Walking With the Missionaries

The legacy of David Livingstone is very much present in this region of Africa.  The Livingstone Mountains that skirt Tanzania’s edge of Lake Malawi are his name sake, as is the town of Livingstone in southern Zambia.  Museums and memorials commemorate him from Lake Tangayika to Victoria Falls.

But perhaps the legacy of Dr. Livingstone is felt most strongly in the hillside mission settlement of Livingstonia, in Northern Malawi.

While we went to Livingstonia for the pretty views and the hiking, we left with a greater respect for David Livingstone and understanding of the piece of the African puzzle he represents.

***

Getting to Livingstonia is not easy.  A harrowing road leads from the lake up to the top of an escarpment formed by the Great Rift Valley.  In fifteen kilometers, one ascends almost a thousand meters.  To make this possible, the road winds through a series of twenty “hairpin bends” – so called, I assume, because the road turns back on itself, making the shape of a bobby pin.

With each turn, the material of the road seemed to change.  Sometimes dirt or gravel, sometimes large boulders, occasionally cement, and oftentimes mud.  Indeed, this road is considered one of the worst in the country, and inadvisable – according to guidebooks and locals alike – in the rainy season.

We were in the midst of a peculiarly long rainy season.  Another rainy season road trip was apparently before us.  Thankfully, though, this one was shorter.  And luckily, we didn’t meet any oncoming vehicles while climbing the precariously narrow cliff-side road.

Most people walk up the hill, it seemed.

It turns out that perching the headquarters for the Free Church of Scotland (now the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, or CCAP) on the edge of a cliff in 1894 was intentional.  This was, in fact, the third location of the Scottish mission within a twenty year period.  The first two locations – Cape Maclear and Bandawe – were both on the low-altitude edges of Lake Malawi.  With missionaries and their children repeatedly dying from malaria, it was deemed best to move the mission to higher grounds.

***

We visited the old Bandawe mission as a break from a Lake Malawi beachside holiday later in our trip.  We’d spent most of our time at the luxurious Makuzi Beach Lodge reading in the sand under straw umbrellas, swimming in the bathtub-warm water, and gazing at birds on white-stained boulders, fishermen expertly paddling wooden pirogues, and pink and blue sunsets over the lake.

When our guilt at lack of cultural contact grew too loud to ignore, we walked toward the village inland.  At the mission school, we were welcomed by the head teacher.

“There are one hundred students in each class,” he announced matter-of-factly.  “We have twenty desks in each room, and usually two or three students must share a desk.  But now we have five to each desk.  It’s just the way it is now.”

The conditions of this school sounded an awful lot like the government primary school in Ngara we learned about while at FloJa Foundation Lodge.  It makes you wonder about education in Malawi.

One of the students from the mission school followed us on.  “Where you go?,” he asked timidly.

I think that Canaan wanted to practice his English.  And pass the time, most likely.  It was the Easter holiday, and it didn’t seem like there was much to do in Bandawe.

With a trustworthy face and a structure too small for his ten years, Canaan became our self-imposed tour guide.  He took us to visit the old Bandawe Church, constructed six years after the departure of the white missionaries, and still in use.  It turns out that even though the Scottish had abandoned this site, their legacy remains over 100 years later.

Canaan also took us to the old graveyard, where the fifteen-odd Scots-people who had succumbed to malaria were buried.  It struck me that the missionaries had been so young – most in their twenties, the oldest thirty-one.  Two or three infants were also interred here, beside their mothers.

I wonder if these pious young people left for Africa knowing they would soon be buried under her soil.

***

The rain had made the hills around Livingstonia lush and green.  The clouds that accompanied the rain, however, obstructed those glorious views we were supposed to be catching.  And, to top things off, the hiking trails were thick with mud, and we slipped and slid our way into Livingstonia town.

Still, it was picturesque.  Something about the grey sky made colors pop out more vividly before us.  Empty market stalls, restaurants with washed-out paint jobs, and mundane village huts seemed vibrant with beauty.  Mushrooms swelled fluorescent out of the soaked earth.  Children poked their legs out from under multicolored umbrellas.

We almost forgot that we were soaking wet and that our own umbrellas were doing little to shield us from the diagonal shots of rain.

Almost.  I couldn’t forget my soaked feet.  Somewhere along the way, the road had turned into a river, and my shoes and socks were completely soaked through.  I longed for the refuge of Lukwe Eco-Lodge, where I could sit under the covered restaurant and gaze at the endless view in dry socks and a rain coat.

We sought shelter in the only place we could – the town Craft Coffee Shop.  I proceeded to squeeze excess water from my socks as goose bumps poked through my skin.

“Have a cup of hot tea,” a women gently spoke.  “You look like you need it.”

It turned out this woman was a volunteer and that this craft shop was run by the highly-reputable mission hospital down the road.  Proceeds – once again – went to orphan care in the surrounding region.

And so, we virtuously helped ourselves to several homemade scones and cups more hot tea, until we were ready to face the rain again.

When we emerged – as warmed as possible – from the shop, we noticed that it was set in an old colonial red-brick building.  I guess we had run into the building so quickly, vision blocked by our umbrellas, that we hadn’t looked at our surrounding.  Just opposite the shop was the technical college, also set in a mission building, and the old clock tower at the head of a lovely – if redundant – roundabout.  A commemorative bell announced that this was indeed the headquarters of the CCAP.

What a strange feel this little town had.  So unlike Africa.

With a little more kick in our step, we waltzed past the old church, built over a thirty year period, and the mission hospital, still very much in working order.  We stepped into the Stone House museum, once the house of Livingstonia’s founder, Dr. Robert Laws.

And there we learned the real reason that Livingstonia was so called.

David Livingstone, also a Scotsman, had traversed these lands in the late 1850s – some thirty years before the mission was set up – desperately trying to end slavery.  In his words, slavery had created “an abode of bloodshed and lawlessness” throughout Malawi.

Indeed, the most infamous slave trader in Malawi, Jumbe, was carting up to 20,000 slaves annually across the lake from a single port.  In the country as a whole, over 40,000 slaves were sold annually in Zanzibar – and that number doesn’t account for the 150,000 Malawians who died every year in slave raids or on the long march to the coast.

***

Slaves were gathered from all over the country.  This did not exclude Livingstonia – or Khondowe, as it was called before the arrival of the missionaries.

To evade slavers, the locals of this region used to hide in a series of caves behind a giant waterfall.  This waterfall is called Manchewe Falls, and is viewable on a short bush walk from our campsite.  We decided to visit.

Because of the rain, the bush was thick, and the path petered out partway down the steep hill.  With spider webs in our hair and burrs sticking to our clothes, we were forced to concede defeat.  But not without a partial glimpse of the glorious, lush, fast-flowing falls.  This made me want to see them all the more.

And so, on our last morning, despite the rain, I led Bruno to the falls from the main road.  From the edge of Lover’s Rock Restaurant, we basked in the view of the falls.  The sun even came out to [finally] illuminate a glorious view of the vista beyond – the fertile valleys and rolling hills, Lake Malawi sparkling in the sun, and Tanzania’s Livingstone Mountains in the backdrop.

Seeing the mountains brought me on a chain of thoughts that led back to the poor slaves that had hid in Manchewe’s caves.

***

Livingstone was deeply disturbed by the sights of violence and carnage that slavery had brought to Malawi.  He desperately tried to persuade Jumbe to stop the slave trade.  But Jumbe was maniacal and cruel – not to mention rich – and so was unconvinced.

Livingstone died with the belief that the only way to curb slavery was to open Africa to the “three C’s” – commerce, colonization, and Christianity.  The Scottish mission of the Free Church of Scotland named their mission headquarters after Livingstone and sought to enact his beliefs.

Walking around Livingstonia, you can almost sense the positive impact the Scottish missionaries – in the name of Livingstone – had on Malawi.  Inspired by the humanitarian values of their late leader, they offered education to thousands, introduced new agricultural methods, and passed on other practical skills, such as carpentry and tailoring.  They weren’t just bringing their religion – they were bringing the seeds of commerce and freedom.

Wandering around Livingstonia’s bustling university, prestigious hospital, and respectful orderliness, you feel that the spirit of the Scottish missionaries – and indeed, David Livingstone – is still very much alive.