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Shortly after I had arrived at Chiromo upon my first posting, my predecessor left on
holiday and I saw him off on the train. As it had not been practicable to organise a
walking ulendo while he was still around, it was agreed that the ADC for Port Herald
would let me come with him on a joint ulendo to the Chief Mlolo whose area included
Chiromo but whose headquarters was about 15 miles north of it at the foot of the
escarpment. Carriers were required for tents and loads, and I was advised to request them
from a large village, Jiwaki, about one mile from Chikonje, where I was housed. These
duly arrived, and under the supervision of my messenger who knew the drill, we all
moved to Mlolo's headquarters. I am not sure whether the ADC used his car and gave
me a lift, or whether he had come up on the train with a bicycle, and we both cycled.
In any case he introduced me to the Chief, the camp was set up, and a meeting held.
I remember particularly that the "gifts" of the Chief included two fat chambo on a plate.
The ADC did his bit, which was to give a short exhortatory talk, listen to any comments
or complaints, and then look into the Court books and the record of tax payers, including
the granting of waivers to the old and infirm. Then I was turned on. At that stage
although I had a smattering of the language from my studies in England, I was in no
position to make a comprehensive address to the polite village elders! The technical
policy which I was supposed to impart was "Ridging for Soil Conservation". The local
Agricultural Instructor was an old timer, but did not speak English. So I had either to go
through the ADC or use signs. That first day he helped. The following morning he
announced that much as he would have liked to continue the ulendo, he had been
recalled urgently to Port Herald, and that I was to carry on for the next 7 days. He gave
me a list of the villages to which I was expected to go, and explained that they had been
warned, got on his bicycle (or was it car) and was off.
At that point it came to me that here I was for the next seven days, entirely dependent
on my rudimentary knowledge of the language, expected to communicate with those
around me, and also to try and get technical ideas across to the local population, while at
the same time making my mark as an individual presence in the district and with my
staff. (I learnt subsequently that this was an established technique for getting new
officers to get to grips with the language quickly.) Also, for this was very important,
I had to learn as soon as possible the pattern of agriculture and life in the areas where
I was assigned. I had been briefed earlier that I should not try and advise the locals on
the growing of food crops, as they knew infinitely more about it than I did. I was there to
observe, and to facilitate economic production. It was only by travelling around, seeing
the villagers in their gardens and discussing with them that I would be able to understand
their way of life, what were their needs and what could be used to influence them. I had
already reached an understanding with the messenger and the houseboy over the more
domestic items, but I had to learn the technical terms. I had some inklings as I had tried
to read the vernacular monthly reports of the staff for the previous month. I fell back on
rehearsal. During the mornings as we travelled, we would accost some villager. Taking a hoe, I would endeavour to show a sample of what we were talking about, then I would
get the Instructor to repeat the spiel, but with the proper Chinyanja explanations. I could
then see if he did not get it quite as I wanted it, and could get him to correct it. After
three or four of these performances, the Instructor had got pretty well what I wanted to
demonstrate. So at the afternoon meeting, where I was introduced, I would say a few
words in bad Chinyanja that I was glad to be there, to thank the chief and people for
coming to the meeting, and then saying that I would ask the Instructor, Jailosi, to explain
the message as he would do it much better than I could.
This area lay between the escarpment and the River Shire, and in fact included much
of the Elephant (Ndindi) marsh. On the upper side the gardens could be quite hilly, and
here rudimentary soil conservation could be valuable. However, below the line of the
main villages there were extensive alluvial flats (madimba) where, even to my
inexperienced eye, I could not detect any great signs of erosion! In one of these the
department had a small rice variety trial, which I found I was supposed to supervise. One
of the villages we camped in I remember because it was known as "Cimbuzi" which is
the word used locally for "latrine". It was so called on account of the quality of its well
water, which was in fact exceptionally saline. This was awful to drink or in tea, but made
quite passable coffee. In fact the word "cimbuzi" (literally "the goat-thing") was
correctly the term for the little tuft on the top of a thatched roof, where the thatch was
fastened together. Its application to "latrines" was a transfer carried out by the early
settlers, as latrines were an unknown matter before the settlers came. We finished up on
the last day, in the village where the carriers had come from, so on the final morning it
was an easy descent to the office and to open the cash chest to pay the carriers, extracting
the requisite thumb prints!
I might add as a corollary, that as a result of this shock treatment (which at the time
I regarded as inhumane) I was able to pass my Lower Chinyanja examination within my
first year.
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