Mother, mum, ama, masten…..

She is that kind of person whom you cannot stay mad at. I remember one person once said, “You leave the house convincing yourself you are not coming back. A few days later you realise you are missing her and you pack you stuff and head back to her.” She drives people crazy with both anger and laughter. That’s the woman I call my mum.

Hers is not a story of ‘from riches to ashes’ nor is it a ‘from ashes to riches’ kind of story, no. Hers is a ‘from riches to ashes to riches’ kind of story. She was probably married by 24 if my calculations are correct. By 1994, she and her husband were living in Sunny side with a three year old daughter and awaiting a baby boy. Little did she know that two years later she would find herself as a single mum of two kids, and siblings to take care of. She was earning her dime as a primary school teacher back then. It was a struggle, especially with two little kids, the other one only a year old. Nor did she know that by then she would have moved out of that beautiful self-contained sunny side house to live in a shuttered house with a pit latrine in Manase.  

She is a woman who knows what she wants. Within the year at Manase she managed to get a bed sitter in Nkolokosa. Part of the sitting room was turned into a bedroom and life went on. In 1999, she got into Domasi College of Education. She almost did not go because of her kids but after my dear aunts convinced her that we would be ok, she went.

 We moved out of Nkolokosa after a bus hit one of the walls of our house and cracked it. We went to Kanjeza but we did not stay that long. A few months down the line, we were living in Zingwangwa Township. Whilst on holiday she managed to get a job as a teacher at Jupiter Private School. I remember once there were heavy rains. It rained so heavily I was sure the house would fall. She must have thought so too cause she started praying. I watched as tears run down her face whilst conversing with God. I didn’t understand a thing she said but by the time she was done, the rain had stopped.

She still wanted to be a tenant of the Malawi Housing Cooperation (MHC) and not live in a house owned by a person. In April 2001 she was told houses were available in Ndirande Malabada and so we moved to Malabada. The same 2001, she got a Diploma in Education and started teaching at Chichiri Secondary School. A few months later she got a call to attend an interview at the then Commercial Bank of Malawi. She got the job.  

19 years as a single mom, she has managed to raise a Political Scientist and a soon to be IT graduate. Whilst at it, she turned from an MSCE holder primary school teacher to a secondary school teacher, to a banker and soon she will be a Bachelor of Business Communication Degree Holder. She is what I call a success story and she always says these few words: “God loves me” and “The Lord answers my prayers.”