Reading Time: 3 minutesAs Easter approaches, various churches and para-church organisations throughout Malawi are busily organising events they designate as cantatas. In our major urban centres—such as Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Zomba—several Easter ‘cantatas’ have already occurred or are forthcoming at assorted venues, from cathedrals to community halls. These proceedings typically bring together multiple choral groups, each taking turns […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesIn Africa, we grow up enveloped by the close-knit fabric of community, where others form an essential thread in the weave of our lives. No one exists in isolation. In all our pursuits, the community to which we belong holds primacy, its influence ever paramount. As the saying goes, “I am because we are.” This

Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen I attended Robert Blake Secondary School in Dowa during the late 1970s, I was taken aback to learn that nearly half the student body came from northern Malawi. This struck me as noteworthy at the time. Then, a few years ago, I came across a blog by someone from outside the country claiming that

Reading Time: 3 minutesGrowing up at Nkhoma Mission was an absolute joy for us boys. Throughout the year, there was never a shortage of ventures to occupy our time and spirit. Our amusements ranged, broadly, from engaging in spirited sports using improvised equipment to the excitement of hunting birds, alongside picking from the abundant domestic and wild fruits

Reading Time: 3 minutesCommunication across Africa, whether between one country and another or within nations themselves, has for years been beset by significant logistical difficulties. Communication in this context encompasses both physical and electronic exchanges, vital for economic, social, and political interaction. Yet, even in the present day, the connections linking African countries remain fragile and often inadequate,

Reading Time: 3 minutesToday, I am set to embark upon a rather solitary journey. Solitary, because it is all too likely that many readers, upon realising that the subject I wish to address is not one of widespread popularity, will choose to disembark prematurely, leaving this vessel to sail with but a scant number of passengers aboard. The

Reading Time: 3 minutesIt often strikes me as a profound tragedy that so many Malawians find it almost impossible to believe in the scientific achievements of the recent past, such as the remarkable fact that men actually set foot on the moon during the 1960s and 70s. To present to them the idea that a spacecraft launched decades

Reading Time: 3 minutesWhen white settlers first encountered the majestic Great Zimbabwe, they promptly dismissed any notion that the dzimba dze mabwe (houses of stone) could have been the handiwork of Africans. They deemed the African race insufficiently advanced to undertake such a monumental engineering endeavour. A Portuguese explorer of the 16th century conjectured that Great Zimbabwe lay

Reading Time: 3 minutesIn a clandestine and now-infamous address delivered by South Africa’s President Botha to his cabinet in 1985, he brazenly and categorically declared that white people were unquestionably superior to black people in every conceivable sphere of life. He went beyond mere insinuation, suggesting with chilling certainty that black people constituted a fundamentally different species from

Reading Time: 3 minutesLast week, I took a deliberate pause from the usual toil of work to immerse myself in the quiet enchantment of some local marvels that never fail to evoke awe and wonder. Fortunately, these extraordinary sights did not require a long journey. One such gem, the Malape Pillars, lies within the Machinga district. I had