We arrived at the town of Tukuyu. Everyone got out of the minibus — seventeen people, big and small. The driver said, ‘We go no farther.’
I was glad to get out of this death trap. I found Tukuyu on my map. ‘Meesta. Meesta. You want taxi?’ The usual punks, two of them in a battered car. We agreed on a price to cross the border. ‘We take you to Karonga.’ That seemed so perfect it made me doubtful. We drove thirty miles in silence. Near the border, a scene of disorder and mud, more fruit sellers, people in shanties, the punks pulled off the road (as I had guessed they might), and demanded more money. ‘We need to buy petrol.’
‘Let’s discuss it over there,’ I said. I got out and started walking.
They sauntered after me, they waited while I got my passport stamped at the Tanzanian border post, they demanded more money. The rain let up, while I walked down the road towards the Malawian side, followed by urchins. I suppose I should have felt dismayed — it was late in the day, I was being pestered by kids and money changers and being shouted at by the punks in the taxi who had put the squeeze on me.
But I was happy. Mbeya was behind me, I had not gotten stuck in Tukuyu and I had circumvented the curse of There are bad people there. The border ahead looked lovely. I could see beyond a range of mountains the Republic of Malawi, a much flatter landscape in the distance. The African boys were still pestering me, but I picked up my pace and walked past the final gate, one they could not cross, leaving them behind, clinging to the fence. Just before dusk, the sun came out, and flashed — a whole gold bar pressed against the earth — and then liquefied and slipped, and I followed the last of the light into Malawi.
14. Through the Outposts of the Plateau
I crossed the border, three or four footsteps, striding into a different country, glad to be home again in slap-happy Malawi, land of dusty roads and even dustier faces, eighth poorest country in the world. The amount you paid for one meal in a good American restaurant, a single Malawian earned in an entire year. Here in Malawi, I had spent my two Peace Corps years trying to be a teacher in a schoolhouse at the foot of a hill in the southern province. Here, also, I had encountered my first dictator, had my first dose of the clap, and had a gun shoved in my face by an idiot soldier enraged by my color — three somewhat related events that inspired in me feelings of fear and disgust. But I had been happy here too, and perhaps for similar reasons, since the horror of near-death experiences can swell our capacity for love and fill us with a zest for life.
Malawi time was an hour earlier than Tanzania, yet it was night at the border. No one else was immigrating. I was alone in the office, a small building on the dark road leading into a forest. All these elements created the strong impression that I was entering the country by the back door.
I greeted the officials in their own language, using the polite form of address, the formal ‘you,’ and filled out my application form. Under ‘Occupation’ I wrote ‘Teacher,’ though I wanted to write, ‘Provocateur.’ I paid my visa fee, and got my passport stamped. I was heading out the door, into the country itself, when a small man sitting at a bare wooden table said, ‘Yellow fever certificate, please.’
Amazingly, I had one. I handed it over.
‘Out of date,’ the man said. ‘It expired last year. Good for ten years only.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘You should read the certificate.’ The tiny nondescript man, speaking to me sharply in this way, acquired distinct features — became a skinny, cold-eyed, rat-faced predator, in a sweaty shirt, with flecks of dirty lint in his hair. ‘Also, your vaccination is out of date.’
‘Do you have yellow fever in Karonga? Because that’s where I’m going.’
‘Yes, we have yellow fever,’ he said turning his fangy face on me.
‘We have cholera. We have smallpox. We have malaria. Polio, too. We have many illnesses.’
‘Ntenda kwambiri. Pepani!’ I said, Lots of sickness. Sorry!
‘This is very serious. Come with me.’
As soon as he uttered them, I knew that the actual meaning of these words was, Bribe me. He believed he had the advantage: the border had just closed, the office was empty except for a few officers, the road was dark, and we were at the remotest, northernmost point of this elongated country. The first time I had entered the country, in December 1963, the African immigration officer had smiled and welcomed me and thanked me in advance for being a teacher in Malawi.
‘In here,’ the rat-faced man said, ordering me. He opened the door to a small shabby office. The building was so badly made, so temporary looking, that the walls did not reach to the ceiling. I could hear mutterings from other rooms. I sat on a plastic chair, while he took his place behind a desk, under a portrait of the president of Malawi, Mr Muluzi, a gap-toothed fatty in glasses. This politician’s first act in office was to put his unappealing face on all the national currency, his chubby profile on coins, full face on the notes. The act had since been rescinded but the money still circulated, and his intimidating portrait hung on every shop wall in the country. One of his objections to his predecessor in office was that the man had created a cult of personality.
Smiling at the bribe-minded man behind the desk, I thought, You will get nothing from me, buster.
‘This is very serious,’ he said, fingering an official form that was perhaps a deportation order.
‘I will get a revaccination in Karonga. Also a yellow fever shot.’
‘Not possible in Karonga. There is no hospital.’
‘In Lilongwe, then.’
‘The prophylaxis, so to say, does not take effect for ten days. What if you fell ill? That would be serious.’
I hated his pomposity, and every time he used the word ‘serious,’ it sounded insistently extortionate. I decided not to speak to him in English.
‘Ndithu, bambo. Ndadwala ndikupita ku chipatala,’ I said. Definitely, sir. If I got sick I would go to the hospital.
He said, ‘I would be very sorry if you fell ill.’
‘Pepani, pepani sapolitsa chironda.’ It was an old Malawi saw: ‘Saying “Sorry, sorry” doesn’t heal the wound.’
He didn’t react to that jape. He said, The road is very bad because of rain. You might not reach up to Lilongwe for many days.’
‘Mvula! Matope! Nzeru za kale, anthu anasema, “Walila mvula, malila matope!” ’ — ‘Rain! Mud! Long ago, the wisdom was, “Ask for rain and you’re asking for mud!” ’
My yakking clearly irritated him, but he was still delaying me and not dissuaded from circling around a bribery demand. Now he dangled my passport at me. ‘You must understand this is serious. Your certificate is out of date. It has failed.
‘Like you’d say of a bow. Uta wabwino wanga wagwa!’ — My good bow has failed.
Finishing this alliteration, for it was a magnificently alliterative language, I heard an African yodeling in Chichewa from the other side of the transom, ‘Eh! Eh! What is this I hear? A white man speaking this language. Where is this white man?’
The door opened and a stout bald man in a policeman’s uniform entered, laughing and reaching to shake my hand. We exchanged polite greetings in Chichewa, he asked me my name, my country, and welcomed me.
‘I want to go to America,’ he said in his language, and then, ‘Where did you learn to speak Chichewa?’
‘I was a teacher a long time ago at Soche Hill.’
‘Please, be a teacher again here. We need you, father.’
While the policeman clutched my hand in his two hands, to show respect, I said, ‘I want to help. But I have a problem.’