NEXT!THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF MALAWI (CUNIMA) - NGULUDI

By
Mankhokwe Namusanya

MULUNGUZI River traverses and cascades both silently and gradually along the slopes of the plateau that is Zomba Mountain – possibly the tallest point in the whole of the Eastern region of Malawi. The river meanders down and snakes its way through the trees that are decorated with dense and mass foliage during the spring. The same trees that are but a memento of the natural beauty the plateau used to boast of.

And in journeying, the river passes through places: some rocky, some thorny, some strange, some usual. One of such places is a college, they call it Chancellor. A college, to quote one Zondiwe Bruce Mbano, that deals with the liberal arts. And it is at this Chancellor College where, as Shakespeare would say, we will lay our scene.

This is a scene that starts at 7:00 am on a Saturday, the seventh day of the penultimate month of the year (November) 2009 AD. Thirty characters or so, comprising of staff and students of the College, feature in this scene set between Universities, places, district and even regions. They are a small crew of enthusiastic writers representing the Chancellor College Writers’ Workshop, a literary arts organization that has been there since way back in 1970.

And the crew sets off on a mission targeting some place, a place called The Catholic university of Malawi, abbreviated or rather ‘ellipsised and/or acronymed’ as CUNIMA. The only Catholic University in Malawi and the only University in Nguludi, Chiradzulu – the home district of John Chilembwe, the martyr. The crew leaves all their academic workload behind to concentrate on one thing, one thing only – writing, or to make it swankier, literature.

In this group are budding writers, writers that were not but are and surely, will be. In this group of budding writers are also categories. There are those that can be said to be virgin writers, that is, writers that are but the outside world (CUNIMA inclusive) has never had the chance of feasting and partying on their works. They are the writers whose works have not yet been tampered with by the media, if tampering with. Lackson Pius, Rhodrick Michongwe, Ruth Kawonga, Sheena Kapachika, Pellanie Mogha, Lonjezo Sithole et al. are the ones existing in this category; CUNIMA will be watching and hearing them for the maiden time but not the last.

Then, there are those that the world has seen, heard or read recently: the Workshops’ young ones. The new breed that the workshop has managed to produce in the past two years or so. The writers that, all factors held constant, are aiming at one thing only which is reconstructing the fable that writing is dead, gone and buried. Hastings Tadala Tembo whose poetry has appeared in the Weekend Nation (Emotional Equinox), Sunday Times (The Second Congregation) and Wasi Magazine (At Dziwe la Nkhalamba); Innocent Chigeza Chipofya whose poem (Speechless) and Short Story (October rains) appeared in the Sunday Times and Malawi News respectively; Happiness Zidana whose poetry (Despised Voices) and Short story (Chigonapamuhanya the wanderer) appeared in the Malawi news; and some others fall in this category.

And there will be another group, those that the world already knows or has ever encountered many times and in so many ways. Hardson Chamasowa of the Zochitika ku Smongolia fame, the man currently enjoying airplay on Joy FM’s Patsinde programme, the current Chanco’s best vernacular poet, arguably; and others fall in this category. These are the grown children, the adolescents – the ones undergoing the ‘puberty’ in writing, taking the path to maturity if and only if somebody, with a passion to murder writing, shall not trample on them.

And the crew shall leave at 7 am marking the beginning of the scene and go to Catholic University to talk nothing but writing with fellow literature savants of the University. The shall not arrive at the University campus with shouts of ‘CU here we attack!’ or anything close to that but they shall arrive reciting a poem, silently and gently, a poem of a poet, a poet who ventured into politics, a poet who also is a product of the workshop, a poet whose poem is in the second anthology of poetry from the Workshop (The Haunting Wind), a poet who responds to the name Ken
Lipenga PhD; his lines of the poem ‘Peace and Goodwill among men’ shall be muttered:

“Every valley shall be exalted
Every mountain shall be made low
The crooked shall be made straight
And the straight likewise crooked…”

And that shall mark the beginning of the action after the start of the scene from Chancellor College. Action that shall run until 15:00 hours.