I WILL TRY

Book excerpt: A Globalised Individual Each time I review my humble beginnings in the northern shores of Malawi I can’t help but see a long and torturous yet rewarding journey through life. Long and torturous because many tedious and risky trips to various parts of the world were involved and rewarding because the journeys involved exciting and enlightening experiences. I suppose the most rewarding outcome from the journeys is my having become a globalized individual. This spiritual and intellectual maturation is as much the result of my experience with the diversity of humanity across the globe as it is the result of my unrelenting pursuit of secular and spiritual education. Yet my role in the fight against a dictatorship and poor human rights conditions in Malawi didn’t play an insignificant role in my personal growth. Therefore the history of my personal growth is a history of world travel, secular education, and many solicitous trips into my inner space. As a globalized individual, not only am I free of all forms of prejudice, I am also capable of a world-embracing vision that extends well into the future of humanity. I am thus open-minded and a believer in peace and unity at all levels of the world community. Moreover I am a lover of God, people, and nature - a disposition of spirituality and freedom. Thus, because I love I am free. Birth Reflections & Socio-Cultural Background Moments after residents of Chitimba village had throbbed the typically silent midnights of their village with tom-toms and ululations, to welcome New Year’s Day, the festive mood in my extended family was joyously interrupted by our family midwives and senior women as they expeditiously concocted maternity herbs in preparation for my birth. Having been informed of what was in the offing, the elderly and wise men of my family maintained vigil in support of the women as they also tried to discern the demeanour of the spirit person coming forth to add to the head count in their big family. But even as the elderly men maintained the posture of expectation, they knew they shouldn’t get close to where women laboured. Among my people the world of women was separate from that of men; and childbirth was ever a matter exclusive to the world of women. Even today no male is allowed to attend a traditionally supervised birth; and no male, apart from the father, is allowed to see the newly born child until the ritual of showing the baby out a couple of weeks later is complete. Although modern hospitals and clinics encourage men to witness the birth of their children, most men don’t feel free to attend in fear of lifting the perceived sacredness surrounding child birth. Fighting Upon Arrival My generation in Malawi was fated to face successive life battles that would threaten on multiple fronts from day one. Right from birth we faced inadequate nutrition, poverty, and disease. It was only by nature’s design that our infantile entry into battle with our adversaries did accelerate our defences against them. Another battle we were born into was to retain our cultural identity and political independence in the face of a foreign government over us. The fight for freedom brought turmoil and fear into my growth environment; and the fight protracted into my early years so that I actually experienced its heat then. It was rather unfortunate that soon after independence from Britain and before we could find our own voice in the world community of nations, we had to enter another battle against home-grown autocracy and repression - a battle that my generation would own and which would exile me. It was the fight against autocracy and repression that saw me on the frontline of the political and diplomatic offensive against the regime of Dr. Banda in Malawi. Thus, this story is about my life at the centre of all those life battles; especially the battle against dictatorship in Malawi– a fight that kept me in exile for an extended period of time