This is getting serious

Now that we have received a grant, we have a very real deadline to produce something. Our goal is to have a document of substance available to the public by July 6, 2014 as our way of commemorating the 50^th anniversary of Malawi's independence. Regardless of what Banda did to subvert democracy immediately thereafter, all Malawians must celebrate the end of colonial domination.
It was very exciting in September 2012 and February 2013 running around the country, meeting and interviewing all sorts of people. Now it is the donkey work. We are re-listening to the many interviews, looking for the threads, themes, similarities and differences as well as transcribing the more salient pieces. It is slow going, because we have to stop and repeat the segments to clarify what we heard or to translate mumbled information. The book shape has already begun to appear and we have created the chapters, and now we are looking for the material to put flesh on the bones of the outline.
The exercise might appear to be tedious, but in fact it is very rewarding. I thought that we had heard everything from just having been present at all the interviews. But listening to them again, along with a second pair of ears is very refreshing. There is a huge difference this time. Many things are being revealed that didn't jump out at us as we recorded. We were too focussed on the next question and not necessarily the answers we were recording sometimes without hearing too attentively. In addition, the fact that we have had the time together to discuss the chapter outline means that as we listen, we can see the common themes and threads falling into place. Now we feel like we are deep into the substance of the exercise.
Our original plan involved two weeks in mid October to run up and down the country to collect more interviews from our wish list. Then we were going to ensconce ourselves in some cheap lakeshore digs to hunker down to do this re-listening and analysis, the research and writing. That was premised on our funding arriving sometime in September. We have a grant approved, but it just hasn't arrived in the bank, so we have a cash flow problem. In the past, I would tack a couple of weeks of car rental onto the periods I was in Malawi so that Kapote and I could run around doing the interviews. I simply do not have the resources to pay for this phase of the project which requires so much more time together.
As it turns out the lack of funds is a blessing in disguise. We have had to rejig our plan by settling down first and travelling later, if the funds come through. By establishing ourselves here in Mzuzu, we have been able to take stock of what we have already acquired, lay out our outline and define the gaps that need to be filled with more interviews or research. Mzuzu offers the fine option of being far enough away from Makupo and Karonga that neither of us are perturbed by the many obligations we carry in those places.
Mzuzu is also on a high plateau at the edge of the rift valley, so it is cooler and has lovely refreshing breezes while Karonga and Kasungu are arriving deep into the great heat of the dry season as the sun comes southward directly overhead. We even had an evening of rain last week.

In addition, the fine house offered by Rachel and Makhumbira Munthali provides a tranquility which is very conducive to the kind of work we are now involved in. We are literally in our own wing on the second floor. It is a sun room with great views all around, excellent ventilation and most important of all, it is very quiet. We virtually stay locked up there for the majority of the day and only come down to eat and stretch our legs.

Karonga to Mzuzu

One of my favourite groups in the early 1970s was an Afrobeat progenitor from Ghana called Osibisa. One of their tunes, Woyaya, off the album of the same title seemed to be emblematic of how Nellie and I were facing life. It was entitled: We are going.


WE are going. Heaven knows where we are going.
We know we will
We will get there. Heaven knows how we will get there.
We know we will.
It may be hard, we know and the road will be muddy and rough,
But we will get there.
Heaven knows how we will get there.
We know we will.


I still enjoy the song and here I sit in my 7^th decade of life still singing it with as much conviction as I did in the exciting times of the 1970s.
The beginning of this phase of our writing and research brought the song back to mind as we struggled to bring the Lion of Kasoba back to life and become our beast of burden. Unfortunately, it was a good idea in principle, but has since become a burden.
We have finally arrived in Mzuzu at the wonderful house of Makhumbira and Rachel Munthali and begun work on the research intensively. However, what should have been a four hour trip from Karonga to Mzuzu with a reliable car took 2 days in the Lion which in the end failed to make the distance and had to be abandoned at the South Rukuru bridge.
Nonetheless, we got a fair bit done and our adventure continues to unfold. The time together has proven invaluable to allow us to share and unveil new insights into why the project is so important to complete. More on that when the book comes out. Back to the trip.
By the time, Joseph and George had got the diesel switch up to speed it was mid afternoon on Monday. Rather than return to Kasoba to begin the trip next day from there, we decided to press on and get at least an hour down the road toward Mzuzu to Chitimba Camp, (www.chitimba.com) a backpacker haven on the lake. It is a beautiful setting just below the Nyika massive on the crest of which sits the other worldly Livingstonia Mission. I knew Kapote would be enchanted by its simplicity and the hospitality of the Dutch couple, Eddy and Helen who run it. The Lion got us there without a hitch and we let it have a well earned rest for the night.
That evening over supper we were talking with Eddy and he asked Kapote if he would like to have his eyes checked by an optician from Holland who had come to Malawi with her diagnostic kit of lenses and 700 eye glasses to dispense. Arrangements were made and the next morning, Chantal Huisman gave him a good examination and a pair of heavy duty glasses that allow him somewhat improved vision.

We set off to complete the trip to Mzuzu and the Lion immediately began to show its age. The first part of the trip is up about 20 kilometres up the Rift Valley escarpment rising over 1000 metres in that distance. Normally an exciting enough part of the trip, but even more eventful in the Lion. The brakes became more and more difficult to apply, but we were already on our way up and that could be sorted out in Mzuzu. Half way up is Mchenga coal mine, a blight on the geography, but just as we passed the mine entrance, we started to lose power, electricity and then finally with a clatter, the radiator began to overheat. The fan belt had jumped off the pulley. Fortunately, at the mine are the big flatbed coal trucks with their driver-mechanics and a pair who were waiting for theirs to be loaded. They came to the rescue and in no time we were back on the road. This time travelling very slowly to keep the revs down and avoid taxing the fan belt. Another 10 kilometres, we reached the brand new Japanese built bridge over the South Rukuru river, where we planned to top up the water in the radiator. But that was the Lion's last gasp.

It burst a water hose with an explosive sound and it would move no more. There we sat till the end of the day waiting for Berllings Sikanda, a friend, to pick us up on his way back to Mzuzu from Karonga in his nice new Mercedes RV. So when we did arrive, we arrived in style.
Our prolonged visit, to the tiny trading centre of South Rukuru gave us close up insight into the great difficulties facing Malawi's rural people and the complicated sociology of poverty. On one side of the road, there are a couple of tiny shops selling all the same things, and a tiny grass sheltered shebeen for Chibuku the local cheap millet beer. The other side of the highway has a long grass roofed shed providing shade for about 30 people. They are sitting with plates and basins of bananas and cassava roots for sale. The place is famous for this produce because of the proximity to the river and the cheap prices, so trucks, cars and minibuses all stop to allow the passengers to stock up with cheap produce as they travel between Karonga and Mzuzu. Each vehicle that stops raises a cloud of dust and is swarmed by women and a couple of men trying to get a few Kwacha for the next meal. Each buyer tries to beat the villagers' already low prices down even lower. In front of the shops, the young men, almost all school leavers, watch the show and fiddle with their cell phones. They are above the fray when it comes to working like the women and the older folks. That is what the perverse colonial education system has taught them.

The dusty little porch of Mrs Manda's Rukuru Shopping Centre gave us refuge from the sun and became our workplace as we waited for Mr Sikanda to collect us in the evening. We sketched out the chapters for the book and made notes about several people we wanted to include posthumously.

The Lion of Kasoba part 2

The poor old Lion had lost most of its teeth, but 2 excellent mechanics and an auto-electrician gave it back its roar and made its arthritic joints mobile again. It turns out that they are, in fact, the very people we are trying to speak for in this project in order to explain the problems caused by exile and the oppression of the dictator's regime.
Joseph Mwabulunju is about 62 years old and was in exile in Tanzania because his home area, Karonga, was always viewed as politically hostile by the Banda clique. One only had to be related to an exile activist and you and all your family were under suspicion. So many of the Karonga folks suffered from the regime's paranoia that large numbers were living in exile in Dar es Salaam. Their brothers and sisters struggled to keep body and soul together inside the country all the while being watched with a microscopic attention by the Special Branch political police. But in the case of Karonga, the proximity to the border and the shared cultural heritage with the Nyakyusa of the Tanzania side just added an extra level of daily tension to the life of anyone who carried the names beginning with 'Mwa'. Mwakasungura, Mwambetania, Mwaungulu and many others had family in exile and active opponents of the regime.
Joseph is an excellent mechanic. Through his family connection he is a first cousin to the the rebel Kapote Mwakasungura and an induna (elder) of his small village. In the meantime, he can take your transmission apart and identify its ailment in no time at all. He picked up his trade in exile where he settled and began his first family. He only returned to Malawi full time in 2001 leaving his Tanzanian wife and several children behind. His fellow mechanic George Gondwe was a child of exile. His uncle Mordecai Gondwe is a participant in our study and suffered several prolonged periods of detention and torture. George was born while his parents were in exile in Dar and trained as an auto-electrician there.

It was amazing after 3 days of recruiting young men to push the beast to life, that within a couple of hours he had the alternator charging the battery, the starter turning the motor over and the electric windows rolling up and down. Despite its geriatric state it was still a powerful beast. Exile had had a profound impact on their life outcomes. The repression suffered at the time carries consequences decades later.

The Lion of Kasoba
The three young men pushed mightily and the engine roared to life. “The lion of Kasoba is back.” Kapote laughed and off we 3 geriatrics rolled to start this next phase of our adventure. Kapote has a lovely sense of humour. He is 71 years old and a patriarch in Karonga society. The Lion is a 1988 Toyota Land Cruiser and our transport of choice for the work on our book for this trip. The battery needs to be replaced so for the moment the truck needs at least 3 able bodies to push it enough to start. And I am a 67 year old Attention Deficit Hyper-activity Disorder senior who instead of retiring into a rocking chair is running back and forth to Malawi. We are trying to record and document the history of people who suffered under the 30 year dictatorship of Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
This part of my life has a very different flavour. I am out of the family and business mode and into working with my old comrade and his old truck, the Lion of Kasoba. He bought the old Land Cruiser from the Norwegian ambassador in Zimbabwe when he was the Malawi High Commissioner there in the mid90s. The Lion was already 8 or 9 years old then and now it has attained a good 25 years of age. It has been used off and on over the last few years but for most of the last 3 years, it has earned a well deserved rest in the back yard of Kapote's house in Kasoba waiting for a little investment to get it back on the road.
We were getting frustrated with the pace of the writing project being limited by my meagre resources so Kapote called on his friendship with the Norwegians once again and applied to the embassy for a small grant to help with transport and accommodation for a month or more so we could really push this writing project forward. Instead of an expensive car hire we are rehabilitating the Lion.
We started talking about this history in 2009 but really got going in February of 2010 when I interviewed him for about 3 days on the history of Lesoma. We mostly sat on the empty terrasse of the Safari Hotel Annex and talked while the goats and birds provided background sound effects. I transcribed the whole discourse over the next couple of months in Canada and sent it back for his friend and confidant Winston Mwagomba to read over with him.
Who is Archibald Kapote Mwakasungura? We met in Lisbon in 1977 at an international conference organised by the World Peace Council to commemorate the first anniversary of the Soweto uprising. When Nellie and I left Malawi for the safety of Zambia in 1976, I was already aware of the existence of Lesoma. In my year of development studies at the University of Ottawa, I had read a piece about their formation in the Review of African Political Economy and had seen an essay written by Kapote Mwaksungura critical of the HKB alliance with the World Bank.
In Lusaka, I got in touch with Attati Mpakati who had just arrived to become a lecturer at the UN Institute for Namibia. He was the National Chairman of Lesoma and even though the UN gave him diplomatic status in Zambia, the Zambian authorities warned him that they could not guarantee his security, because even in Lusaka the Malawi Special Branch and Young Pioneer operatives were omnipresent. For his own safety, he moved to newly independent Mozambique to work at Eduardo Mondlane university, but the forces of Banda's darkness finally killed him in Zimbabwe. However the contact had been made and soon enough some of the Lesoma cadres came forward to introduce themselves. I never wrote down their names, but we would help type up their newsletter, Kuchanso, and run them off on our Gestetner. When the call came from the World Peace Council to attend the anniversary commemoration of the Soweto uprising, Lesoma wanted to send Kapote from Dar es Salaam and they raised funds from their members in Zambia to help pay for the ticket. In those days currency controls were very strict and so they paid our office in Zambian Kwacha and I asked Kleist Sykes in the Dar CUSO office to release the equivalent amount in Tanzanian shillings to cover the ticket.
Nellie and I had worked for 2 turbulent years with CUSO in Malawi and Zambia and were due for our home visit to Canada, so I decided to leave early and attend the Lisbon conference as part of my mandate to provide development education around the issues of apartheid and struggle in southern Africa. As a result, Kapote and I spent the better part of a week together at the Penta Hotel, in Lisbon and very quickly found a real political kinship based on many common interests. We were both decidedly left, anti-imperialist and panAfricanists.
For the next two years of work in Zambia, we kept in touch via the Lesoma comrades in Lusaka or whenever I would get up to Dar es Salaam. He was good friends and a home boy with my Tanzanian & Malawian friends there, including the journalists Reg Mhango and Ulli Mwambulukutu even though they came from different sides of the Malawi / Tanzanian border.
Kapote tells his story through the chapter on Lesoma and through his own life story as they appear in this book. I have nothing to add except that the many people we interviewed all treated him with great respect and honoured him for what he had accomplished in exile. Many people have commented about his leadership skills and the democratic way he guided Lesoma as Secretary General as well as the way his house was open to all in need. The Ombudswoman, Tujilani Chizumila remarked that she feels closer to the friends who grew up together in exile in Dar than she does to many of the family members who remained behind in Malawi. “We supported each other like family.” Kapote was a large factor in making that spirit come alive.
Doug's story is an eclectic mix of family, work and activism in many forms. In many ways it is as though I have several lives running in parallel universes. First came my commitment to making the world a better place for the downtrodden and marginalised people. I went as a CUSO teacher to Mitundu Day Secondary School in 1968 as part of that quest. Then came my family with my marriage to Nellie Saka and the arrival of our little bundle of happiness, Chimwemwe. The activism, family and work came together with my CUSO assignment in Lusaka. There we expanded our brood to four. We worked as a couple with the ANC, SWAPO, ZAPU and ZANU as well as Lesoma to support their struggles for justice and promote their message to the people of Canada from just before the Soweto uprising of 1976 until 1979 just before the peace talks that led to Zimbabwian independence. By then the family needs required a return to Canada and another new life and new work. We have been in Montreal since 1979 and our four have given us nine grandchildren. I worked at Vanier College as an educator, or learning specialist and was also a union militant representing first the support staff and later the professionals. I was also active in the Peace Movement, the anti-apartheid movement, housing and food cooperatives, multicultural forums, the New Democratic Party and so on. Upon my retirement, from paid employment one of my goals was to write down some of the history I have been witness to.
Kapote and I had crossed paths once in 1996 when I visited him in exile again, but this time as the Malawian High Commissioner to Zimbabwe. I was doing my research for my Masters degree in Sociology and when he heard I was in town he sent his driver to bring me to the High Commissioners residence for supper. 'Golden exile' as he called it.

Then we met once again in Kasoba in 2008. and slowly the idea for this project has been coming together.

The Lost Years Log

We have decided to set up this blog to let the many people we have met and interviewed know where we stand.
“The Lost Years” is a project that Kapote Mwakasungura and Doug Miller have been slowly putting together over the last 3 or 4 years. Our original goal was to record the history of Lesoma, the Socialist League of Malawi. Then as the government of the late Bingu waMutharika began to rehabilitate the memory of the life dictator, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, we were incensed that this rewriting of history was leaving out the innumerable stories of people who suffered at the hands of Banda and his henchmen and henchwomen.
We came to realise that we are all getting older and that we needed to record the stories of the people who were detained, forced to flee for their lives into exile or submitted to the reign of fear in face of the repression unleashed upon the country. We have interviewed more than 35 people from the north to the south of the country, high and low, who gave us their insights of how the energy and enthusiasm of the nationalist struggle was subverted and turned into the fear and abuse imposed by Dr. Banda.
“The lost years” has been the phrase along with “we have been forsaken” that recurs in so many of the interviews. People feel left out and rejected and that their trials and tribulations are ignored and unappreciated.
We are now at the writing phase even though we haven't finished all the interviews we wanted. Time is pressing and so we are settling down in a couple of quiet places over the next month to re-listen to the interviews and develop the book to a publishable stage. What follows is the story of who we are and how we are doing. The process of writing reflects the challenges we are facing and our commitment to get this side of Malawi's stories written and known more widely.