SATO BLOGS HERE, TAKULANDILANI MWAFIKA.

Today is generally a normal day. By normal standards, I don’t expect anything out of the norm to happen. But then that is just an expectation. You know anything can happen in the world and you cannot always foresee it. Good and bad can happen. After a weekend out, in which I travelled to Blantyre and then Lilongwe, I had to travel back to Zomba, my home for the next three or so years. Whether I go to Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu; or anywhere in Zomba, my roads point in one direction now: All roads lead to Chirunga so I must always get back. On a rather unorthodox Monday, my friend and I decided to take a walk down the Chancellor College road. Our mission was simple, he wanted to show me the Chirunga Forest, Stadium and if circumstances allowed the villages around. And yes, we indeed proceeded to Thom Allan Village further down the road. Outdoor sports fields at Chirunga Campus It was a journey I wanted to connect to my surroundings as much as I could. For the four or s...

I received a 5-minute lecture from a minibus conductor on my return journey from my little trip in Lilongwe. After concluding my business (in my previous post), I caught a bicycle taxi headed towards the 6miles/Bunda Turnoff roundabout. With the Bicycle Taxi guy, we talked about how the government must move with speed to relocate the dumping site considering that residential settlements have been developed in Area 38. Our other major concern was how the government was waiting for another settlement tragedy to happen as everybody builds according to the way they desire.  The end result, we agreed, was that we were going to have settlements like the ones in places like Area 36, 25 and so on…with so many closed roads and no proper streets despite the houses being top town houses.  We also agreed that the more the government continues to downplay the problem by saying that the people had encroached its land, the more the settlements would sprout giving a high prob...

Wednesday 20 December, I travelled from Lilongwe’s residential Area 49 to town and then to the newly developing Area 38 and back on the same route. I was amazed at how the area around Bwaila Hospital, famously called Bottom has been occupied. I decided not to think about it as I knew practically, there was nothing I could do, so mute I went. But I did not notice that just 10 metres from the hospital gate, Simso Oil has built a filling station. After walking for about 10 minutes or so, I got into a taxi to area 38 (6 miles or Kumtaya however anybody decides to call it). There were 5 of us in the taxi. As we made our way out of the filthy, unorganised and always dirty Lilongwe bus depot, the inner fight of whether to worry about Malawi or not started again. And as policy, I muted it again. I giggled shortly afterwards when it turned out the people in the taxi were not prepared to stay quiet as I was. A common sight in the bus depots in Malawi In front was a man, s...

The heat is killing me. Indeed. My alarm  went off at 6:30 am today. So I attended it and told myself to get a few more minutes of sleep only to wake up 18 minutes before class. I hate the heat. I felt it in my sleep, in my dreams and I feel it even when am awake. I told myself I was not going to get under covers last night. The heat had almost killed me. So I just threw myself on the bed, synthesising things in my head. I woke up and met a guy in the showers, he told me I am showering a lot! I laughed it off and it made sense why my soap is lasting 2 weeks longer. But it’s the heat. Now I realised, honestly you don’t feel hot to the point of no-comfort when you are just staying. For instance, when you are drinking thobwa under the acacia tree at home, can the heat kill you? The heat is a scapegoat, and I have devised a plan! I shall blame it for all I can. But for all I know, it’s the workload, the thinking, the moving around and the pressure, don’t these give en...

It has been slightly over two months since I set foot at Chirunga. Those who like to be overly proud of this place like to call it the college God loved most. Since I choose to believe that I am still new to this place, I do not fully appreciate the truth of this statement. Overlooking Zomba Mountain most of my afternoons, the view I get is so refreshing. One of the things I have come to deeply appreciate is the academic environment feeling. The scenery is exceptional and everything just feels woven together. Chancellor College, Zomba, Malawi My writing today is in appreciation of the diversity and oneness that is openly exhibited here. The student’s community is composed of people from different walks of life, tribes and regions of the world. The exception is that, Chirunga is also arguably the largest college that offers higher education to people with disabilities such as the blind, the deaf and those who cannot walk on their own. However, this being the case...

When faced with problems, it is a natural instinct to hope that things will get better. And indeed they must. When we hope, we should also work towards making the problems better.  Things don’t just work out of the blues. The same applies to Malawi whether we want it or not. Political commentary is one of the most frustrating things to do in the world. It even becomes much worse when you do it in countries like Malawi. In this country, which others call the Warm Heart of Africa, hoping is a daunting task. Hoping on a personal level might be less stressful. But when I hope for Malawi as a whole, I usually ask myself where our hope is. Unlike in other countries where people come with an agenda for wanting power to lead the country, here the motivation is usually peer pressure! And I can repeat it in bold. The few people who are indeed thinking of leading, are usually the ones at the bottom of the race. Any man can lead because nature tells us that we are equa...

My First Moments. Hooting not a distant far. Trains moving at a snails pace. The weather is hot. As I seat, sipping my salty water outside, the fullness of life can not be ignored. The Kabaza (bicycle taxi) men passing through at a constant rate. The bikes are very well labelled. "Amzunga 1, Chisale Transport etc". They resemble vanity number plates. The cyclists work hard. Making a few hundred kwachas a day, or well, over a thousand or several thousands a day. The inter mixture of cultures is also evident. The Yao and Chichewa languages are the ones you will find here. Balaka is a town of life. Everybody sweats. The vendors sweat to make money. For some like me, we also sweat because Balaka is hot. Literally, Balaka is a town where everybody sweats. Before I go back to where I came from, I chose to observe life around here. This is the second time I am in this southern district. Balaka is just as Lilongwe. The roads are bad. Excerpt for the tarmac passing through ...