Malawi Vice

Due to recent political events, a long string of occurrences in the government, police have set up two to three times more road blocks. Also, fines and bribes have nearly doubled. There is a particular police squad in Bolero that stops every matola heading to and from Rumphi boma. These matolas are used only by villagers and each stop takes up to two hours because the fine is MK 7,000, as matolas are illegal, though the only mode of transport in rural Malawi. No matola can ever pay; they do not even have enough customers to cover fuel costs. The poor eat the poor and those that are given even a little power will abuse it to harm their neighbors and friends to feel more powerful. The selfish nature of mankind.

I have grown to hate these police, their obnoxious mannerisms, the way they require drivers and citizens to cower before them and pay whatever money they have.

What’s truly infuriating is that the same police ride matolas to get home, or on their days off to get to town. I physically shudder with anger when I see them or think of them. Last week, I was on an afternoon matola travelling to Bolero from Rumphi. We stopped in Chikwawa and three corpulent Bolero traffic policemen stumbled out of a bottle store, drunk at half past noon, and boarded the matola to go home. They were done for the day having spent all the matola bribe money collected since the morning. The matola dropped one at home, another at a bottle store in bolero and the third at the station.

One morning, they stopped a Mwazisi matola and held it up for two hours. I had thoughts, horrifying thoughts, anger, rage that I did not know I was capable of. There was a woman in the matola, very ill and in pain. Her family was taking her to the hospital in Rumphi on the only transport available to villagers. The ambulance is flaky at best and would not pass through till much later. We waited in the morning sun that grew hotter with each passing minute. We waited as the driver cowered and begged the officer to let him pass for a lower fee. I felt such sympathy for the woman while at the same time feeling such violent hatred for the police.

The system is corrupt and in the end it is people, ordinary citizens, poor villagers that suffer. It’s maddening but unfortunately that’s the case all over the world. The rich, the political, the powerful rarely understand or care for the plight of the citizens or poor they swear to protect. Power corrupts all and harms the people. Just like I am capable of the duality so are other volunteers who have shared their horror at the violent thoughts they conjure here. So are the policemen that take bribes, let their fellow farmers, their physical neighbors, suffer and still go home to their families. It’s sickening but it is our nature: a duality of love and hate, and while we try to embrace the former, our natural instincts pull us back into balance.