
A psychologist at St. John of God College of Health Sciences in Mzuzu, Ndumanene Silungwe, said pornography has negative repercussions on children, students, the working class and married people who consume it.
"Exposure to pornographic material in childhood, according to A Review of the Research on Internet Addiction by Chien and others published in 2005, forms the element of sexual abuse and children that are exposed to inappropriate sexual behaviour in childhood, including pornography, rape, defilement or incest, can develop dysfunctional behaviour such as prostitution i.e. multiple sexual relationships for both male and females in adulthood.
"As for students, addictive pornographic behaviour impairs memory and concentration (especially it interferes with short-term memory in the long run) presented as forgetfulness. It may also lead to inappropriate compulsive thoughts that may lead to abuse or defilement. It is likely to affect academic performance as time to do studies is affected," said Silungwe.
He added that for the working class, there are financial implications of engaging in addictive pornography and internet.
Citing a 1996 paper titled The Emergence of a New Clinical Disorder a paper by Kimberly Young of the University of Pittsburgh, USA, Silungwe said time may be spent watching pornography or browsing the internet which could be used for productive activities.
"When you spend all the time on the internet or accessing porn, you will not work and you are a contributor to losses in the company, and that means less income. By the time you realise it, the problem is deep health problems will have resulted from cyber addiction," he said.
According to Family Safe Media, a globally recognised media outfit that provides parental control solutions for families concerned about the profanity, promiscuity and violence in today’s media and entertainment, over 12 percent of internet pages contain pornographic content.
Against this background, Silungwe admitted that it is not easy to break the bonds of porn addiction that develop because of prolonged exposure to explicit material.
Self control
He said self-control is the starting point in avoiding the trap of addiction.
Unlike in the past, said Silungwe, when the internet was not prevalent, today people can easily access pornographic websites in the privacy of their homes.
"The best way is not to start the habit at all. Internet is the best trap to get exposed to pornography; so, before you go online, be sure of what you want to do and after doing it log off.
"You can also determine the amount of time you spend online a day. Once that time is over, log off. Self-discipline is the key in all these. If you can’t discipline yourself, you cannot get out of this problem.
"But if you are already an addict of porn, seek psychological or pastoral help to a service provider who is non-judgmental and who will keep your issue in confidence. At St John of God, one can receive psychological help from specialists," said Silungwe.
He argued that enacting tough laws on pornographic content in Malawi may not be the best solution as it could only heighten the curiosity for the material.
Instead, he proposed that the country should focus on grooming its next generation on the foundation of strong family values.
"We need a strong foundation in the home. We need parents who talk to their children openly about the dangers of the modern world. The opportunity to build a disciplined child rests primarily with family," said Silungwe.
Dr Omar Minwalla, clinical supervisor at the Sexual Recovery Institute in Los Angeles, US, said watching too much porn results in sexual addiction which is "any kind of sexual behaviour that a person continues to engage in despite negative consequences."
Minwalla said although it may appear an appealing way of dealing with problems, pornography hurts people who are hooked on it.
"It’s easy to just feel pleasure. [Addicts may think] ‘I can sit in my room and feel bad that I just got beat up and my parents don’t listen to me—or I can masturbate [while viewing pornography]. It’s a way of medicating pain and not knowing how to deal with that pain," he wrote on
Is porn battle winnable?
By Pius Nyondo
Pornography is thriving business in Malawi. Police and the Censorship Board have waged battles against the problem, but there are no signs that it is about to disappear. So is it a lost fight? PIUS NYONDO takes up the issue in this first article in the series on pornography in Malawi.
It is a chilly Monday morning. Like other business-people in downtown Mzuzu, Wanangwa is busy dusting off his shop as he looks forward to what appears to be a promising day for business.
Wanangwa, 29, is a father of three and survives on selling music and video CDs. Apart from Malawian productions, his shop also stocks music and films from across the world.
But there is more to his shop. While some customers leave the shop with Nigerian, American or Indian movies, others go home with pornographic films.
And Wanangwa is not alone. Pornography is thriving business for sellers of video and music tapes and DVDs in the country.
"Unlike other videos," said Wanangwa, "blue movies make good business. People will always buy them. It is lucrative business."
Some customers, he said, will even prescribe their preferred movies and ask him to get them every time he goes out to buy films for his business.
The porn buyer
More tellingly, Wanangwa said, his customers are typically people of high social standing holding white-collar jobs.
"Typical buyers are young men. But once in a while, old men and women will come to ask for the movies. When such people come, you have to be very careful because you never know whether they are police officers.
"It is risky business," he said.
When I convince him that I am not a police agent, telling him that I am a customer, Wanangwa samples and shows me some porn movies. They range from African, Indian to American movies.
"Most buyers prefer these," he said, pointing at Afro-American movies.
"The price is the same, though. They all go at K500 (about $1.25) each."
Wanangwa said he sells a minimum of 50 pornographic films a month, giving him about K25 000 (about $62.50).
He said it is difficult to buy pornographic films, let alone to sell them, because police are always ready to pounce.
Wanangwa said sometimes he buys the films from some dealers in Lilongwe or he goes to South Africa to buy them.
"They are very expensive in Lilongwe because of the demand in the country. But when you go to South Africa and safely bring them into the country, you are assured of good money.
"When you gain experience in the business, it is not difficult to evade the prying eyes of the police because we usually pack the porn movies together with normal videos. And even when you are caught, you can always offer a little something to them," said Wanangwa.
While a porn movie costs him K300 (about $0.75) in Lilongwe, the same video may cost less than R2 (about K100) in Johannesburg in South Africa.
No censorship
Wanangwa said in the past, he was afraid of the Censorship Board which used to conduct regular inspections of video shops.
He said these days, the board rarely conducts the inspections.
This is an assertion chief censoring officer at the board, Humphrey Mpondaminga, corroborated.
Mpondaminga attributed the board’s inactiveness to inadequate funding.
"The challenge is very much about how much is invested to run various programmes for the Censorship Board and not the trickery of those peddling pornography. For some four years now, the budget to run the Censorship Board has been inadequate.
"This office requires at least K60 million (about $150 000) every year and four additional vehicles to run all its four programmes, including that of pornography," he said.
Mpondaminga claimed that based on the experience gained over the years, the board has developed solid investigation strategies to curb the problem of pornography.
"We’ve established that there are three levels of distribution for pornography: the streets, the public film video shows and people’s homes [which are] the lowest level.
"Then, we have some streets where [pornography] is sold as the second level. The third and highest level are those involved in downloading, reproducing or importing the material. This third level is the most important link in the supply chain of pornographic films.
"Our investigations show that only some of the importers are involved in this malpractice. It is interesting to note that when arrested and prosecuted, most of the culprits have volunteered to help give clues to others involved in peddling pornography," he said.
Internet porn
According to Mpondaminga, pornography in the country is on the rise because of the developments in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector which have made it easy for more Malawians to have access to the internet.
"Most printed porno DVDs being sold in the streets are from the internet, mostly supplied by street-side shacks operating as DVD or multimedia centres. This accounts for about 80 percent of the stuff in the country," he said.
He said for the past four years the board has been targeting key suppliers of pornographic material, based on the assumption that if the problem is dealt with at this level, the other levels in the supply chain will be starved of the content.
As part of the strategy, he said since 2010, the board has also been running a campaign to improve theatre standards to conform to the requirements of the Censorship Act.
"We have persistently engaged public video operators through sensitisation meetings, follow-ups on theatre standards and enforcement campaign. We have taken advantage of these regular contacts with theatre operators to do surprise checks on pornography and the results have been impressive," said Mpondaminga.
Porn and poverty
A social worker at St. John of God Community Services, Christopher Mhone, said poverty lies at the heart of the booming business in pornography.
He said some people are forced to subsist on selling pornographic material because of lack of better opportunities for earning a living.
"You will rarely find video showrooms in places where most people are well-to-do. For example, you will not find such places in Chimaliro [in Mzuzu], Area 47 [in Lilongwe] or Sunnyside [in Blantyre] but you are definitely going to find many such places in Zolozolo [in Mzuzu], Ntandire [in Lilongwe] and Ndirande [in Blantyre].
"Why? Because of the poverty levels in these places which are forcing everyone to find the most viable way to survive in town," said Mhone.
He said efforts by the board and police to clamp down on video showrooms that show pornographic movies are likely to be ineffective because the business provides a livelihood to some people.
"Children and the youth are a readily available market for porn in such areas because their families don’t have the capacity to own television sets where they can monitor what their children watch," said Mhone.
He said dealing with urban poverty will give the country a chance to effectively tackle the problem of pornography.
"Once parents are no longer preoccupied with their work and business, they will pay more attention to the welfare of their children. That, I am sure, can be one way of trying to bring irresponsible watching of pornography to a halt," he said.
Monday 6 May 2013
'When silence is no longer golden'
...A review of Misheck Banda's play 'One Passenger Silent.'
By Pius Nyondo
Imagine. Just imagine you are a young university graduate, fresh from a university abroad, and ready to begin enjoying the fruits of your diligence and perseverance. You want to settle down as a married man, after having remained faithful with yourself since childhood. You have never been in a relationship with any girl, nor have you ever engaged in sexual intercourse. And then, imagine yourself falling head-over-heals for a harlot who is HIV positive and has infected several men including your own father. Imagine.
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| Misheck Banda-Wrote and Directed the play. |
Such is the heartrending story in 'One Passenger Silent', a recent play premeired by Mzuzu University Theatre Arts Group (MUTAG) in the Mzuzu University hall last Sunday, written and directed by Misheck Banda-a lecturer in the department of languages and literature.
Plot
The play begins with a prologue that depicts the past ugly life of Ajeedah, a helpless girl who is into prostitution because of poverty. She opens wide her legs for anyone who is ready to offer her a penny for survival regardless of financial status and class in the society. Today, Ajeedah may sleep with a Barman, tomorrow with Hon. Chifwayi, a regional governor, and the other day with Sperks Maganzi, a financial magnate. Such is her day-to-day grim struggle for survival.
Whether by mere divine intervetion or design, Sperks Maganzi offers to help Ajeedah financially as long as she will commit herself to him alone. Ajeedah accepts and her life gets transformed for the better.
But then, Sperks Maganzi goes ahead to marry Lendiwe and together they have a son, Dubai, a graduate from the University of Monrovia. Dubai, through the help of a friend Poncho wins Ajeedah's heart, and the two lovebirds plan to get married.
Things do not turn the right way though. When Dubai brings Ajeedah before his parents, Sperks Maganzi condemns the relationship-calling Ajeedah all sorts of ugly names. Actually, he does that before his young brother Snoden, who has come to beg for money. Since he sides with Dubai and Lendiwe, Sperks Maganzi drives Snoden out of his house like a thief.
Snoden does not live without a word, he and his wife Maria utter several proverbial statements which threaten Sperks Maganzi with death.
But, it seems, Sperks Maganzi still loves Ajeedah. Secretly, the two continue to meet and the latter gets pregnant. Ajeedah breaks the news of her pregnancy but Sperks Maganzi can have none of it. He 'funds' the abortion but Ajeedah decides to keep the pregnancy.
Silence is not golden
Throughout the play, which employs suspense and flashback in good measure, one actually feels he or she could help break the silence that engulfs the characters, especially Sperks Maganzi and Ajeedah, as it is the one that finally spoils the whole mood-only to leave the rest of the characters with more questions than answers.
For example, Sperks Maganzi despite knowing that his son Dubai is in love with a commercial sex worker he does not warn his son about it. On the other hand, Ajeedah knows she is pregnant for Sperks Maganzi but goes ahead to wed Dubai secretly before a money-hungry Pastor Litete of Church of Good Will. It is this silence that makes Dubai and Lendiwe get hooked in the web of HIV/AIDS.
Money minded 'Ministers of God'
Dubai seriously wants to marry Ajeedah. He seeks the advice of his friend Poncho who consults Pastor Tete Litete if he can marry his two friends through an 'emergency wedding'. Pastor Litete agrees, but at a price. He needs K35 000 to offer the service.
This, brings to the fore the money-mindedness that some allegedly 'Men of God' are championing in the country. However, the play teaches that things that receive 'blessings' from such 'unholy' hands do not actually end at a good note. For example, after blessing the marriage, Pastor Litete orders Dubai and Ajeedah to go for a honeymoon where Dubai engages in an unprotected sex and eventually gets HIV.
Political touch
In One Passenger Silent, the writer ably brings forth his commitment by addressing the evils of bootlicking or handclapping politics. Ntalimanja, the houseboy, even though he well knows that his boss Sperks Maganzi is wrong by throwing verbal garbage at his younger brother Snoden and his wife Lendiwe, he cleverly claps hands at every word his boss Sperks Maganzi utters-attracting nods from him.
This can be a lesson to politicians in the country who merely support anything that their leaders say just to remain at the helm of power.
Evil cultural practices
When Sperks Maganzi suddenly dies, the villagers accuse his young brother Snoden and his wife Maria of bewitching him. According to tradition of the village, the two are supposed to be killed. They are only saved by Sperks Maganzi's family doctor who comes to clear misconceptions at the funeral by telling the truth sorrounding Sperks Maganzi's death-he overdosed himself with Viagra-'sexpetizers'-after being told that he was HIV positive. He could not just accept his status. Had it been the family doctor did not come up, Snoden and his wife would have faced the wrath of a village custom for a crime they never committed.
Humour
The play provides a good sense of humour throughout the two and half hours of its premire. For example, when proposing to Ajeedah, Dubai, in trying to win her heart says "Am I not a citizen of this country?" When Dubai fails, Poncho who is the 'romantic adviser' to the former and finally helps in winning Ajeedah's heart argues that "men of this type [meaning Dubai's type] are in short supply." This and many other humorous lines send the audience into stitches of laughter now and again.
One passenger silent
Sperks Maganzi is dead. No one knows what has killed him until the doctor cracks the nut and exposes its contents. Before he died, Sperks Maganzi failed to accept that 'positive living is possible' after he was diagnosed HIV positive and thus opted to overdose himself with Viagra. Now, he can no longer speak and face the reality he has left behind.
Sadly, Dubai realises that Ajeedah is his foster sister as Ajeedah's mother, unknown throughout the play unveils herself during the funeral to mourn her departed husband Sperks Maganzi. Dubai and Lendiwe fear they have contracted HIV too and the former is mad at Ajeedah for she slept with him knowing she was already pregnant for his father, Sperks Maganzi. Dubai furiously rushes to his father's coffin and grabs his dead father by the shirt-front. But Sperks Maganzi is cold and stiff. He too, like Lendiwe, Ajeedah, her mother and Dubai, is a passenger. But a silent passenger.
Lows
But the play, One Passenger Silent, which soars with originality and freshness, creativity and good socio-political themes, is not without some lows. For example, in his incantations, while trying to find out whether Snoden and Maria are responsible for Sperks Maganzi's death, the witchdoctor Chakumanda uses the director's name as one of his gods. This puts off the audience, as all of a sudden, the play loses a touch of reality. The witchdoctor would have used other relevant names instead of the director's Misheck Banda. Also, while it is evident that the playwright did a good job in coming up with a great script, a few actors mess up on word pronounciation and articulation.
Theatre for development
According to Banda, the play was aimed at encouraging the audience, especially the youths, to break the silence and "beware of the silent passenger" if the dream of an HIV free generation is to be achieved.
"Multiple and concurrent sexual partnerships are dangerous, positive prevention is key. Positive living is possible, and condom use is a viable option," he advised, adding that production was funded by National Aids Commission (NAC).
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