The Spirit of Malawi

The Spirit of Malawi

SUSAN DALGETY

First published 2021

ISBN: 978-1-913025-46-5

e-ISBN: 978-1-910022-42-9

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book

under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made

from low chlorine pulps produced in a low energy,

low emission manner from renewable forests.

Printed and bound by

Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow

Typeset in 11 point Sabon by

Main Point Books, Edinburgh

Photographs by Susan Dalgety unless otherwise indicated.

© Susan Dalgety 2021

To my mother Mary McShane, who taught me resilience; our grandchildren Kyle, Iona, Arran and Sofia, who teach me about life; and Hombakazi Tanaach Reve Mbekeani, born a Xhosa princess and died a Malawi queen, aged 92. We miss her.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Vera Kamtukule, Malawi Government

Deputy Minister for Labour, Skills and Innovation

Foreword by Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale

Preface

Map of Malawi

SECTION 1: The cycle of life

Chapter 1: The spirit of Malawi

Chapter 2: Birth of a nation

Chapter 3: The early years

Chapter 4: Four million children

Chapter 5: Typical teenagers

Chapter 6: Into adulthood

Chapter 7: Family life

Chapter 8: Growing old

Chapter 9: Health of a nation

SECTION 2: All in a day’s work

Chapter 10: The economy

Chapter 11: Addicted to tobacco

Chapter 12: Business life

SECTION 3: The people’s culture

Chapter 13: The lake of stars

Chapter 14: Tribal traditions

Chapter 15: In God we trust

Chapter 16: Creative forces

SECTION 4: A young democracy

Chapter 17: Colonialism to aid

Chapter 18: Governing Malawi

Chapter 19: Justice for all?

Chapter 20: Village to city life

SECTION 5: Whither Malawi?

Chapter 21: A hopeful future

Timeline

Notes and sources

Acknowledgements

THIS BOOK HAS taken 15 years to write. From the moment I first arrived in Malawi in April 2005 to help organise the forthcoming visit of Scotland’s First Minister, I have loved this country and its people. I have visited many times since – for work, to spend time with friends and for the sheer joy of seeing familiar faces who are now part of our extended family. This book could not have been written without them, or the hundreds of Malawians I have worked with over the years, from senior government ministers to village leaders.

It is not my voice that is woven through the book, painting a vivid picture of real life in this small landlocked country, whose GDP per head was once bigger than China’s and is now one of the world’s poorest. Nor did I actively seek the views of any of the thousands of development professionals who work in Malawi. They do invaluable work, but this is not their country. The voices in this book are Malawians. All I have done over the years is listen.

I am especially grateful to everyone who agreed to be interviewed for the book; it would not exist without them. Sadly, I could not use every interview, not because they weren’t interesting or illuminating, but because the book would have been twice the length, and I had a deadline to meet. But these conversations informed my writing as much as the ones I used.

And a once-in-a-century pandemic erupted just as the book was due to be published. So far Malawi has escaped the worst of the health effects of the virus, but the long-term impact on its society and economy will not be known for years.

Thanks to Ronex Nyamwera and his father Alum, Vitu Longwe, Rejoice Chimasula and the rest of her wonderful family; Charles Govati, Emmanuel Thuwala, former MP and now Education Minister, Agnes Nyalonje, James Lihoma, Agnes Mizere, John Bande MP, Susan Banda, Peter Massina and the indomitable Karen Gillon. Also the staff and board members of the Scotland Malawi Partnership and the Malawi Scotland Partnership and Dr Peter West, Honorary Consul for Malawi in Scotland. Your kindness and insight are on every page.

Warmest thanks also to Margaret Ngwira of Linga Wine, whose shortbread is a thing of beauty; Joseph Migeli, Blantyre’s best taxi driver; all the staff of the Women’s Legal Resources Centre (WOLREC) who teach me something new every time I visit; Olivia Giles of 500 miles for her encouragement and friendship; Danny Phillips for his companionship over the years. And thanks to everyone at Cakes Lodge – particularly Sille, Edson and baby Calvin – and to Maria and Frank Johnston for their wonderful hospitality during our 2019 research trip.

No one writes a book on their own, so I will be eternally grateful to my husband, researcher and copy-editor, Nigel Guy, whose love inspired me to get on with writing this book after years of talking about it; to Gavin MacDougall and his team at Luath Press for giving me the chance to finally, at the age of 64, publish my first book; and to Govati Nyirenda, whose photographs inspire me and whose friendship has sustained me since 2005.

And of course my warmest thanks to Jack McConnell, who as First Minister, decided that two small countries, Scotland and Malawi, should strengthen the bonds that had linked them since Dr David Livingstone’s first visit in 1859. He took a courageous leap of faith in 2005, which has changed the lives of countless people for the better, including mine.

But most of all I want to thank all the Malawians I have met since that first visit, from the young boys on the northern lakeshore who, during our recent stay there, would regularly trade the same paw-paw for a few sweets, to the countless women I have danced with in villages over the years. This is your story.

Foreword by Vera Kamtukule

Deputy Minister for Labour, Skills and Innovation

The Spirit of Malawi is a book written from the front lines of the Malawian people by Susan Dalgety, an amazing woman with a proven love for my country. I could not have thought of a better person to tell this story than her.

It is a story told from the perspective of what others would call ‘ordinary citizens’; but that would be inaccurate and a severe underestimation of remarkable people. A people who, in 2019 after a disputed presidential election, exuded unflinching and methodical resilience in the face of tyranny, and with righteous anger, mobilised and organised against all odds and, unarmed, marched relentlessly for months to demand justice over their stolen vote.

To cement it all, we had the impeccable and uncompromising five Constitutional Judges who deserve a place of distinction in the world’s legal fraternity. In February 2020, they delivered a historical judgement that overturned the May 2019 presidential election and consequently ordered a fresh one.

And we salute the millions of people who braved the winter of June 2020 to queue for hours, to protect and cast their vote, ushering in a new administration built on the Tonse philosophy, which is all about collective responsibility. This is the spirit of Malawi.

Reading through the pages of this book, the brutalisation of the citizenry that has spanned decades and left the people in untold poverty cannot be hidden. This is largely due to corrupt practices perpetrated by those charged with the privileged responsibility to govern for over 26 years, thus bringing the country’s economy to its knees and its people living as second class human beings, in abject squalor while a few elites lived in splendour.

This was a period in which decisions to do with people were made capriciously and without due process or respect for the rule of law; the nation was literally up for grabs for the politically connected.

The challenge for the new administration is to accelerate the nation’s development agenda by 26 years; only we must do so in five years or less. However, if we are still standing after all we have been through as a nation, with the passion we have shown in the midst of disasters including the Covid-19 pandemic, then it goes without saying that there is nothing we cannot achieve, because that is the spirit of Malawi.

Malawians may sometimes appear cowed, fearful, lacking diligence when called upon to do so, but under no circumstances must such adjectives be mistaken for weakness, for we are well galvanised to conquer and defeat toxic systems.

To make Malawi the place we want for future generations will require practical, realistic, deliberate and methodical approaches. This will challenge people – because paradigms will be shifted and status quos changed, making people uneasy, and they will resist it.

And are things going to change in the short-term? Maybe, or maybe not! However the journey to a better Malawi will have started and that’s the spirit with which we shall manifestly propel ourselves forward, as we look to the future with hope and absolute confidence in our own abilities.

We have been through situations as a nation that should have broken us entirely, but instead these unleashed our hidden potentials. We have always leaned on donor assistance in every sector, but of late we have learned to foot our own bills, stand on our own two feet and most of all, we have cultivated a communal way of living that was long eroded, because that is the spirit of Malawi.

Malawi is endowed with natural resources which until now have been either under-utilised or accessed only by corrupt individuals in the know. While we are in the process of changing things in that regard, we are strongly convinced that our greatest competitive edge remains the natural abilities of our people.

As can be seen in this book, our education system is unable to shape us to accurately respond to the ever-changing needs of our economy. But we can also not deny the fact that it is the very same system that produced the crop of earnest servant leaders like Dr Lazarus Chakwera and Vice President Dr Saulos Chilima.

Our health system is not universally accessible and we can do way better. However, flamboyant systems and strategies do not build a nation – the attitude and mindset of the people do.

Malawi is a land of survivors. It is blessed with people who possess unabashed passions and skills passed on from one generation to the other. This is what distinguishes us, it is what gives us our identity, a sense of belonging, for we know that to get to where we need to go, we must never lose track of what makes us who we really are.

Malawians have enough self-respect and drive to move their country forward, and the dignified men who are at the helm of government at the moment have their work cut out for them to leverage on the enthusiasm, willingness, keenness and dedication of the people to change things, and provide a framework that will promote patriotism, learning and hard work.

All of this will steer productivity that will move us out of the margins of society; for we have been here for far too long and we deserve better, because that is the spirit of Malawi.

As you read this book, you will be exposed to the other side of Malawi not yet discovered, the real stories of real people. While most of it provides interesting detail about different cultures and classes of people, the underlying intention is to arouse genuine interest of what else this country has to offer, both socially and economically. For it is an undeniable fact that for Malawi, things can only get better from here, because this is the spirit of Malawi.

Hon Vera Kamtukule

Deputy Minister for Labour, Skills and Innovation

Foreword by Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale

Visiting a new country for the first time is always exciting, but for a politician leading a delegation with a large travelling media circus it is also fraught with danger. Protocol, language, stamina and the need to communicate a purpose – both on the visit and to the folks back home – were all in my thoughts as we touched down in Blantyre, Malawi. But I need not have worried, as I was about to fall in love.

It was May 2005. For the best part of a year I had been working with both Tony Blair and the Make Poverty History campaign to influence the Gleneagles G8 Summit due to take place in Scotland at the end of June. As First Minister I wanted to use the occasion to promote Scotland, but I knew that we should do more than just win investment from around the world to benefit Scots. We had responsibilities too.

Following re-election in 2003, we had established an international development policy for Scotland. The devolution settlement reserved international affairs to the UK government, but we had the power to support their development efforts and I was determined we would use it.

We had chosen to prioritise people-to-people connections, a mutually beneficial interaction that would share knowledge and skills. We had decided that our efforts would be especially, but not exclusively, focused on one country. Now it was time to talk to Malawi about a possible partnership.

Why Malawi? There were many reasons – not least because the Scotland Malawi Partnership, an embryonic civic organisation, had recently been formed by the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and there was a strong connection that went back to Dr David Livingstone in the 19th century. I was wary of mentioning Livingstone. Would any reference to him feel like harking back to the days of Empire? But I need not have worried. On arrival, my Malawian hosts told me ‘Dr Livingstone did not discover us, we discovered him’. The bond was set.

‘I fell in love with the place at first sight’ is an overused saying. And as I was whisked away by the Presidential motorcade through poverty-stricken people standing by the road, I wondered if I would feel uncomfortable for the whole trip. But over five days I did indeed fall in love. The Warm Heart of Africa had entered my soul.

Four Scottish midwives had been in touch. They were volunteering in Bottom Hospital, the world’s worst-equipped maternity hospital, where 12,000 babies were born every year. Several died each day, babies and mothers. There was no fridge to keep medicines safe. Young terrified women and girls gave birth on the floor. One consultant, the inspirational Tarek Meguid, struggled to empower the women and save lives. Every visit made me more and more angry. This was the 21st century.

Young trainee nurses in a rural hospital working on the wards without vaccinations, endangering their own lives to help others and find a career. Teachers explaining that young girls missing school was not only a cultural or financial issue, but was linked to provision of toilets and safety.

And in villages with no clean water, electricity or sanitation, meeting children who now headed their households after the HIV/AIDS epidemic had taken their parents, but who really wanted to go back to school.

I stood in a ‘classroom’ with a straw roof and a mud floor where children learned algebra by memory as there were no writing materials. And a few metres away stood the sandstone block – the new school classroom – that had never opened because the £1,200 needed to add a corrugated iron roof had not been found.

Yet, everywhere, a warmth. And a warmth for Scotland. Stories passed from generation to generation of the Scots who came. Dr Livingstone who helped stop the slave trade. Those who built schools, hospitals, roads and churches. Those who stood side by side with Malawians when they were fighting for independence in the 1950s, and who challenged President Banda when his first post-independence government started to go rotten.

I knew then that the power here was in the people. Not governments and international NGOs, but people working with people, supporting each other, learning from each other, building capacity and skills.

Later that year, when President Bingu wa Mutharika came to Scotland, the Scotland Malawi Partnership was formally launched. He and I signed a document. But, as he said to a group of Malawians we met later that day, ‘this is not the Jack and Bingu show’. We wanted to facilitate people-to-people partnerships, not be a substitute for them.

Today, the Scotland Malawi Partnership (SMP) has 1,200 members, with more than 109,000 Scots involved in a Malawi-related activity each year. Scottish Government support has survived three First Ministers – unlike almost every other programme started back then.

And SMP now has the partner organisation we hoped for back in 2005. The Malawi Scotland Partnership is independent of government and has become a powerful civic voice in Malawi itself. And there are twice as many Malawians as Scots – 208,000 people – actively involved in the community partnerships between Scotland and Malawi.

This unique experiment is now a unique relationship between two countries. Despite all the political changes in both, and the occasional obstacles thrown in the way, the people of Malawi and Scotland have shown that our common humanity does indeed overcome our unequal development, our very different lives and the huge gap in our opportunities.

But that gap remains unacceptable. As ever, education is the key to unlocking progress. Of course the country cannot grow without more reliable electricity and other reforms. Of course it will not be safe and secure without action on climate change. But it is in education that empowerment leading to fundamental change is found.

The years since I first visited have been hard for Malawians. They have been let down by politicians and fallen off the radar of international organisations under the pressure of conflict, migration and extreme weather events elsewhere.

Ultimately, Malawians are going to have to fix this themselves. The international support will come and go, but development will only be sustainable with better governance and change led by local entrepreneurs, educators, medics and a free media.

Susan Dalgety was there in May 2005. She has been a driving force for the partnership ever since. Her love for Malawi and Malawians has driven her to write this book. Susan believes in the people, and her friends in Malawi believe in her. Enjoy the pictures she draws, the stories she tells and the lessons she draws. The Warm Heart of Africa is ready to welcome you too.

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale

First Minister of Scotland, 2001–07

Preface

When I emerged from Lilongwe airport for the first time, in April 2005, after an interminable 24-hour journey, I was greeted by a diffident young man, Peter Potani.

My companion, Rachel, and I were the advance party for a forthcoming official visit to Malawi by the First Minister of Scotland, Jack McConnell. Peter was to be our driver for our week-long recce, but he quickly became much more than that. He was our cultural guide, our translator, our fixer, and by the time he dropped us at the airport to start our journey home, he was my friend. He still is today.

Over the years since then, visiting Malawi as a governance adviser working with women MPs and councillors, I have made many more friends, becoming immersed in their lives as they have in mine.

We have celebrated family weddings together, mourned the loss of a much loved agogo (grandmother), laughed at the antics of Malawi politicians, cried at the devastation caused by floods, drought and corruption, shared more than a few Kuche Kuche (local beer) and cooked chambo (fish) together. And we have despaired at the general state of our world, from racism to Trump, misogyny to capitalism, and more recently, the terrible impact of Covid-19.

Of course, there are cultural differences, not least that most Malawians have faith, while the majority of Scots, who, more than 150 years ago, imported their Christianity to Malawi, no longer believe in a god of any denomination.

The biggest divide is economic. I may have been born into a poor family, but my homeland is one of the richest countries in the world. I benefit from a free health service, my sons don’t need to spend half their income on school fees, and my mother enjoys a secure old age.

Life in Malawi, for all but a small elite, is a daily struggle. For many, the challenge from when they wake in the early morning is to find enough food to feed their family. For others, it is the constant stress of finding the money for their children’s education. And as people age, they depend on the charity of others to survive.

Malawi is still striving to recover from the impact of colonialism, seven long decades when my country exploited Malawi’s natural resources and its people for our own selfish ends. And climate change, global supply chains and digitalisation conspire to test the ability of even the most effective politicians and creative entrepreneurs to build an economy strong enough to support Malawi’s ever-growing population.

Just as Scotland is much more than bearded men in kilts playing the bagpipes against the backdrop of a Highland loch, so Malawi is far more complex than the stereotypical images beloved of well-meaning charities.

The smiling but hungry child, staring into a white woman’s camera, experiences the same emotions and has the same aspirations as her peers in richer countries, but her humanity is all too often portrayed as one-dimensional, nothing more than content for a fundraising campaign.

As my friendships in Malawi matured, and I began to understand better how the country worked, I nurtured an ambition to write a book that captured the essence of contemporary Malawi through the stories of its people.

It was important that the book was not my story. It should not be about my experience of 15 years working in Malawi, including the six months I lived there in 2019, though my visits have helped me better understand the context of people’s lives.

Nor should it be a travelogue, charting Malawi’s many beautiful natural resources, from Lake Malawi to Mount Mulanje; nor a treatise about development, informed by ex-pat ‘experts’ who are paid handsomely for their insights, honed in the universities of Europe, North America and increasingly Asia.

It is, as it must be, Clara’s story, a 67-year-old woman who was given a death sentence 20 years ago when she was diagnosed as HIV positive, and who now, thanks to antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), is strong enough in her seventh decade to grow her own food.

It is Busisiwe’s story, a single parent in her late 30s who runs her medical supplies business from home, juggling family duties with the demands of her business.

It is Chimwaza’s story, who still lives in the northern lakeshore village he was born in more than 40 years ago, but whose family home now has electricity to power a fridge and a hot-plate, instead of a firewood stove.

It is Wezi’s story, who dreams of hosting Africa’s biggest fashion week.

It is Lazarus’ story, who has partied with Madonna, but as an albino was almost killed for his body parts.

The single most important thing that I have learned is the essential truth of our shared humanity, despite all the things that appear to divide us. As Barack Obama writes in the preface of A Promised Land, humanity must now work together or perish; for us to co-operate, first we need to understand each other. And as the Black Lives Matter movement affirms, the colour of someone’s skin must no longer bestow