ABOUT ME FIRST

INTRODUCTION

An account of oneself or another must necessarily be selective in its treatment of relevant substance because the life of a human being is an infinite array of occurrences that cannot precisely be mapped out bit by bit. Our condition, as human beings, has not improved enough: we still are under the plight of having no means to record perfectly every single minute of a person’s life. Largely, we are under the same old time misfortune of relying more on human memory, which is prone to forgetfulness, misrepresentation and misinterpretation. However, it must also be obvious that even if we had all the ideal gadgetry for putting on record every single occurrence in a person’s life, we nevertheless would never have the temerity to release such a record to the public willy-nilly because it might contain material contrary to the law and dictates of public policy. Accordingly, discourse about someone must necessarily be an adumbration of subjects wilfully and carefully selected.

EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY

I was born Michael Chipeta to a single parent on 21^st August 1982 at St. Michael’s Mission Hospital, Kaseye in Chitipa district. I am the last of three sons, Albert and Elton being the other two. (Mom adopted our little sister, Joetta, in 2005, a number of years after I had left for college. I believe she was caught unawares by the loneliness that creeps in when children leave your house some day to pursue their own lives). My mother, a Tumbuka from Cham’mono Village at Nkhomboli, T/A Mwalweni, Ntchenachena in Rumphi district (my home village), was a Home Craft worker at the hospital where I was born and she took my name from a signpost at the place that had a “St. Michael’s Mission Hospital” inscription on it. (The transmogrification of “Michael Chipeta” into “Michael Goba Chipeta” was executed at a later stage out of my own adolescent wisdom while in secondary school.) In 1983, Mom moved to Mzambazi Mission Hospital in Euthini, Mzimba district, where she worked up to late 1993. She then joined Embangweni Mission Hospital, first working at the hospital’s Mpasadzi (Newa) satellite clinic in Kasungu, before moving to Embangweni in 1997. I lived and grew up in those places.

My mother, Nita Chisambo, is a strict disciplinarian who owns her kids and will do anything to make sure they conform to her teachings so they can grow up into independent individuals who are not a hazard to society. Her philosophy is simple and four-pronged: education, reverence for God and other morals, hygiene and hard work. During my childhood days, she would descend on you with tangible ass-kickery if, for instance, you ran away from school or failed an exam, failed to go to church or used foul language or stole something, forgot to brush your teeth or take a bath and showed signs of laziness of any kind. Living with Mom in those days was not straightforward business at all: you had to be fully aware of the consequences of your actions a good lot of your whole day.

However, despite all that, she was our guiding spirit and an indispensable figure: she was that kind of person I never wanted to loose or allow anything harmful to happen or be done to her. She was aware of this trait in me and often used it to either control me in some way or just mock me for fun. For instance, she would deliberately talk about her dying or being bitten by a ferocious dog, fully knowing that I would inevitably break down into tears and, if I did, she, together with my brothers or anyone around, would giggle unremittingly.  One of her most unforgettable feats was the day she succeeded in permanently stopping me from bothering her with demands to be carried on her back as a kid. On this particular occasion, she carefully lifted me up and had me perched on her back with the usual motherly love and care. Then after walking a very short distance she suddenly, but deliberately, stumbled over something and pretended to fall down a bit violently, ultimately ending up in what appeared to be extreme agony due to her ‘broken backbone.’ I naturally felt extremely concerned. So when she subsequently told me that she would no longer be able to bear me on her back, now that her backbone was broken and she was in deep pain, I totally understood. Since that day, I never bothered her again with crying for her back.

Mom also made sure that we grew up with a sense of belonging by taking us to the village once every year in September. The thrill of village life in the company of my brothers and my cousins Chivwanda and his wife and children, Vitima, Agness, Jane, late Vai, my late aunt Sella and my late Grandma Vaina nyaChimhabi, is deeply unforgettable. My favourite village chore was herding goats: the fun was unfathomable. One morning, I was around seven years old then, I went out to the fields with the goats. One of the goats gave birth and, with the typical curiosity of a young boy, I witnessed the whole process. I was very excited and ran back home thereafter to report the good news to Mom and everyone else. I innocently explained everything I witnessed and how the new little goat came out. To my surprise, all the grown up women listening to my story were in shock, looking at each other in surprise and with no sign of excitement. It all ended up with Mom slapping me in my face in reprimand: she said I was too young to watch the poor goat give birth.

My sense of love, respect and admiration for Mom has intensified over the years because of the positive impact her wisdom has had on my siblings and I. She successfully managed to raise us up into independent individuals who are not a hazard to society. Her instincts and humble abilities will remain a lifetime marvel to me.

My brother Albert, the first-born, like all “first-borns,” had a controlling attitude and always wanted to be in command of things. Elton, the second-born, was full of betrayal: in all affairs amongst us kids, he would side either with Albert or with me at will. I remember one day, soon after having lunch, I became very critical about Albert’s supercilious attitude. The essence of my argument was that we all were entitled to equal shares of the best part of the meal and that it was painfully unfair for Al to have access to the best portions alone only because he was the eldest. I expressed this sentiment to Elton in confidence and he seemed to agree with me. However, Elton let the cat loose to both Al and Mom the next day and I had my ass extensively hammered for being disrespectful. Generally, as the youngest, I always bore the blunt of things. We, however, are grown up now with beautifully strong family ties. My family means everything to me.

CAREER THOUGHT

My career ideology has undergone perpetual mutation over time and is perhaps one veritable instance of what is believed by many to be the difference between human plans and God’s plan. When I was in Standard 1, for some reason, and of the entire world around me, the only people I felt had real jobs were labourers who worked along the main roads, cutting grass and clearing the roadways. So when asked about what I wanted to be in future, I readily said that I wanted to be a labourer of the kind just described. People would laugh their asses out, unsurprisingly. In later years of my primary school, and a good part of my early secondary school days, schoolteachers were much of an influence on me and I begun aspiring for a teaching career. However, my outlook about life rapidly changed during my secondary school education and my career thought underwent one more twist: I became so obsessed with science and decided I would pursue a career in either engineering or medicine. So after finishing my secondary school and upon qualifying for entry into the University of Malawi, I applied for engineering at The Polytechnic as my first option, agricultural engineering at Bunda College as my second option and Education (Science) at Chancellor College as my last option. The University authorities, in their absolute discretion, picked me up on the last option. Despite not having made it in engineering, a field in which I had the brawniest of all assiduousity, I was not dismayed because I now had a complete opportunity to realise my other dream of becoming a medical doctor.  Accordingly, when I went to Chancellor College to commence Education (Science) studies, I picked up courses that would enable me to go to College of Medicine.

One Sunday afternoon, during the early weeks of my first year in college, I was as usual working on my science stuff in the law section of the college library. Just out of curiosity, I dislodged a large law book from one of the many shelves in that section of the library: it had “Laws of Nyasaland” and other stuff emblazoned on its cover. I sat down and tried to peruse through its contents. I hardly finished reading a section labelled “Interpretations”: the language was too daunting my brain literally switched off and I started sleeping over the book. I shoved it away in haste and heavily wondered how someone would waste his or her time reading such material. Accordingly, towards the end of my first year, when an advert was posted by the law department requesting first years like me to apply for a course in law, I dismissed it at once as total waste of time. My heart and my soul were in for a career in medicine and nothing else.

About three weeks passed and the advert was still on the notice boards. One morning, on my way to the library, I saw it again and decided to reread it just for the heck of it. My curiosity was at me again: I carefully read the requirements for a person to qualify and noticed that I fitted in all of them; and I noted further that the deadline for applications was actually that very same day. Someone at the back of my mind then whispered and said, “What if we applied? After all there is no need to pay application fees and there is no special format for the application letter.” With a sarcastic smile full of jokes and mockery, I casually walked up the library, secured a table and chair, sat down and scribbled down the shortest of an application letter possible.  I folded the piece of paper into an envelope and had it delivered to the law department. The whole process took less than fifteen minutes. It did not take long before I totally forgot about the whole thing because it was not something I pursued with passion and enthusiasm.

About a month later, I had the first awakening when I heard full pronunciation of my name on the radio as one of those shortlisted to attend interviews for entry into law school. It seemed my jokes were purporting to take a shape I never anticipated. I was scared. How would I pursue a career reading unintelligible books that made you snooze? But an avalanche of authentic bolt from the blue erupted about three weeks later when, having attended the interviews just for the heck of it, I was selected into law school. It was time for real confusion because it meant quitting my passionately pursued dream of becoming a medical doctor and embarking on a career I had never dreamed of.

My mother had very strong bias towards me pursuing a medical career and when I broke the news about a career in law, she had a million reasons to discourage me. One of the funniest reasons she gave in support of her assertion against me going to law school was that, in as far as she was concerned, I would end up being a Judge and adjudicating on people’s cases needed a touch of witchcraft and wizardry if I were to survive. What made me laugh, and I still laugh a lot every single time I remember the moment, was the fact that she was so serious despite her reasoning being funny. My brothers, on the other hand, were particularly happy and encouraged me to go for it. With a little more encouragement from friends, I courageously took the giant leap of faith: I abandoned my passionate dream about a medical career and embarked on the spontaneously instituted law career.

Every time I look back at the path my career ideology has taken, I end up deeply wondering whether we alone are the masters of our destiny or whether there is some Force out there that absolutely devises our destiny or in conjunction with which we map out our destiny.

RELIGION

I am a deeply religious man and my religious creed, just like my career thought, has undergone considerable metamorphosis over time. My mother raised me up as a Christian of the CCAP (Church of Central African Presbyterian) church. The idea that God, who created everything and is unseen, was actually up there watching over us and reading every single one of our thoughts; and that after we die we will go up there and either be punished or rewarded by Him in accordance with our deeds, was enough to instil fear of and reverence for God in me. I accordingly strived to always pursue my life in such a way that I reap God’s maximum approval. This ideal saw me change church membership a number of times: I moved from CCAP and joined Assemblies of God before ending up in Holy Cross. During my third year in secondary school, I nearly joined the Seventh Day Adventist Church after reading Jan Marcussen’s “National Sunday Law.” But I did not because shortly afterwards I went back to CCAP after an equally forceful manuscript totally convinced me that no church would ever take a person to heaven more than his or her personal relationship with God.

As I grew up and started getting towards taking responsibility for my own life, many things started to make little or no sense at all. The theory of God as an overarching principle permeating through our lives, as per lessons taught by Mom and my church, on one hand, and life itself in practice, on the other hand, never seemed to have any meaningful link anymore. Questions like why do people suffer in many ways despite spending the whole lot of their energies trying to please God, and other similar questions, heavily lingered in my mind and I had no access to any meaningful answers.  I read a considerable amount of Christian commentaries, which, most frustratingly, only repeated the same ideas that never made good sense. Then by pure chance, after finishing my secondary school and just before going to college, I came across religious writings of Albert Einstein, which subsequently led me to the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Democritus, Francis of Assisi, Spinoza and Charles Haanel. I was particularly overwhelmed with awe at the degree to which these eccentrics expounded an idea of God that made complete sense to me. They espoused a concept of God that cleared all the mist overcrowding my mind about who God really was. For once I discovered a more sensible link between God, life and existence generally.

One remarkable discovery I made was that everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. From this major premise, it became clear why religious movements over time have taken their respective paths and creed. In addition, the realization of the fact that the universe is a single significant whole brought to the fore the most sensible fact that an anthropomorphic God is not probable. I finally discovered that God, actually, is that one Intelligent Force with no human traits behind all existence, which, just like the wind, dogs, viruses, water and all creation, we are part of.

It is to this extent that I am profoundly religious and there is nothing in my religious philosophy that prevents me from associating with people having an idea of God different from my own. As such, the question “If that is your religious belief, why do you go to CCAP?” or any similar question, would be an invalid one.

POLITICS, LOVE AND MUSIC

I believe that politics is inevitable. Every single day I wake up and pursue my tasks, life in my country, Malawi, reminds me of the great potential lying at the heart of our country’s resources and its people, the ironic condition of lack and poverty pervading through the majority of our nation and just how there does not seem to be any one out there serious enough to do something meaningful about it. May be there is someone out there who can make a real difference? May be that someone is me? I have no doubt that a determined search for answers to such questions makes a serious pursuit of politics inevitable for me.

I also believe that to be of service to others is the greatest way of making a living; and that to have a loving spouse, bear children and raise them up into happy and independent citizens who are not a hazard to society, is the highest moral ideal a capable civilised person can ever accomplish.

Finally, I have a very strong passion for music. However, since the sensations that music can generate in a human being cannot properly be expressed in words by any means, no one can lay down a rendition of any considerable length on this particular aspect about me. I would, accordingly, wind up the whole discourse about me on that note.