This is Malawi, are you surprised? – Lawyer John Gift Makhwawa

I grew up reading magazines. Two if not three or four of them. But I liked one and only one. It was Moni monthly magazine. Moni my favourite because it had a competition in which I am told I won a paraffin cooker in those years. Imagine.

Then, I was only but just a baby, and the entry was made by divine parents for their lovely son. Yes, Moni magazine, my sister became a friend to a pen pal from Lirangwe and we could not figure out from Mzuzu what this Lirangwe was.

It must have been a mistake; it ought to have been Lilongwe? We thought. But there it was though, another Grace from Lirangwe and all because my sister Grace had also won with an entry on her behalf. Moni.

I also read other magazines such as POMA. This was a Police magazine. My dad was not a policeman but he had his networks, am told he almost had become one. Rest thee well Dad.

Now in this POMA magazine features were people urinating on handcuffs and handcuffs breaking; witchcraft was another big feature…flying humans, I have learnt they are now known as aliens.

And then, there was another periodical called ‘This is Malawi!’

This is Malawi was the mouthpiece of the powers that be. It only carried good sweet-sugar coated stories about the Mighty Ngwazi, Nkhoswe Number One, Destroyer of Stupid Federation and his henchmen and women.

I believed everything I read in ‘This is Malawi’ after all it was magazine ya boma!

Now I wonder, if Kamuzu had children known to us, these magazines may have been full of his wife and children.

For I have seen obsessions with children or siblings.

Muluzi and his son, Bingu and his brother, then came Joyce and her sons.

I am reminded of David Whitehead & Sons. Never seen, never known the sons. I only know Mapeto.

This is Malawi. It sums up everything, doesn’t it?

PP & Sons, UDF and sons, DPP and brothers, so and so forth.

Are you surprised? I am not astounded at all, because this Malawi.

Imagine your parents running fast and furious from their own house. As a child do you stick around or you just start running?

But then, this is Malawi, anything is possible and were it not scripted in the Police Magazine? Have we forgotten about them weird stories we used to read in Police magazine?

That tomorrow we all longed for has come…It is here. Tomorrow has come!

• John Gift Mwakhwawa is a private practice lawyer and now a Nyasa Times columnist

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