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.

Short story for thursday,22nd Oct. 2009

DEMOCRAZY.


The thirteen boys were ready. Red-masked faces, overalls and gumboots, dazzling pangas in red-gloved hands. On your marks! It's about time and soon the order would be given. The operation? The usual. Disrupt a campaign rally. This sick man without a party was becoming a nuisance. How dare he challenge the all wise head, deliverer of the poor from autocratic bondage?

Madalitso, 16 and the youngest in the group, remained confused. He had never killed before and he was to begin it in such a heart-rending manner - hack somebody to death like a banana tree. But who had asked him to kill? He was only supposed to disrupt the rally. Many however, had died in similar operations and he knew it. After all, he remembered, you shed blood, you get more pecks.

‘Get set!’ a command was whispered. Everybody fumbled with themselves. The grip on the pangas tightened. Mada breathed hard. You’ll have to kill, somebody seemed to be telling him. Kill for your own survival. You don’t have a mother to look after you. Your father’s bones were buried last month after two long years of diarrhea, coughing and fever, and your granny is just a shadow of her old self.

‘Remember, whip them away, hack the stubborn!’ Wrong weapon in hand! Everybody fumbled for their sjamboks.

Hack the stubborn for a K200 note. What do you think you are eating tonight? You know how strained your father’s relationship with other people even his own relatives was. Who can accept to keep a child of a pompous father like yours? After all do you have a home, a village? Your father never took you to your people and called this town your home. Yes make it your home. The streets are your home. Mada hated this ‘person’ whispering in his head. He puffed hard at the cannabis cigar. He wished for something stronger that would quickly get into his blood. Cocaine or mandrax may be.

Meanwhile, drums roared in the still afternoon at Jamba rally grounds. Women sung and danced in the blazing October heat for their not-yet-arrived would-be president. The men, tired and hungry faces, discussed their dissatisfaction with the government. A decade ago they said enough with the autocratic rule. Ten years down the line, it was clear, oppression had replaced oppression. You have one shirt, you lose it to those with a suitcaseful; those with a single cob of maize were left with the cob without any grain on it.

Two VXs approached. Men moved closer. Women sang and danced wildly, wiggling their plumpy bottoms to the discomfort of their thin-like-grasshopper babies on their backs. Some of the babies burst into sudden wails - they wondered what suddenly went wrong with mama.

The VIPs went up the platform. Five decently dressed men and a lady. The would-be first lady, smiling and waving at the dancing troupe. Red lips, red finger nails and toes, red tight-fitting short skirt, a white thin tight-fitting blouse. Cute !

A kilometer away the gang braced up for departure.

‘Move!’ The two pickups sped off skidding and raising a cloud of dust around the crowd. What the hell could it be? Before anybody answered themselves, hell had already broken loose. Whips cracked, women wailed, children choked in the dust, cowards pissed in their pants not knowing what to do. Mada obeyed the order: whipped two away, the third was stubborn. Three times the whip cracked, she did not move. What a woman! Hack the stubborn! No scream. Only a stream of blood. He could not stand this. The blood frightened him. The cracking whips tore at his flesh. The wailing disheartened his soul and the dust chocked him. The platform was ablaze. Pangas and sjamboks still whistled in the air. He dropped his, unmasked himself and walked away slowly to nowhere. He had killed. Yes, you have done it, the voice came back. Go, get your pay.

Later that evening, at the house of the minister of youth, bank notes flashed, the young murderers smiled. Mada was not there. Nobody cared. He was at police station. From the battle field he had lingered about aimlessly in town and finally walked into the police station.

Two police women dozed on the counter. Earlier, they got reports. Thugs had attacked a rally. But they had no transport. Besides, they had not received any directive to act.

‘Can I help? one police woman asked.
‘Arrest me. I killed a woman at the rally. See this? Blood, human blood see.’

There was no blood on his clothes. The officers laughed. He was a mental case, they thought.

‘Get out and go home!’

Mada hastened out to go home, to nowhere, and told everybody he met - what was to be his story for life- he had killed a woman and police refused to arrest him. Whenever he saw any posh car he would shout “Mr Minister they haven’t arrested me up to now.” Mada roamed the streets until a few days ago when he was finally “arrested” to be detained at the mental asylum.

POEM FOR THURSDAY,8TH OCTOBER 2009 AD IN ROOM B

Is this what you have decided?

Is this what you have decided?
Wasting my time like so many drums of water
I was so caring and treated you with affection
How I thought we shall be together later

Is that the idea to which you are committed?
Fading hopes that like Hosea and Gomer we shall be
For I deeply perceived you as dedicated
Only to prove me wrong with your crookedness

So, this is what you have decided?
Siphoning up all my resources as a pleasure tube
If only I knew you are such minded
Could I cry then over this seemingly spilt milk to be?

I didn’t know this is what you have decided
Turning me into the victim of false hopes
How I failed to believe you are such stubborn
But look you unlucky one, it’s not all over Emiwe
Surely like Pharisees crying over the once neglected stone you will do
Then, it will be known that not all that glitters is gold.