SIPPING a Malawi gin and tonic in the fading African sunlight, against a backdrop of rich purple jacaranda trees, must surely be one of the best ways to while away an hour. Or two.
But with only a few days left in Malawi, our African journey is almost at an end.
A weekend in London lies ahead, stocking up on winter woollies before heading to Pennsylvania to witness, I hope, the birth of a new era in American, nay, global po
litics.
The prospect of the first African-American in the White House has excited everyone we have met in Malawi – not least 84-year-old Hombakazi Mbekeani, or Homba to her friends.
“Hombakazi means beautiful girl, so my parents knew what they were doing when they chose my name,” she grinned, before changing the subject back to Senator Obama.
“The other night I listened to the debate between Obama and that other one, what is his name? Yes, McCain. I don’t think he is a nice man, you understand what I mean?
“Obama won, he was by far the best and he is going to be the first black president.”
Homba has her very own first to be proud of. She is South African by birth, but moved to Malawi in 1955 after marrying a Malawian man, Jarvis Mbekeani – “I tell people I changed countries for love, my husband was an angel, a very gentle man” – and on her arrival in Nyasaland, as it was then known, she discovered she was the only African state registered nurse in the whole country.
“Just imagine,” Homba said. “The ‘natives nurses’, as the European nurses called their Malawian colleagues, were not allowed sit the exams to become fully qualified.
“We Africans were just not considered clever enough.”
She shook her head, almost in disbelief at her not-so-distant memories of a colonial culture that regarded Africans as less able than their European counterparts.
Little wonder that she and the rest of Malawi are praying that Obama will take up residence in the White House next January. The Democratic presidential candidate is their potent symbol to the world that all men – and women – are created equal, whether they were born in an African hut or an Arizona mansion. And it seems that grannies the world over are all the same, too.
“I used to contribute to the People’s Friend,” said Homba, completely out of the blue, as we were driving past Lilongwe market. I turned in my seat, incredulous. “The People’s Friend? You mean the magazine, the Scottish magazine?” I asked.
My own grandmother had read the People’s Friend from cover to cover every week, before passing it to my mother, who in turn gave it to me to read before passing it on to one of her friends. It was one of the mainstays of family life in 1960s rural Scotland.
“Yes, the People’s Friend. I sent in recipes, letters, just little things. Oh, I loved that magazine, I really loved it. I bought it at the African Lakes Corporation shop in Blantyre. But I have not read it for, oh, so long now, I can’t remember. I miss it.”
“I will send you some copies,” I promised as we drew up at her grand-daughter’s house. “As soon as I get home, I will send you the People’s Friend.”
I have travelled thousands of miles and exhausted my bank account in an effort to uncover some kind of meaning to my life.
I had just spent a morning with a wise old lady who may have given me the answer.
All any of us want is a little respect for who we are. That, and a good magazine.
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www.theroadtodot.blogspot.comThe full article contains 642 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
