The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (25 page)

I ran up to the window so I could look inside to see what was happening, and just as I pressed my face to the glass, I felt a sharp pain in my back. One of the government security thugs was standing behind me, beating me with a hose pipe.

“Get out of here, you little monkey!” he yelled, swinging the hose like mad. He struck me again on the arms, then several times in the back. Pain shot down my spine, and I ran as fast as possible. Other guys who’d been standing nearby were caught against the wall and whipped mercilessly. Once I was safely away, I felt my face flush with anger. I wanted to kill him, but he was quite muscular and I didn’t stand a chance.

“You’re lucky my father has already gone!” I shouted.

We later managed to get a couple more bags of fertilizer and prepared to plant our crop. At first, the rains came like normal. We planted our seeds, going down the rows with our fertilizer, dumping a spoonful in a hole beside the seed station and covering it back with soil.

By January the seedlings had begun to sprout and were ankle high and showing their little arms, so happy to be feeding on such delicious rainwater and fertilizer. But just about the time they reached my father’s knees, the rains stopped completely. The sun rose up every morning angry and blistered the poor seedlings, causing them to wither and crouch. Soon their leaves were dry and brittle. If we’d put a match to them, they’d have burned to a crisp.

“Next year there’ll be trouble,” my father said.

“I don’t know if I can take another,” I answered.

It rained only a few more times in February, enough for many of the plants to produce a pith. But come
dowe
season, most of the ears were stunted and deformed. The harvest would be terrible. The government quickly promised intervention, but in the meantime, people grew angry and scared.

During the famine of 2002, the people of our area blamed the unpopular Muluzi government, venting their rage on the corrupt officials who’d sold our maize surplus. But this time, instead of acknowledging the cruel weather, they began blaming magic. And that meant blaming me.

Superstitions were still very strong throughout the country, and several incidents in the news had stirred these fears even more. The previous famine had led to reports in the southern region that the government was banding with packs of vampires to steal people’s blood, then selling it to international aid groups. Mobs had gone crazy. One old man was stoned to death and three Catholic priests were beaten. The government denied having any involvement with vampires, but that didn’t seem to make these rumors go away. “No government can go about sucking the blood of its own people,” President Muluzi had said at the time. “That’s thuggery.”

Following this vampire episode, a strange beast appeared in Dowa and began attacking villages. Some said the beast looked like a hyena, others said it was a lion with the face of a dog. Three people were mauled to death, and sixteen others had their hands and legs ripped from their bodies. The attacks caused thousands to flee their homes and sleep in the forest, where they were even more vulnerable to this alien creature.

The police conducted all-night searches, and one evening, they managed to corner the beast in a thicket. But according to the newspapers, whenever the police fired their rifles, the beast split into three separate animals and disappeared into the bush. Villagers then visited the
sing’anga,
who concocted a powerful potion and flung it into the trees. The next morning, the beast lay dead on the road—its corpse no bigger than a dog. When the elders tried to burn its body, no fire would consume it.

The villagers returned to their homes. However, just when everyone thought they were safe, a second beast began attacking and killing again, sending thousands back into the bush. It was later concluded that the beast was the product of magic. A certain trader near Dowa had purchased some thunder and lightning from another powerful wizard and later refused to pay for it. In retaliation, the magic man had sent the beast against his family. All those who had been mangled and killed were his relatives.

Following the strange beast of Dowa, many people across Malawi reported having their private parts stolen in the night, many of them waking up in the morning with their sheets bloody. Men who’d been drinking in bars were the easiest targets. As they stumbled home in the darkness, an evil creature—perhaps a gang of witch children—would pull them behind a tree and remove their parts with a knife. It was later revealed that most of the victims had been virgins, and their parts had been sold to witches, Satan worshippers, and business tycoons.

This was all so worrisome that the opposition leader, the Honorable John Tembo, addressed the problem in parliament, saying something like, “It’s not acceptable to sell other people’s private parts, especially while leaving your own.”

This wave of superstition and fear soon came to Wimbe. People said some witches were living near the trading center and using children for magic. One night the witches instructed the children to attack an old man who was known as a good Christian. While the old man was sleeping, the children magically removed his head and used it for soccer. (This often happens while we sleep—the witch children can take our heads and return them before morning, all without us knowing. It’s a serious problem.) This
soccer game was no ordinary match, but a great tournament in Zambia among all the children of the devil. The trophy cup was filled with human meat, which was to be eaten on Christmas Day.

The Malawian team was matched against the young witches of Tanzania. But as the game commenced and crowds hissed from the stands, something terrible happened. The ball deflated. When this happens, the head cannot be returned and so the old man died. After a new head was introduced, one of the Malawian children touched the ball with his hands at the eighteen-yard post, and that led to a penalty kick. The Tanzanians won the match 1–0.

In the witch plane back to Wimbe, the other children mocked and cursed the young boy.

“Why did you hand the ball?” they shouted. “We would’ve won!”

The other witches then beat the boy terribly with their magic. They were most upset about not getting the trophy cup of meat. The boy’s grandfather happened to be a traditional chief in the neighboring village, so the witches gave the boy a choice.

“Tonight you must kill your grandpa and bring us his meat, otherwise we’ll eat you instead.”

The boy was so badly beaten by their magic that he awoke the next morning too exhausted to move. When his father came to rouse him from bed, the boy confessed everything. He explained the tournament, how the man’s head had deflated, and the threats by the other witches.

“An old man is dead in the village,” he said. “And we are the ones who killed him. Now they want me to kill our grandfather.”

The parents became angry and reported the matter to their grandfather, the village headman. The child gave them the name of the witch who’d recruited him and the other children, and a mob was sent to his house. The man was beaten with clubs and sticks and barely escaped with his life. The boy’s parents then reported the matter to Chief Wimbe (Gilbert’s cousin, who’d since taken the throne). The chief investigated and made three arrests. These witches were convicted in the traditional court and made to pay a large amount of money. Sadly, our
country’s constitution doesn’t have a clause that protects us from witchcraft. Because it’s so difficult to prove, the authorities are limited in their investigations. They can eventually convict a wizard of violating the rights of a child, but never for kidnapping or murder. Hopefully one day that will change.

A
NYWAY, THESE INCIDENTS ONLY
heightened the fears and belief in evil powers. So in 2006, when the maize failed to grow and the likelihood of famine was strong, people started blaming magic. One afternoon in March, when the fields were withering in the sun, giant storm clouds began building in the distance.

“Look, the clouds are gathering,” people said. “Today we’ll have rain!”

“Yes, finally we’re saved!”

We’d gone weeks without rain and the sight of thick black thunderheads was something to celebrate. But just as these clouds began to pass overhead, a strong wind began to blow. It whipped up the red soil and threw it in our eyes and mouths, sending miniature cyclones tearing through the fields and across the courtyards. Little by little, this wind blew the clouds away.

With nothing but the blazing sun left in the sky, a few people gathered at my house and pointed up to my windmill. The blades were spinning so fast the tower rocked and swayed.

“Look, this giant fan has blown away the clouds. His machine is chasing away our rain!”

“This machine is evil!”

“It’s not a machine—it’s a witch tower. This boy is calling witches.”

“Wait!” I screamed. “The drought is all over the country. It’s not just here. Electric wind is not the cause.”

“But we saw it with our own eyes!” they said.

I became very afraid these people would collect a mob and tear down my windmill, or worse. I kept a low profile for the next week, stayed inside,
and even stopped the blades during the day so they wouldn’t raise more suspicions. At the trading center, people approached Gilbert.

“You can tell us the truth,” said one trader. “Is he really a witch? Is it true what he says about this electric wind?”

“He isn’t a witch,” Gilbert answered. “It’s a windmill, a scientific machine. I helped him build it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Go see for yourself.”

Many of them knew what my windmill was actually for, and a lot of them had even stood in the line and charged their mobile phones. But pointing the blame at me helped them get over their fears about the upcoming famine. Luckily, not long after that, the government stepped in and released tons of maize on the market. A few months later, some aid agencies arrived and offered further assistance. No one starved or died. A catastrophe had been avoided, but still, it revealed the kind of backwardness in our people that really frustrates me.

S
ADLY, MAGIC WAS OFTEN
the scapegoat for another great tragedy in Malawi: the spread of HIV and AIDS. Around this period, about 20 percent of all Malawians were infected, and many thousands died each year. Not only had it killed tens of thousands of our teachers and further deprived our students of a good education, by 2008, AIDS had also killed many of our national entertainers, including many musicians, robbing our country of one of its proudest treasures.

People died from AIDS because of stubbornness and lack of education. For many years, our villages didn’t have proper clinics that addressed HIV because of the stigmas attached to it. People weren’t taught to use protection during sexual relations, and once they became sick, many fell into denial. Others visited magic men who recognized the HIV symptoms right away, but still told the patient, “You’re right, brother, you’ve been bewitched. Luckily, I have just the thing.”

These wizards also claimed to treat other serious ailments requiring
medical attention, which led to many senseless deaths in our country. One of the biggest was diarrhea. A person would see the wizard and complain of serious pains in his or her stomach.

“Oh, I know what’s wrong,” the wizard says. “You have a snail.”

“A snail?”

“I’m almost positive. Do you feel movement in your intestines?”

“Of course, the pain is terrible.”

“That’s a snail. We must remove it at once!”

“Then do it quick, it hurts so bad.”

So the wizard goes into his bag of roots, powders, and bones and pulls out a lightbulb.

“Lift up your shirt.”

Without plugging the lightbulb into anything, the wizard begins moving it slowly across the person’s stomach, as if to illuminate something only he can detect.

“There it is! Can you see the snail moving?”

“Huh?”

“Can’t you see it moving its antennae? That explains why you’re crying so much.”

“Oh yes, I think I can see it. Yes, there it is!”

The wizard goes into his bag again and pulls out a bundle of dried roots, which he dips into a jar of water. After some minutes, he splashes this magic potion onto the person’s stomach.

“The moment this water comes in contact with the snail, it will die and come out.”

After a few minutes, he looks up.

“All better?”

“Yes, I think the snail is gone. I don’t feel it moving.”

“Good. That will be three thousand kwacha.”

T
HERE WAS SUCH
A stigma attached to AIDS that most people who suffered from it didn’t seek any medical help beyond what they could get from
the
sing’anga.
You’d see them in the trading center looking very thin, their hair turning yellow and pale, and the color leaving their eyes. Sometimes you’d see them being loaded in the backs of pickups bound for Kasungu hospital, never to return.

This lack of education also led to harsh teasing and discrimination by the population. Often young kids would harass people on the roads who appeared thin and weak and showed the signs of being
wakachilombo
—a person infected by a virus.

“Look at the
wakachilombo
with AIDS!” they’d shout. “He’s gonna die! Mister, you’d better prepare your grave!”

One afternoon while playing
bawo
in the trading center, some health personnel from Wimbe clinic approached us boys and began chatting. They said they were starting a youth club to encourage people to get tested.

“Why don’t you boys join us and sensitize your community,” they said. “We need help spreading the truth.”

That day, the Wimbe Youth Friendly Health Services Club was born, becoming one of my most cherished activities. We began meeting every Monday and learned about prevention and treatment of HIV and how to approach others about the subject. The class was filled with other kids our age, most of whom had also dropped out of school due to lack of funds. Geoffrey and Gilbert were also members. I was so happy to be in a classroom-type environment again where I could learn and socialize with others, where we could show our smarts and joke around with our pals. Just as the windmill and scrapyard had done, the classes worked to replace school in my mind and kept me focused. I put everything into my club.