Page 36 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

24 The Society of Malaŵi Journal

When my mother started singing and performing in Malawi, she did not
have many peers. It was a very conservative male-dominated society. Women
were judged harshly if they did not follow society’s stereotypes (perhaps still?).
Outside of the traditional role of homemaker, it was tough to gain respect from all
genders. My mother clearly broke the mould.
In 1997/98, she reluctantly moved to England after she found the
political influence on her career at Channel Africa exasperating and intimidating.
She felt angry that Malawian politicians would attempt to influence her managers
and get her dismissed from a job she loved by making allegations that she was
using her programmes at SABC as a way of criticising the ruling government. She
felt frustrated that the powers that be would not stand up to this interference either.
She could not and would not change her political allegiance on a whim.
Later that same year she was forced to move again (a maternal decision)
to America because returning to South Africa or Malawi was simply not an option.
Her life in America was not how she would have wished. Like some
professionally qualified Africans who have emigrated to the UK or America, she
had to work to sustain herself and also pursue further studies. Her savings from
SABC would only last so long. She worked as a carer, something that she found
mentally and physically challenging. She had sustained some injuries to her back
after falling off a horse in Zomba and although she enjoyed talking to different
people and found learning about their lives fascinating, she had never set out to
be a carer and all that this sort of work encompassed. This period was extremely
mentally challenging for her, and she found it quite depressing. She was a creative
soul, expressing herself through music or radio – she felt stifled and disappointed
that this is what her career had concluded to.
She was in America for a couple of years and returned to the UK – she
needed to be closer to her children. I feel she felt her soul being eroded and her
life spiralling out of control. The life in America was not her. She came to England
and completed a journalism qualification, and she also started a part-time degree
in Media Studies. She had always aspired to have a more formal qualification.
One of her regrets was to not have taken up an offer to study at the University of
Kent in her younger life.
What people did not know was that this was a very low point in her life.
She had not long returned from the UK, having been deported when her
application for asylum was denied. She was seeking political asylum from the
regime in Malawi at the time. She had no home, no job, not much money left and
was living in the village with my grandmother. She could not find full-time
employment. She felt depressed and disillusioned. How can a star, someone with
the status she had had, with a connected family arise from these depths?
I previously mentioned her resilience. So, she continued to persevere and
battle through. She could have chosen the easy option and switch political