Portrait of the Artist as a Young Malawian

            I’ve decided there’s a reason why movies about idealistic young teachers in rough, undersupplied schools often hinge on the redemptive power of language. It’s because the cliché is true: the written word breaks down walls.

            I introduced a weekly journal ritual this term to address a few issues: to build up my students’ writing stamina, to push them to use the language more, to encourage creativity over regurgitation, to give me a better way of measuring progress, and really just to get to know them better (something I desperately wanted from the beginning).

            They’ve surpassed my expectations in wonderful ways. Kids who used to approach assignments with lackadaisical disinterest can now be found bowed over their desks, writing past the bell, and smiling shyly when they hand in their work. There are kids who use their journal as a chance to keep an ongoing dialogue with me, kids who spill secrets and share dreams, and kids who sign off every week with “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write about this” or “Thank you for listening, Madam.”

The first prompt I ever gave them was this: “Tell me about a memory from your childhood.” Their recollections were so distinctively African, so unintentionally humorous, and yet so touchingly universal – the smell of mangoes, the trauma of early loss, the freedom of playing in mud puddles, and the joy of hanging out with your dad. They made me laugh, they made me cry, and they paint a picture of life in this country better than I ever could.

I cannot resist sharing a few of them. So, behold, a sampling of the mingled sweetness and tragedy of a Malawian childhood.

Games

“When I was a child I liked playing different games, as well as crying and beating my friends. I was good at feeding my grandfather’s goats, cows, and sheeps [sic]. I was also good at running when my mother called me to get a bath.” – Nyuma

“I played football so I enjoy on that because I am a player man. Am have power energy.” – Jordan

“Firstly is that when I was young I was not respecting my parents because my mind was not yet ready to think about respect. Secondly is the type of playings. I and my friends we were playing in places where as I’m talking I can’t play in that places. These places are: in the stagnant water, in the rain, in the mud, etc.” –Jacob

“I played with toys like cow, farm cart, axe, hoe, and bridge.” – Benson

[I love this. An axe as a toy – how Malawian.]

“We were taking wires and making cars for playing with, as like the real car like Toyota.” – Jacob

“When I am watching things like basketball I fill happy and not only that but comfortable.” – Maxwell

“I was like playing bao game, draft, playing football very much. I also liked to go to the forest to pick natural fruits. I was also like swimming at Kasito dam.” – Benard

“When the rain were raining me and me friend we were dancing by the rain and we were very happy.” – Jacob

Food

“…also I was unforgiveness or glutton glumandaiser [???]. If someone have got snatched my food I was crying.” – Wellings

“It was very easy to get food without any problem.” – Jacob

“My favorite childhood memory I remember that when my mother come back to work every day she was take chips or a biscuit. So now she didn’t take chips or biscuit and everyday when I come back from school my sister first hugs me and she asks me Thoko today you are learning about what?” - Thoko

“In 1999 when I was young my mother was telling that I love so much eating bananas and up to now still I am loving bananas.” – Junior

Violence and Punishment

“I don’t want to slap my friend because am very happy when I have with many friends.” – Lontia

 “At first day at secondary school near Mzuzu, the headmaster told me to sweep in the staff room and around the classes. Because I was too late and he struck me. I was surprised.” – Peter C

“When I was starting my school in Standard 1, I was bothered so much with unkindful guys who were in high classes. They seized my notebooks, pencil, and other school material. They ran away from the school campus. I was started crying and when the teacher came it was when they have already gone, so I told the teacher about it. Later she asked me to show those guys. So I was helpless because I was not recognized them.

So this is one thing I remember in my life.” – Richard

“When I was childhood I like to beat my friend. Also I like to crying and I liked my mother to live together each and every time. […] If my father say I don’t have a money I start crying. I crying crying and my father give 20 kwacha and buying some sweets and biscuits then I stop crying. My mother was slap me because I was say my daughter if you grow up you have to be a thief because you love money so much. This is all.” – Maurice

“When I was a child I liked to cry and sleeping for many hours. The one day when I crying my mother she slap me with a stick and tell me don’t cry again. And that day may don’t eat anything with a whole day.

Another day when I sleep under a tree the snake was fallen down from tree and my brother came to pull me, so that snake was ascending in that tree again. From that days when these two kind of bad behavior I was change because I knows that this is a childish behavior.” – Milliam

Memories

“There was a lot of things which I was following when I was young. I cannot forget some of it. And also I already forgot some of it. I remember that when it is Sunday day I always going to church to pray. And during the school day I didn’t want to go to school without any food in my bag. Also I didn’t want to miss any period in the classroom. If a period has gone to tell us that it is time to go to our home, I was not going home directly but I was going to the bush with my friend to pick some masuku [a small sour reddish fruit that grows wild here. It defies description and I have no idea what it is in English]. And I’m arriving late in the home. My mother always she is chatting to me day and day.” – Maggie

“My parents were living in village therefore my life is of village. My parents brought me up in the spiritual life and this made me to grow honest and kind. Firstly, the most interesting thing is that when I was 3 years old my parents commanded me that there is God, the creator of the universe. When I was 5 years old I had several question in my heart about God. If God created everything include a man, now who created God?” – Samson

“I like my mother because I was living with my mother for a long time. My father was die in 1998. I am growing up with my mother start reading with my mother this is a reason I like my mother.” – Isobel

“I was young in 1997. My father buy me something like shoes, caps, fishnet, not books. And those day my father encouraged me to school and gave structure when complained school. A money is not problem because next you can be educated man it’s easy to find jobs.” –Dan

“In 2006 when I was in Blantyre I saw a person who his name was Bololo. He was a very good grand. He was loving babies.” – Junior

“I remember that my mother was liked to buy a pair of shoes for me because I disliked to walk barefooted. When the time come I was six years old my mother sent me to start reading. I was working hard although I was young I remember in standard one, term one, I was pass number two. My mother gives me a drink and biscuit. I was happy and my mother was happy too.” - Isobel

[The 2002 famine was a common motif in the journal entries, made especially striking on a personal level because I remember that year so clearly in my own childhood. This student, who wrote about it with unusual introspection and maturity, impresses me on a regular basis.)

“If I can remember in my childhood, I was enjoying without knowing that there are problems. It was in 2002 when there was starvation. My parents and sisters could complain about hunger but to me it was nothing. […] Indeed childhood is very interesting because one can enjoy even if one can face difficulties. But to child does not take matter.” – Samson