Malawi: the Wisdom of SS Ngoma by Richard Newton

Standing within his own grave, Mr Ngoma apologises for not being dead. “It will happen soon,” he promises. He made the same prediction when we last met. Five years on, the headstone at the near end of the gaping vault still awaits a vital statistic: S.S.Ngoma, 1913-.

Mr Ngoma’s ramshackle home stands on the brow of the Rift Valley escarpment in northern Malawi. Cobbled together from odd pieces of wood and metal, it looks like a shipwreck. Yet he is fiercely house-proud and is happy to receive visitors. They soon find themselves immersed in his endearingly peculiar world.

“I live in the past,” he admits. “I call downstairs Nyasaland, where I spend my waking time. I sleep upstairs...in Malawi.” As for the future, the grave at the bottom of his threadbare garden will take care of that. He will be buried in the coffin that is currently stored under his bed. “What’s this?” I ask, holding up a hose that snakes out of the bedroom window and down to the garden. His answer prompts me to relinquish my grip in a hurry: “It is for my toilet emergencies at night."

Back in 1994, Mr Ngoma’s functional eccentricity did not seem out of place in a country that was an African anomaly. Under the headmasterly rule of His Excellency the Life President Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda (to give him his official moniker), Malawi was peaceful, tidy, friendly, and decidedly old-fashioned. For an expatriate, it was a comfortable place to live, and it was all too easy to turn a blind eye to the ugly aspects of the regime.

Human rights were widely abused. On charges of ‘sedition’, many of the government’s opponents ended up in the notorious Mikuyu Prison near the old capital, Zomba. After the prison finally closed, I got the chance to visit and was especially moved by dark smudges on the walls beneath the high, barred windows – the footprints of the prisoners who had clambered up to glimpse the world outside.

European residents of the old Malawi were never under threat of political imprisonment, but we had to adhere to some of Banda’s bizarre decrees. It was against the law for men to have long hair or for women to wear trousers. There was no television and the list of banned pop songs included Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel (Cecilia was the Christian name of the ‘official hostess’, Mama Kadzamira).

In 1994, things changed rapidly. Within weeks of my original visit to Mr Ngoma’s house, the first multiparty elections were held and President Banda was defeated. To his credit, he relinquished power with remarkable dignity. Shortly after that, and entirely coincidentally, my family returned to Britain after seven years in Malawi. I had not been back since.

Mr Ngoma does not recognise me at all. We search through his visitor’s books for evidence of my previous visit, but to no avail. Then I recall something: “My brother was stung by a hornet as he walked down your stairs.” (A sting just below the eyebrow from an African hornet is not easily forgotten, either by the victim or those who witness it).

“Ah, yes! I remember you,” he says. “You have become fat!” He means it as a compliment. “Now you are a bwana.”

Appropriately, one of my rites of passage was played out not far from here, on the vast Nyika Plateau. Its formidable wooded ramparts can be seen from Mr Ngoma’s graveside. It was up there that I stood eye to eye with my first leopard.

I return to Nyika by air, climbing out of the northern city of Mzuzu aboard Air Malawi’s single-engine Cessna Caravan. The pilot, Amos, also flies Boeing 737s, but this is his preference. “It’s real flying. There’s time to enjoy the view.”

As the terrain rises beneath us, the woodland dissipates. Soon our winged shadow is riding the open undulations of the high plateau. Gusts of wind forge silver swathes across the grassland. Cantering herds of zebra, eland and roan antelope scatter then coalesce as we drone over them.

When Laurens van der Post wrote about Nyika in his 1952 classic Venture to the Interior, the plateau was virtually untouched by humans. Local people believed that it was possessed by spirits and were reluctant to set foot here.

A 1960s pulpwood project changed that. The colonial administration constructed several dams and planted the pine forest that I can see ahead of us now. Among the trees, smudges of smoke billow from the chimneys of the green-roofed chalets at Chelinda Camp, where I will be staying.

We touch down at Chelinda airstrip, rehabilitated after years of disuse. Before stepping out of the plane, I pull on a sweater to fend off the montane chill. Grassy hills roll to the horizon in every direction. Low clouds scud overhead, dappling the land with a kaleidoscope of shadows. Wisps of mist drift from hidden gullies. The magic has endured: this is still my favourite place on earth.

Since my last visit, the government-run Chelinda Camp has been privatised. Under the management of the Nyika Safari Company the existing buildings have been spruced up and a new luxury lodge of log cabins is taking shape nearby. In addition to safari walks and game drives, it is now possible to view the plateau from horseback; the best way to get among the herds of zebra and antelope.

One tradition has been retained at Chelinda: each evening, log fires are lit in every room. That night, as I bask in the flickering glow, I hear a commotion outside. I wrap myself in blankets and venture into the cold. Jimmy, one of the resident guides, is standing on the path looking in the direction of the camp’s dam.

“What’s happening?” I whisper. I can make out something moving against the surface glimmer of the water. Three hunched shapes pace the near shore.

“Hyenas have chased a bushbuck into the dam. It can’t stay there long because the water’s freezing. When it comes out they’ll kill it. It happens most nights.”

Ten minutes later there is a clumsy flurry of movement and we listen to the last squeals of the doomed antelope.

Hyenas are not the only animals to successfully utilise the manmade dams. The following day, at Dam 3, I witness a unique piece of behaviour. A roan antelope wades into the water, sheepishly looks around, then plunges his head beneath the surface. He comes up munching on waterweed. As far as I know, Nyika’s roan are the only underwater-feeding antelope in the world.

A more enigmatic phenomenon is associated with nearby Lake Kaulime, a small body of water that exists without rivers flowing either in or out: it is just there, silent and still, reflecting the sky. According to folklore, the lake is home to a giant serpent with extraordinary powers. Seven years ago, by way of an offering to the mystical snake, I chucked a couple coins into the glassy water and wished for my first leopard sighting (quite why, after more than twenty years in Africa, I had never seen a leopard was a mystery in itself – a saga of near misses and bad luck).

Within an hour, as I walked over open ground in an area known as Zovo Chipolo – ‘the place where they killed an elephant’ - I was forced to a sudden halt. Thirty feet away, a leopard faced me. I was close enough to count its whiskers. It was one of the most fantastic moments of my life.

This time my request is more mundane. I cast a whole handful of coins into Kaulime (Malawi’s rampant inflation has taken its toll) and wish for another return to Nyika.

Before I leave, I drive to the north-eastern edge of the plateau. From here the terrain pitches 3000 feet down to the hazy expanse of Lake Malawi (known to local schoolchildren as the Calendar Lake, for it is 365 miles long and 52 miles wide). On the far side I can make out the jagged profile of the Livingstone mountains in Tanzania.

Malawi is dominated by its huge lake. From Nyika, I descend the Rift Valley to its shores. The coolness of the plateau cedes to dusty heat. The dirt road to Mzuzu is exactly as I remember it: an obstacle course of pedestrians, goats, sleeping dogs, wavering cyclists and broken-down lorries.

By late afternoon I reach Chintheche Inn, which I barely recognise. When I was last here, my room had no electricity or running water, no ceiling, and a door without a lock. (A fellow guest didn’t even have a door.) It has since been taken over by Central African Wilderness Safaris and transformed into a comfortable resort set within luxuriant gardens.

The sandy beach at Chintheche is one of the best on the entire lakeshore, hemmed in by smooth, elephantine rocks. The water stretches to the horizon; you may as well be looking at the sea. I take a soothing dip and watch the local fishermen set out in their unsteady dugouts. By nightfall, several dozen boats will be out on the lake with their lanterns twinkling in the velvet darkness. Livingstone called this the Lake of Stars. You soon understand why.

Back in Mr Ngoma’s garden, my host emerges from his grave and unhooks the toy mobile phone attached to his belt. He shouts into it, speaking to the heavens. After hanging up, he turns to me: “That was God. He says ‘hello’.”

After my long absence, it is gratifying to discover that this wonderful country still has a place for people like Mr Ngoma. And for me: a man who is in the habit of asking a giant serpent to grant his wishes.