LITMIR.BIZ

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when my father and Uncle John—Geoffrey’s father—finished work in the maize and tobacco fields and returned home for supper. My mother and older sister Annie would be busy in the kitchen preparing the food, sending out all the delicious smells riding on the breeze. All my cousins would gather in the courtyard between my house and Geoffrey’s house to kick the soccer ball—made from plastic shopping bags we called jumbos, which we then bound in twine. And as the light faded, perhaps a farmer from the next village would stop by.

      “Mister Kamkwamba, I have something from my garden,” he’d say, opening a bundle of papers to reveal some nice tomato plants. They’d negotiate a price and my father would plant them behind the house.

      During the rainy season when the mangoes were ripe, we filled our pails with fruit from the neighbor’s trees and soaked them in water while we ate our supper. Afterward, we passed the fruits around, biting into the juicy meat and letting the sweet syrup run down our fingers. If there wasn’t any moonlight to continue playing, my father gathered all the children inside our living room, lit a kerosene lamp, and told us folktales.

      “Sit down and hush up,” he said. “Have I told the one about the Leopard and the Lion?”

      “Tell it again, Papa!”

      “Okay, well…one day long long ago, two girls were walking from Kasungu to Wimbe when they became too tired to continue.”

      We sat on the floor, hugging our knees against our chests and hanging on every word. My father knew many stories, and the Leopard and the Lion was one of my favorites. It went like this:

      Rather than taking a nap in the dirt, the two young girls looked for a clean, quiet place to sleep. After some time, they came across the house of an old man. After making their request, the old man said, “Of course you can stay here. Come on in.”

      That night when the girls were fast asleep, the old man snuck out the door and walked into the dark forest. There he found his two best friends, the Leopard and the Lion.

      “My friends, I have some tasty food for you. Just follow me.”

      “Why thanks, old man,” the Leopard said. “We’re coming straightaway.”

      The old man led his two friends through the forest and back to his house. The Leopard and the Lion were so excited for their meal they even started singing a happy tune. But as they were approaching, the two girls happened to wake up. They felt refreshed after their nap and decided to continue on their journey. Not seeing the old man, they left a kind note thanking him for the bed.

      Finally, the old man arrived at the house with the Leopard and the Lion.

      “Wait here and I’ll go and get them,” he said.

      The old man saw the bed was empty. Where did they go? he wondered. He looked for the girls but couldn’t find them. Finally, he discovered the note and knew they were gone. Outside, the Leopard and the Lion were growing impatient.

      “Hey, where’s our food?” said the Leopard. “Can’t you see we’re salivating out here?”

      The old man called out, “Hold on, they’re here someplace. Let me find them.”

      The old man knew if the Leopard and the Lion discovered that the girls had gone, they would surely eat him for supper instead. The old man kept a giant gourd in the corner of his house for drinking water. Seeing no other option, he jumped inside and hid.

      Finally, after waiting so long, the Lion said, “That’s it. We’re going in!”

      They broke open the door and found the house empty. No girls, no old man, no supper.

      “Hey, the old man must’ve tricked us,” said the Leopard. “He’s even left himself.”

      Just then, the Leopard spotted a bit of the old man’s shirt hanging out from the gourd. He motioned to the Lion, and together they tugged and tugged until the old man came flying out.

      “Please no, I can explain,” cried the old man. But the Leopard and the Lion had no patience for stories and quickly ate him.

      My father clapped his hands together, signaling the end of the story. Then he looked around to all of us children.

      “When planning misfortune for your friends,” he said, “be careful because it will come back to haunt you. You must always wish others well.”

      “Tell another, Papa!” we shouted.

      “Hmm, okay…what about the Snake and the Guinea Fowl?”

      “For sure!”

      Sometimes my father would forget the stories halfway and make them up as he went along. These tales would spiral on for an hour, with characters and motives ever changing. But through his own kind of magic, the stories would always end the same. My father was a born storyteller, largely because his own life had been like one fantastic tale.

       CHAPTER TWO

      WHEN MY FATHER, TRYWELL, was a young man, he was quite famous. These days he’s a farmer, just like his own father and the father before him. Being born Malawian automatically made you a farmer. I think it’s written in the constitution somewhere, like a law passed down from Moses. If you didn’t tend the soil, then you bought and sold in the market, and before my father gave himself to the fields, he led the crazy life of a traveling trader.

      This was when he lived in Dowa, a small town southeast of Masitala perched high in the brown hills. Back during the ’70s and ’80s, Dowa was a vibrant place where a young man could go and make some money. At that time, Malawi was under the control of Hastings Kamuzu Banda, a powerful dictator who ruled the country for more than thirty years.

      Every Malawian grew up knowing the story of Banda. When he was a young boy in Kasungu, living in the shadow of the great mountain where the Chewa defeated the Ngoni, Banda had walked barefoot one thousand miles to work in the gold mines of South Africa. Later, he was given a scholarship to universities in Indiana and Tennessee, where he earned a degree in medicine. He was a doctor in England before he returned to Malawi to deliver us from British rule. He became our first great leader, and in 1971, under his extreme pressure, our Parliament gave him the title Life President.

      Banda was a tough man. He demanded that every trader in Malawi hang his picture in his shop, and no other photo could dare hang higher. If you didn’t have the image of our Dear President on the wall—dressed in his three-piece suit and clutching a flywhisk—you would pay a hefty price. It was a frightening and confusing period in our history. Banda also forbade women to wear pants or dresses above the knee. For men, having long hair would get you tossed in jail. Kissing in public was also forbidden, as were films where kissing was portrayed. The president hated kissing, and even today, people are scared of smooching in the open. On top of that, policemen and the Young Pioneers—Banda’s personal thugs—were always snatching up people who dared criticize his policies. Many Malawians were jailed, tortured, and even tossed into pits of hungry crocodiles.

      Despite all of this, it was an exciting time to be a trader. My father tells stories about hitchhiking in pickups across the countryside to Lake Malawi, where he bought bundles of dried fish, rice, and used clothing, to sell back in the Dowa market. Lake Malawi is one of the biggest in the world and nearly covers the entire eastern half of our country. It’s so vast it has waves like an ocean. I was twenty years old before I ever saw this lake with my own eyes, despite having grown up only two hours from its shores. But once I stood on its banks and looked out across its endless-looking water, my heart was filled with a great love for my country.

      Once at the lake, the traders would travel to the cities of Nkhotakota and Mangochi aboard the steamer ships Ilala and Chauncy Maples, where good food was served, and traders drank and danced on the decks through the voyage. At the lake my father bartered with the Muslim businessmen, known as the Yao, who populate that part of the country.

      The

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