Speeding through dim shadows of a countryside landscape on an early-morning minibus, the sun came to find me near the town of Dwangwa, sixty kilometers south of Chintheche. In Malawi, the sun does not break a new day in delicate whispers, as it might do in places where it will find everyone still in bed. Here the sun barges in with a certain urgency, as if to find out what all that racket has been about. Indeed a frenzy of activity, perhaps the most agile and purposeful of the entire day occurs between the dissipation of the night and the arrival of the mighty sun. Those who want to get ahead will not be caught by the heat of the morning between sheets, and as such, the sun is unapologetically fierce from its first ray.
The other passengers and I looked at the bright beams elongating onto the green fields, like stretching arms after a good night's rest. The chilly wind wheezing through the cracked windows of the bus soon lost its cool, and then, before we had even reached Dwangwa, a whiff of its sweetest crop whirled into the bus, announcing we had now entered sugarcane territory. If Dwangwa lacked the right conditions to grow sugarcane, its name would probably not be on the Malawian map. Yet the tropical lands of this lakeside town keep high temperatures, moderately low precipitation, and a short distance to a source of water that is used to irrigate the thirsty crop. It was here that a young Malawian government came to establish a sugar processing plant in 1979, and here where two decades later, having great difficulty in managing the business, they gave up their investment to the private industry, which was swiftly grabbed by an expanding South African company. The demise of government-run operations for sugar processing was, in hinsight, the key to Illovo Sugar becoming the most powerful sugar multinational in all of Southern Africa.
The driver stopped somewhere in between fields of sugarcane, turned his head towards the passengers and gave me a nod: this was my stop. He drove away minutes later while I stood facing a sea of green syrup; at least that is what it smelled like. Syrup warming in the sun. Unsure of what to do or how to possibly escape the aroma, I began walking along the main road until I found a sign sticking out of the corner of a field: Dwangwa Cane Growers Limited. The sign announced their headquarter offices down a declining dirt road aligned with neat rows of sugarcane stalks. I could see the old farm-house-looking building in the distance, floating in the green sea. I suppose, I thought, I had come to Dwangwa to see about their sugarcane crops, much like I had gone to Karonga to see about rice, or to Mzuzu to see about coffee. So far my research about crops had ended in discoveries that had little to do with the actual crops themselves, yet, something about the intoxicating scent that the thousands of plants around me were emanating was telling me the only way this adventure could end was in the face of crystalized sweetness. So be it. I followed the road; blank mind, advancing feet.
Jones Mwakabana saw me coming a mile away. Still, my presence puzzled him. In all the years he'd worked at the cane growers cooperative as a desk clerk, he'd never seen or heard of random foreigners coming in to ask silly questions, so when I stepped into his office and presented him with a maundering ramble that concluded in a request to hear all about the magnificent cane-growing operation that took place here, he politely asked me to take a seat and allowed himself a thinking pause. After a few minutes he excused himself and went looking for colleagues to consult with. I heard his steps up and down the dark corridor of the farmhouse, every once in a while a curious head popped in through the door, raised eyebrows and disappeared. Jones' colleagues decided to leave this one up to him. He came back into his office, deep in thought, and finally concluded to himself — and to me, since I happened to be sitting there still — that it was possible for him to take me around and answer my questions. I thanked him profusely, trying to hold back the grin that had suddenly taken over my face. He seemed as unsure about what type of tour to give me as I was about what type of questions to ask, so we resolved to start from the beginning.
YOU ARE READING
Eating Malawi
Non-FictionA most unlikely exploration of food, where food is famously scarce. An explorer with an awkward mission, perhaps not a mission at all, follows the lines of food history into the forgotten fields of Malawi.
