To All The Books I’ve Loved Before

The early years in Malawi                                                                           

Being born to parents, who had never been to school; many wondered where I drew my love of books. The only books that I saw while growing up in our house were two of my father’s Arabic kitabs which time and again he read on the veranda, sitting in his hammock. The language was foreign to me but I must admit powerful because whenever I complained of a headache or stomachache he would place his right hand on my head and recite verses from his kitabs and immediately my headache would stop.

By the time I started school at Kawale Primary School, I immediately fell in love with words that our teacher taught us and could memories the alphabet at one go. I started scribbling the letters and joining them into words. I found it so thrilling in standard 3 when I started to write simple sentences in English. And the stories our English teacher, Mrs Gondwe read to us were so enthralling and entertaining, that books became my focal point of pleasure.

In standard 5, it is where my love for books cranked up. There were so many fascinating stories and poems in our English language subject. Some of those poems and stories are still rattling around in my memory. By the time I reached standard 8, I was swept away by the Pacesetters novel that took African reading culture by storm. Pacesetters novels spanned a wide array of visceral topics like, betrayal, lust, corruption and ambition. We call them African Literary Classic. No school going teenager in the 80s and 90s could have skipped Pacesetters in their reading list. The titles I read are still engraved on my mind: Evbu My Love – Helen Ovbiagele, Forgive Me Maryam – Mohamed Tukur Garba, Too Young to Die – Omondi Mak’oloo, Sweet Revenge – Victor Ulojofor, The Wages of Sin – Ibe Operandu, Cross Fire – Kalu Okpi, Christmas In The City – Afari Assan, Truth Will Out – Dede Kamkondo and many more. These are the titles that still sit affectionately in my heart. As teenagers who had mastered the art of reading, we were smitten by our own stories written by our own African writers. Thus the African reading culture was inculcated in us and to this day those readers are still reading books and writing their stories. Pacesetters novels are a collection of 130 titles of popular fiction written by notable African authors, published by Macmillan. The series started in 1977, the first book being Director! by Agbo Areo.

Luckily for me, our Lilongwe National Library stocked a few of the titles and you had to request a title in advance; they were not always available on the shelves. They were always taken.

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During the summer holidays whilst in standard 8, I visited my half-sister in Nambuma – a village about 59 km from Lilongwe. My half-sister was married to a primary school teacher and to my surprise; he had a humble bookcase that stocked a few novels: Things Fall Apart, The River Between, No Easy Task, Of Chameleon and Gods, Son of the Soil, Crime and Punishment, David Copperfield, and three volumes of James Hadley Chase. When I asked my brother-in-law one day where did he buy the books? His face cracked with a smirk. He said his innocent looking face made the school choose him to be in charge of the school’s library. So every end of the school term he would pilfer one or two books.

I spent every day in the study room guzzling the books and when the holiday came to an end I asked my sister if I could come and write my primary school leaving certificate exams at Chimbalu Primary School where my brother-in-law taught. When I told my father that I wanted to go and live with my sister in the village, he was not happy.

‘But, you’re a bright pupil, why the village?’

‘It is nice there, quiet and ideal for studying, dad.’

‘I don’t think your headmaster will allow you to leave. Look, next term you’ll be writing your final primary school leaving certificate exams,’ said the father.

‘Please, dad I want to go to the village school.’

‘Ok, I’ll speak with the headmaster for a transfer letter.’

At last, my father fibbed to the headmaster that he had been retrenched at work and was going to live with his family in his village. However, Mr Kachidikhu, my headmaster pleaded with my father to allow me to stay with a relative till I wrote my final exams. My father made it clear to him that he did not have a relation living in the city.

This is how I found myself living in the village. Our school did not have desks or doors and windows panes. Our blackboard was cracked in the middle. We sat down on the dirt floor. It did not bother me much. The school teachers were very good and hardworking and the school produced bright students who were selected to various secondary schools in the country. So, it was not a bad move for me. I was well received and introduced at the school’s assembly as a new standard 8 pupil coming from Lilongwe city. Mock exams were in two weeks’ time, I studied hard and I made friends with the school’s best standard 8 students. I came first in the mock exams and the headmaster was very pleased with my grades. I enjoyed village life. I had so many friends; some of these friends brought me various food items from their farm – green maize, millet, a sack of groundnuts, sugarcane stems, and cassava. These food items were expensive to buy in the city. We had masquerade dancers to watch during harvest times. Later, I was recruited into the Nambuma soccer team. I was having good times in the village.

***

Just a day before starting our final Primary School Leaving Certificate, our headmaster, Mr. Dzuwa told every student to bring a table and chair for writing the exams. The school had no desks, so I had to fetch a table and chair at home, forcing my brother-in-law to eat his food on a mat.

I did not leave for the city immediately after writing my PSLC exams, the delights of village life still ate me up. I only returned to the city a day before the results were announced. I assured my father that I would do well and should be prepared for my secondary school fees and clothes and shoes.

When that day on the 7 o’clock news bulletin, Veryson Idi, the MBC radio news reader said that the Malawi National Examination Board had announced the results of Primary School Leaving Certificate exams and that the names of successful students who had made it to the country’s secondary schools would be announced on the radio next day from 9 am; my heart went wild with expectation. But alas! Our radio’s batteries were flat; however, my father shoved his hand deep into his pocket and gave me money to buy the batteries. By 12 o’clock my name was read. I was selected to Lisimbwi Secondary School in Monkey Bay. It was a new boarding school that opened that year. Everything at school was new. We were the primo of the school. My father was very happy and he walked with his head high in Kawale Township and my mother killed a chicken, fried for me to eat alone. My siblings, with gloomy faces, ate my leftovers.

The day I was leaving for Monkey Bay, my father whispered into my ear: ‘study very hard. I want you to be a doctor.’ I nodded my head in agreement but deep down in my heart, I wanted to be a writer.

At a boarding secondary school, my love for books grew by leaps and bounds. I met a fellow bookworm, Gift Thakwalaka who was always reading a novel after school. We started borrowing each other’s novels. In form 2, our English teacher Mr. Salanjira always read a passage from a novel he had been reading during our English lesson. I liked Mr. Salanjira very much and always looked forward to his English lesson. Soon the school library opened and I gobbled the novels like a glutton. And sometimes during prep time I would put away my school textbooks and guzzled the novels. One day, my teacher found me reading Anna Karenina in class; he snatched it away and threw it out through the window. I got up defiantly and walked out to collect my novel. That day I was given a punishment. Unfortunately that day I was wearing shorts, the teacher made me kneel on the gravel parking lot at the office until the prep time was over.

In form 4, in English literature we were doing Macbeth and Scarlet Song novel by Mariama Ba. I was not a fan of Shakespeare, Macbeth story did not appeal to me but the Scarlet Song … In Scarlet Song it was like I was transported alive to Senegal and watched the characters going about their daily lives.

In Scarlet Song, Ousmane the main character, who comes from a poor family, makes it to university where he falls in love with a white girl, Mireille, daughter of the French diplomat. Mireille’s father is a liberal in public but when he discovers that his daughter is going out with a black man, he is outraged and sends Mireille back to France. However, Ousmane Gueye and Mireille keep in touch through letters. As soon as Mireille comes of age, Ousmane travels to France to marry her. His father accepts the match, but his mother is displeased. She believes Mireille has entranced her son.

Over time, Ousmane begins to reject Mireille’s upper middle class, bourgeois lifestyle in favour of his traditional Senegalese upbringing. At this time a childhood sweetheart, Ouleymaton, who previously rejected him enters his life. She is a traditional woman, the kind his mother Yaye might approve of By all means, Ouleymaton is determined to become Ousmane’s second wife. Ousmane leads a clandestine double life with a second wife and a second child at the same time Mireille becomes pregnant. By and by, Mireille suspects him of an affair and when she learns the truth she’s driven into insane and frenzied rages. She murders their own son with sleeping pills and attempts to kill Ousmane by stabbing him. Ousmane survives the attack, but Mireille remains insane and is deported.

Scarlet Song is notable for its depiction of gender roles, love and betrayal. When my fellow students were making fools of themselves by memorizing lines from Macbeth: If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not. I was enjoying my Scarlet Song and I did not bother myself even to watch the Macbeth movie. I read Macbeth in order to pass the exams.

In our final year of secondary school, my friends had already chosen what to study at the university. I had not yet made up my mind about what to study. Writing bug was eating my mettle. I did not see any career fit for me, other than being a writer. I assured myself that if Truman Capote at the age of 11 resolved to become a writer and spent his childhood learning the craft. And in the end, he penned the non-fiction blockbuster, In Cold Blood. I felt I could do the same. Maya Angelou did not go to college, but went on to write a famous autobiography – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. William Faulkner never earned a high school diploma. He published his poetry for the first time at the age of 27. He won a Nobel Prize for literature. H.G Wells educated himself in the hope of becoming a writer. He penned a famous science fiction novel, The Time Machine. And Augusten Burroughs dropped out of school in sixth grade. He published his controversial first memoir, Running with Scissors.

Worse still, when the results of our final secondary school examination came out, I did not make it to the only University of Malawi even though I passed with one distinction and credits. That year 1995, the students who sat for the MSCE final secondary school exams were about 28000, guess what, out of 28000, only 8000 passed. Something went wrong at the Malawi National Examination Board. It did not make sense that 20000 students could all fail the examination. I felt cheated and hated going to college. I knew the rich people had bought their children places at the university, denying the poor students who had worked tirelessly hard for their bright future. In writhing rage, I threw my school books away and embarked on a journey of teaching myself in public libraries, the art of writing.

To be continued in South Africa: