Malawian of the Moment – Rhabson Mhone

 So on the day I went to visit Prince in his munda, I ran into the old man of the Mhone village while he was working his plot of land.

Rhabson Mhone

As I was walking down the back side of the mountain I live under, I came upon him sitting under a simple thatch roof that he takes shelter at during days he works the fields.



Taking care of his paprika.

 

I kid you not, he was rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. This guy.

Almost there.

 

 

Success!

 

You wanna know why he was starting a fire? To smoke a cigarette. Not just any cigarette, but one made from locally grown tobacco and hand rolled in a cornhusk. Naturally.

Hand Rolling a Cigarette

 

He calmly looks at me and says “I don’t buy matches”.

Enjoying the fruit of his labors.

 

I sat down to talk with Sekulu, and to watch. (Sekulu is the Chitombuka word for grandfather, and the way you greet any elderly man in order to show respect)

We ended up talking in ‘tombuka for over an hour. He talks so fast and so eagerly that I typically understand only about 10% of the conversation, but he never bats an eye. No matter how many times I sheepishly laugh and tell him “Nindapulikiska” (I didn’t understand) he just keeps rolling, saying whatever happens to be on his mind.

One of the things I love about him is that he is always laughing, always happy, always talking away.

While we chat he shows me what wood he uses to start a fire, and what dried leaves make the best kindling for the first embers.

The tools.

 

Prep work

 

 

Ready to get started.

 

I give it a shot and with considerably more effort succeed in making smoke but am promptly rewarded with two sizeable blisters. He did it without batting an eye.

What a bad ass.

I later find out that none of his sons or grandchildren have learned this skill from him – undoubtedly one skill of many that will fall by the wayside in coming years as old cultural traditions and knowhow fail to be passed to the next generation.

 

I enjoyed our time so much that I came back the next day to take photos, I was rewarded with an interview when one of his sons that speaks a little bit of English came by and joined us.

The answers are not verbatim, but based an aggregate of responses as a result of the tedious translation process.

- How old are you?

He thinks for a moment and then responds “I was born in 1939.” This is pretty common in Malawi, as there is little value placed on a person’s actual age and most people only keep track of the year they were born. I quickly do the math – He will turn 76 this year, and is easily one of the oldest members of the community.

Unprompted, he then follows up with comments about how few people lived here then, how ‘clothes’ weren’t around - the adults all were hunters and wore animal skins. The children too, if they wore anything at all.

He talks about training to throw a spear at game, and about how the road was already built but was much smaller then and how so rare it was to have visitors. He remembers walking to the nearest trading center 3 days away in Livingstonia.

- How different is the park now?

First he talks about how much game there was. “There used to be lions and more leopards and hyena. There used to be cheetahs, more elephants. So many zebra”.

Rhinos have been gone for so long that I need do draw a picture of one in order to get an answer. “Oh yes! They were here too, but many more in vwaza, they have been gone for a long time. Some people from Zambia were coming to hunt them with guns”

“The Eland herds were so big then. Sometimes three or four hundred at a time” (it is now exceptionally rare to see more than 5-10 at once, even though a group of over 100 was recently spotted on the high plateau.)

He mentions being kicked out of the park when the country established it and removed all of its inhabitants. He chuckles when I ask if people were angry about this.

“Of course they were angry, but it was with President Kamuzu Banda. We couldn’t say or do anything against the government then – it was a one party system you know.”

He talks about how the crop system was different then (few people grew maize and now few people grow anything else).

He talks about his family and marriages, and then he buttons up a bit. I can tell it is time for the questions to end.

He rolls another cigarette while we finish our conversation more casually - After an hour or so the English skills of our translator have been exhausted and we decide we will continue the chats another time.

 

I leave him and his son to get back to weeding his paprika crop. The more time I spend with this man, the more I like him.