BELOW THE HIGH TERRAIN || MYRA TRUDEA OKUMU

 

You hear of Mulanje Mountain, the crown jewel of Malawi, with Sapitwa (it's highest point) at 3002m above sea level. The sides of this glorious mountain grow Mulanje cedar, a strong tree with a spicy aroma famed now for its dwindle from existence as people plunder the mountain and chop down this rare tree by the number. You hear of dziwe la nkhalamba, a dazzling pool of water that gleams in the light and whose rocks could be your demise, the waterfall pure and rushing can be heard as a harsh natural melody behind closed eyes. You hear about the spirits that dwelled at this magnificent pool: reverred and worshipped, feared and respected. The people around the mountain (and beyond) offered sacrifices of animals, food, possessions and alcohol to appease them, to ask for blessings, to thank them for prosperity, to beg for children and to pray for mercy. (Although the spirits have long since disappeared. They say, the stories of the spirits human captures spread long and wide and soon the masses came flooding, displeasing the spirits as their sacred shrine was desecrated and turned into a mere tourist attraction. The spirits left, leaving the once spiritual and scared place desolate and quiet.) You have heard these stories. The stories of the hikers finding food as they hiked the treacherous mountain, the stories of people disappearing on her rocky mass on trails that twist and turn and seem to go on forever, stories of talking spirits, crying voices. You have heard them all. All of them All but one. The story of the little girl living at the foot of the mountain

At the crack of dawn, most wake up to go to work or class or to a hearty breakfast. Brenda wakes up to hike the Mulanje Mountain to collect firewood. for those not familiar with the Mulanje mastiff, the treacherous mountain is the highest point in warm heart of Africa at 3002m above sea level at Sapitwa peak. The climb itself is hard and tedious and the ground as you climb is steep and ladden with rocks that lean on trees and some that are held up by spit and prayers. The firewood is fallen branches tied together with pieces of torn garments and ropes and put in bundles two metres long. You can only imagine the weight of this thing as some of the branches sat on the ground as the rains poured and absorbed water and never really dried. Mind you, she is thirteen and in standard 6, she is almost half my age, a head or two shorter than I am but manages to carry a load twice her weight. Mulanje Mountain is a monstrosity; rocky, steep and unforgiving, clad with trees of shades of green.

The hike up is tiring with nothing in hand and difficult with a bundleof branches nestled on your head. My pathetic attempt to carry a load on my head for about a kilometre ended in a headache, neck pains, shaking legs and a complaining back. A glimpse of what the children go through everyday. What caught my attention and let me say amazed me the most was the speed at which they ran down the mountain. Its rocky and steep! Almost screamed,"Be careful!" one too many times and I am ashamed to say I was holding up the traffic of children way younger than me. An eyeopener on what children have to go through to survive, why the education system fails to account for children attendance, how truly privileged some of us are (and how we take it for granted) but also the resilience of a small girl living at the foot of the majestic and beautiful Mulanje Mountain.

Visit Mulanje Mountain where the clouds hug the mastiff like a crown and blur out the top of the beautiful Mountain completely on rainy days. For the beauty it is, for the experience of hearing the water as it rushes down the mountain and drowns out the rest of the world, for the rocks at Dziwe La Nkhalamba that look like quail eggs and for the joy of visiting the big rock in the warm heart of Africa.🇲🇼