Tembwe

VILLAGE MZATI: Katrina Mwale

“My life is like a lesson to my children. They say, ‘Our mom passed through those difficult times, and we shouldn’t go through that. We should consider our education.”

Katrina Mwale, 31, is determined to give her seven children the opportunities she didn’t have, especially when it comes to education.

“My father died when I was very young,” Katrina explains. “That left my mother to take care of my grandpa, grandma, who was sick, and three children. It was very difficult for one woman alone.”

Because primary school wasn’t free when Katrina was a child, she left school after third grade and started helping her mother support the family. “She was forced to teach us farming; each child had his or her own plot we were responsible for,” Katrina recalls. “After harvesting, we would sell our produce, but if the market wasn’t good, we couldn’t find money. We had one school uniform. Because of that, I was forced to get married at an early age.”

That’s something of an understatement. Katrina recalls being married in 1988, when she would have been 10 years old. Her first child came two years later. Her husband, who shares her history of losing his parents early in life, also shares her passion for education.

“We believe it’s better to [do without] other things to concentrate on education because our children will be able to stand on their own when they are educated,” says Katrina. “When we’re no longer here, it will be possible for our children to go on with their lives because everything will be OK.”

“In this whole area, our parents were the strongest warriors.” – Tennis Phiri, senior group village headman, Tembwe.

In the old days, Tembwe was known for its warriors. When raiders from the east swept across Kasungu in the end of the 19th century, the men of Tembwe built a wall around their village and posted lookouts armed with bows and arrows at its crest.

“During those wars, when other villages were under attack, people knew they could come here and be safe,” said group village headman Joseph Phiri. “Behind the wall, they could eat and rest.”

After the war, Joseph’s grandfather introduced a method of making cloth out of tree bark to Tembwe. Other villagers fashioned metal tools, harvested salt and tanned leather. People from the villages around again flocked to Tembwe, this time to buy warm clothing and tools.

These days, the wall is long gone and, in any case, poverty, hunger and HIV/AIDS – the most deadly foes of Malawians today – are impervious to bows and arrows. Cheap imported goods have driven small-scale manufacturers out of business and this town of warriors and craftsmen is struggling to draw on new strengths.

“Men and women work together now,” Joseph said. “We now get educated.”

One eighth grader in Tembwe had an idea of how she might do battle in modern Malawi.

“I want to be a lawyer,” said 13-year-old Violet Office. “Lawyers are heroes.”