Imagine this… a wide, clear blue African sky above you with the horizon that disappears behind the green hills and mountains, in a village filled with old, interesting stories passed down through generations. This is where I come from. My roots are fixed deep in the red most fertile soil that helped me grow. There, time moved with the wind and the Sun, not the clock. Our elders talked in wise sayings and idioms, teaching us about life from their perspective… the only one they knew. Respect runs within our blood, it’s part of who we are. And at night, the stars shine so bright, that they feel close enough to touch. For 18 years my village was my world.

For years, I introduced myself with an apology. I thought my worth was tied to my struggles… the poverty that shadowed my childhood, the doubts that whispered I would never be more than where I came from. I wore my hardships like a name tag as if they were the only thing worth saying about me.

But life has a way of teaching you lessons when you least expect it. I remember one evening, as I sat by the fire with my mother, she told me an old Venda folktale about a baobab tree. “The baobab”, she said “stands tall not because it encounters no storms, but because its roots go deep. The wind may bend it, but it never breaks”  She looked at me, her eyes full of quiet knowing. “You, my child, are like that tree”

Something shifted inside me that night. I began to see my life differently. Yes, I came from a village where opportunities were scarce, where dreams often withered before they could bloom. But I also came from a place of immense beauty, where kindness and respect were a currency, where laughter was medicine, and where the land itself seemed to whisper, You belong here.

As a gentle reminder to myself, I started writing my thoughts, feelings, affirmations, and experiences in a journal… not to escape my story, or silence my voice, but to claim it. At first, my words were shaky and uncertain. But with every page, I grew stronger and became better and better. I wrote about the scent of rain on dry soil, the way my mother sang while cooking early in the morning, and the stubborn hope that clung to my bones even on the hardest days. Slowly, I realized that my voice mattered. Not despite my past, but because of it.

There was a moment… one I’ll never forget when I stood at a crossroads (before I knew what the word crossroads even meant). An opportunity came – an acceptance letter to study in the coastal city approximately 1600 km away from home, far from everything I ever knew. Fear and doubt nearly paralyzed me. What if I fail? What if they see a village girl and nothing more? And what if I am not good enough for that new world? But then I heard my mother’s voice: “The baobab does not fear the wind. It holds on to the hope of a better future.”

So, there I was, 19 years young, bravely journeying to the Southern coastal city by myself. I embarked on a journey that has forever changed my life. One that has made me a better person today. It wasn’t easy. There were days I felt like an outsider, days I questioned whether I deserved to be there over and over again. But I carried my roots with me… in my heart, in my words, in the quiet strength my family had planted in me. And that made all the difference. Today, when I speak, when I write, I do it for the little girl I once was – the one who thought her circumstances defined her. I do it for anyone who has ever felt too small, too unseen, too bound by where they come from.

Because here’s the truth… Your roots are your power. The struggles, the joys, the love, the losses, they don’t limit who you are. They prepare you. They give you a story no one else can tell. So let me reintroduce myself, not as someone who overcame her past, but as someone who honors it.

I am a Survivor, a Fighter. I am the voice of a village that taught me true strength. I am the dreams my ancestors whispered into the hollering wind. I am the product of my mother’s fasting prayers. I am proof that where you start does not decide where you finish. And if a girl from the poorest South African village outskirts can rise, so can you. Because the world isn’t waiting for you to be perfect. It’s waiting for you to be “brave”. It is time to reintroduce yourself.

Written By Mutshidzi Kwinda
Born and raised: in South Africa ����, Limpopo, Venda Tribe, Ubva Ha-Makhuvha

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POEM:

I am a girl from the village

A girl from Kwa-Ntuthu my hometown, well in the burbs they regard it as a village.

A girl with so many possibilities and aspirations yet my hometown seems to be a block to my progress.

I dream, I seek, I manifest, I am a girl I see in the mirror.

I want the universe to connect and align with my dreams.

I am a girl from the village

Government does his best but we not all for benefit.

Government is for his people

Government has the roles and occupies it for the known

We are the growing generation in misery, longing for change and success.

Opportunities passes by but we still awaiting the promised.

We are young, longing but dying with our dreams inside.

I am a girl from the village

I owe myself change

I will find change

I will strive for progress

I have to be the change that I wanna see

To inspire and motivate is all in the heart

To influence and bring many to one thought is in the motion.

I am a girl I see in the mirror

I am a girl from the village.

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Since I can remember, I’ve lived in my village in West Africa. It’s a place where the sun shines strongly and there are lots of living things on the land. But recently, something has changed. Climate change is having an effect on our town, and it is changing the way we live.

The weather was the first thing that stood out to me. The rains used to come at the same time every year, giving our crops and the land what they needed to grow. But now, it rains late or sometimes doesn’t rain at all. Our farmers have a hard time growing enough food, so hunger is always with us.

The heat is also too much to handle. The hot sun is always beating down on us, making it hard to work or even go outside. Our fields, which used to be green and full, are now dry and empty, and the rivers, which used to flow easily, are now just trickles.

Our village has become more likely to be hit by natural disasters as the weather has changed. Floods and storms are happening more and more often, causing damage to our homes and ways of making a living. We lose our crops, our things, and sometimes even people we care about. Rebuilding becomes a hard job, and our strength is put to the test over and over again.

But in spite of these problems, I have seen how strong our group is. We get together to help each other. We share what little we have and find ways to make do with what we have. We learn new ways to farm, adopt habits that are good for the environment, and look for ways to protect our environment.

Elders and leaders in our town work hard to get the word out about climate change. They teach us about the reasons and affects of the problem and urge us to do something about it. We plant trees to stop the loss of forests, lower our carbon footprint, and work toward a more healthy future.

Still, time is running out. The effects of climate change keep putting our way of life at risk. We don’t see as much animals as we used to. Our fishing towns are having a hard time because the fish are moving to cooler seas. Our kids ask us questions about why things change so quickly.

When I look at our town, I can’t help but feel like time is running out. We need the world to hear us and realize that climate change is not just a far-off threat for us, but something we live with every day. We need help and tools to be able to change and get stronger.

But I still have hope, even when things are hard. We are hopeful that we can make a change if we speak up and work together. We are hopeful that our actions, no matter how small, will help start a worldwide movement for change. And we are hoping that we will be able to protect our village and future families from the harsh effects of climate change.

For the time being, we continue to change and find ways to live and do well. We stick to our customs and our strong ties to the land because we know that our strength will get us through. And we dream of a future where our town and all others like it can once again grow and thrive in balance with nature.

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I have always had the urge to go back home to Malawi and be part of the builders of my community and the country at large. Though born and raised in Zimbabwe by Malawian parents, my love for Malawi developed when I arrived there in 2004, still a child yet old enough to know good from the bad. 

I instantly fell in love with an odd way of life in my parents’ villages, both my mother’s and father’s sides. I fell in love with the country’s innocence, the people oblivious of a life other than their way of living. Indeed, ignorance sometimes is bliss. I was raised, in my view, in an average home with running water, a bathtub, electricity, a stove, a fridge, and sleeping on a bed. I naively thought that this lifestyle was a common way of life for everyone everywhere across the world. Sleeping on a mukeka or African mat in my parent’s village in Malawi was not a shock but a roller-coaster adventure for me. Fetching water was the most exhilarating experience. Carrying tons of buckets with my cousins and brothers, contrary to our small family way back in Zimbabwe, I was faced with many cousins in Malawi, an unfamiliar sight, but it was such a pleasure. We would take turns swinging the borehole wheel until we filled all the buckets. 

Cooking was quite exciting, and mealtime was beyond enjoyable. We sat amidst more than 20 people near the kitchen, chit-chatting while we waited for the food to be served. We had to sit in groups, males separate from females. Just as the mothers comprised their separate group, so did the children. Each group had to be served from a communal dish according to their gender and age. 

After three months of this pleasurable village experience, my father took me back to Zimbabwe. I vowed in my heart that I would return. Years later, the nudge to return to Malawi was still stirring in me. In 2014, a mature woman, I decided to relocate and work in Malawi. By then, I understood that some of the first pleasant experiences I had encountered resulted from lack and poverty. I worked in Malawi for eight months, only to be so disappointed by the new experiences of hardships. The people and the country were going through tough times due to poor governance and political misalignment. At that time, I did not find anything pleasant about my country, so I left despite my inward-burning desire to help. 

Subsequently, in 2021, I mentally prepared myself for disappointment and discomfort. I went to live in Tukombo, my parent’s village in Malawi’s Northern region. This village comprises of Tonga-speaking people, one of the tribes that pioneered multi-party rule through Aleke Banda and are also known to be the most intelligent and educated tribe in Malawi.

I realised that my community needed help urgently. So, I contacted the Traditional Authority (TA) of the land to help and found out which areas needed immediate attention. To my shock, I was given a Bible of needs, and with no financial resources, I felt helpless and hopeless. However, although hopeless, I was confident that I could reach out to some of my trusted and valued friends with whom I had built trustful relationships over the years based on our common interests, spiritual foundation, or vision of building the Africa we want. It is an Africa with a prosperous future for the present and future generations. 

I embarked on a solo journey of knocking on every one of my friend’s doors for financial assistance, hoping to have a good response. Indeed, most of my friends fell head over heels without hesitation in extending their financial resources in helping to build my village while building the Africa we want, one village at a time. Yes, there have been a few exceptions whereby I had some emotional wrecking experiences. Some potential donors I approached thought that I shouldn’t be “appealing” for financial assistance at this stage in my life and that I was a failure and an embarrassment to society. Therefore, I should have never reached out to them or shared the philanthropic request work I was doing. Nevertheless, through various resources and help from friends, we have managed to renovate the village court/office, helped construct a nursery block, bought chairs for the community court and distributed food parcels and clothes to the community. Once the news started reaching out to some of the people in the diaspora who shared the same passion for building or facelifting the community, the response to contribute multiplied tremendously. Many reached out to me and expressed their commitment to joining hands to improve the village. 

I partnered with my fellow brothers and sisters from Tukombo, mainly based outside the country, to extend the existing clinic into a hospital. Each person would contribute as little as US$6. With all this being done with a couple of close friends, the most mind-boggling question comes to mind: How does the government of Malawi fail to deliver on the smallest of services when a small group of friends can bring change within a couple of months? Where does our government fail in service delivery? What are the priorities in the national expenditure, and what should they be? 

Meanwhile, Tukombo village has diverse so-called development committees that convene countless meetings, with little or no tangible deliverables on the ground. Is it because of a lack of focus on the bigger picture regarding vision, genuine sense of duty, unity for purpose, or unity of purpose? Could this be attributed to a lack of a shared mindset, education, drive or enthusiasm to live well in Malawi? 

Unfortunately, despite the continent’s immense potential, there are similar heart-wrenching cases across Africa. The abovementioned drawbacks pose unsurmountable obstacles to true meaningful emancipation and economic freedom. But we must face these challenges and forge a more livable and prosperous Africa. Our experience in Tukumbo village must help us to create a hopeful community with successful tangible development goals.

Written by: 

Cathrine Banda, Community Activist

Tukombo Village, Nkhatabay, Malawi

Mobile: +265 881 69 30 58 

Email: cathrinetwabi@gmail.com

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