May 27, 2008
Yesterday was one of the worst, or at least most stressful days we’ve had since we’ve been here. It started well, with a fairly smooth and timely handoff of the Architecture group to the Kirks at around 9am, with us actually leaving the offices by around 9:30am. We had hoped to leave Mzuzu at 8am, so I was already feeling a bit stressed, although 2 hours late isn’t bad for Malawi time, especially as it relates to departure by vehicle. But I hadn’t slept well, and was getting tired of the role of “tour guide” even though the group was quite delightful and fun. My introvert nature was kicking in, and I just wanted to get to our beach place and relax alone with John for the day, since John’s old friends Justin and Esther Funsani will be coming to join us tomorrow.
The trouble came when we were leaving Mzuzu and discovered that one of the students had left their shoes in the vehicle, plus we needed to stop at the bank
ATM for more cash. To save time, we told Mabvuto to drop us at the bank, and then go back to the University office to give someone the shoes so they could be returned to their owner, and return to pick us up. The car park was full, and a vehicle was blocking the entrance, so he stopped on the street just long enough for us to hop out. We got our cash and waited, and waited, and tried to call Mabvuto, and finally he showed up and hopped out of the vehicle saying “I’ve been met with a problem”, and he looked sick.
We learned that he had been stopped by the police about a block from the bank, and was given a citation for obstructing traffic, plus his license had been taken away and he was to appear in court the next day. John and I knew immediately that he would lose his job over this, and in Malawi, losing a job isn’t just a problem like it is in the U.S. it’s a disaster. Mabvuto only has his Junior School Certificate meaning he finished 2 years of Secondary School as his family had no more money to pay the school fees(only primary school is free here), and with a Jr. Certificate, jobs are few and far between. Even with the equivalent of a High School Diploma, there are few jobs and while I haven’t seen an unemployment figure lately it it always over 50%. Mabvuto has 4 children, and 2 are in Secondary School, which means school fees for them, and without his job he and his wife (who is a Primary School teacher, making little money) would not be able to educate their children, and possibly not be able to eat.
John and I were sick and started trying to problem solve a way to get this fixed. Mabvuto had already argued with the officer for 20 minutes or so at the time it happened, but the officer gave him his phone number, so John called him. The officer had moved to a different spot and it was very noisy to hear on the phone, so he suggested that we come there to talk. We drove a couple of miles and discovered that there were about 10 officers, with radar who had set up a speed trap on a dangerous and busy stretch of road.
Mabvuto wanted to talk to the officer himself first, so he went off to do that and John and I sat in the van watching and feeling totally helpless and more concerned by the minute. John said, “I wish he would have let us come with him” and finally decided to go stand outside of the vehicle where the officers could see him. We had decided that we would say we had insisted he stop in hopes that they would let him off. You hate to have it be the case, but we thought the mzungu presence might make a difference. Mabvuto came back after what seemed like forever, and said there was nothing to be done. John said lets go back, and I stayed with the car since it wasn’t locked – so now I’m the one watching from afar feeling helpless and wanting to cry. After a short while, Mabvuto came back looking absolutely sick and saying, maybe this was God’s will that he not have this job, and that if he had to go to jail because he couldn’t pay the fine, that would be that. He just kept shaking his head saying, “I don’t understand, I didn’t kill anyone, and I looked before I stopped and put no one in danger – I’d never put anyone in danger”
He went back to be with John, and for awhile both of them were just standing on the side of the road together talking. Then John crossed the street and spoke to a woman and came back saying she had told him we should all go back to the station and get this sorted out. That sounded hopeful so we drove the mile or 2 back to the station and watched her walk back and forth from office to office with Mabvuto, until finally she came and said they had arranged to have his court hearing today. And then some guy came and gave us the keys to the vehicle and said we could be on our way has they had no problem with us, it was the driver who was at fault and would have to go to court and pay a fine. I asked what the fine was and started to cry saying the least we could do would be to pay the fine since it was our fault for asking him to stop and he was going to lose his job over this.
They started talking to each other to determine the fine amount and one of the men told us we could sit in his office to wait. This man said something about Mabvuto being able to go to court to pay his fine right away, and I started to cry even more saying to him, “ but he is going to lose his job over this and it’s our fault.” The officer said, “no I don’t think he will lose his job” and we both said “yes he will, they will fire him for this”. The officer tried to make some small talk with John and John mentioned that we were here as volunteers for the University of Livingstonia. By this time, I’m blubbering, feeling like we have ruined Mabvuto’s life and wondering to myself how we can help support his family, and trying to figure how to best rearrange the next few days so we can go to court with him and try to talk the judge into dropping these charges. The officer left the room for awhile, and when he came back it was to say he had decided that, under the circumstances since we were visitors who were there to help Malawi, it was better to give our driver a warning and that we should wait while someone brought his license back.
At that I started to cry even harder, thanking him profusely. I was having a hard time stopping crying as he asked more about the work that we were doing, and then telling us that he was also a Baptist minister with a new church and a project around HIV/AIDS which he gave us some information about. I said perhaps we could find some people in the U.S. to help with his project. He talked about how much Malawi depends on the help of people like us and how important it is for us to have a good experience so we will tell others who may come back to help more. He introduced us to the woman officer and told us she was the chief traffic officer for Mzuzu, and I think he was the chief of police.
I was still blubbering a bit, and feeling the strain of the last few hours of worry about Mabvuto, who was in the next room all this time, and after about 15 or 20 more minutes the female officer came in the room with Mabvuto’s license in hand, and they went to get him. They sat him down and gave him a lecture about safety and the danger involved in what he did, as well as the responsibility to keep us safe. We chatted some with the woman who was the chief traffic officer and told her that we were on our way to meet Justin and Esther Funsani, and wondered if she might know Esther since Esther was once chief of police in Mzuzu, and is currently chief at Chileka airport district near Blantyre. Yes, the woman knew Esther and wanted us to greet her. John’s and my back up plan was to try calling Esther if we couldn’t have any luck any other way to see if there was anything she could do to help, but the anti-corruption movement is very strong, and we didn’t want to “pull strings” in any improper way. I also mentioned the number of other volunteers that Mabvuto had been driving for the past few days to reinforce how good their decision had been, and how many people would have been negatively affected as we had all become close to Mabvuto.
Finally we walked off to the vehicle and just sat there for awhile before making off, with Mabvuto talking about how we had saved his life and us talking about how worried sick we had been. I still couldn’t really even talk without crying. After a few minutes, we set off – by now it was about noon, so about 2 ½ hours had elapsed. I was exhausted, and we really didn’t talk much more for the 5 hour drive to Livingstonia Beach – I think we were all exhausted and emotionally drained. When we arrived at the hotel, I went in to try to sort out the room situation since we had called 3 times and tried to tell them that there would be only one room needed tonight and 2 for the next 2 nights, which even upon checking in didn’t seem to be clear to them so that took the last of my energy to clear up. John stayed with Mabvuto trying to sort out the car rental since we were returning the vehicle about 3 hours later than we thought, and Mabvuto had to top up the tank with gas before returning it in Lilongwe.
I went back out to say my goodbyes to Mabvuto, and he was still a bit stunned, as were we. He talked about the wonderful time he had with the group and all the things they had done with and for him, plus what we had done getting him out of the ticket and saving his job and how God had blessed him. John and I immediately went to the bar for a double gin tonic to talk and process a bit. It turns out, that even though we weren’t talking on the drive down we were both thinking a lot of the same things – how tired we are of having to work so hard to do everything here, and how hard it is to communicate about everything with English as a second language for everyone here, how much of a responsibility it feels like to help everyone, how crappy it seems that the mzungus have so much power here, etc., etc. I told John I was feeling for most of the ride how much I just wanted to go home – and how guilty it made me feel that I could just go home and live so comfortably when so many people here have such hard lives.
I was exhausted, and went to sleep around 9pm and slept until 7am this morning, so am feeling much better today, although even writing this description of what happened is difficult. But I’m sitting on the konde of our room, watching and listening to the big waves crashing in on Lake Malawi – they look almost like ocean waves as the wind came up during the night. Both John and I are wishing we had more down time in the next few weeks, as Justin and Esther arrive later today sometime and then we head back to Lilongwe to pick up our friend Jeff at the airport. There’ll be some fun times coming, but for 2 introverts, a lot of “social obligations” too.
It’s 3 weeks today before we leave and the next few weeks are going to take a ot of energy I think – but while I don’t feel the desperation to leave here that I did yesterday, I am ready to go home despite the difficulty of leaving my namesake and so many others. Photo’s today are just of the beauty of the place.
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