As a girl with hands-on knackThe system attempted your back to crackBut you walked the steady trackUntil the world saw you had its back
Tambu at Peat Marwick, 1986
The Comeback
For most Malawian girls, a teenage pregnancy would mark the
end of professional and personal improvement and development. Tambu
was not an ordinary girl. For she was just getting started.
The rebound started with enrollment at a Speed Typing School
in Area 25, Lilongwe City in 1984. After about one year she obtained the
Elementary and Intermediate Speed Typing Certificates. This meant she could
type on the keyboard at 60 words per minute. In 1985, Tambu was employed as a
Typist at the Malawi government’s Department of Lands and Valuation whose
offices were located at the Lilongwe City Center. She moved to live near her
workplace with her sister Catherine Chitedze in Area 15. This residential area
is about 3 miles west of the City Center.
The house in which Catherine and Jack lived had three
bedrooms and an outside self-contained room. They had two sons and were
expecting a soon-to-be-born third son. Jack’s brother who had just graduated
from University of Malawi was already living with them. This is the house in
which Tambu and Robreen were accommodated.
About one year later, Tambu changed jobs and became a
Receptionist/Clerk/Typist at KPMG Peat Marwick, an American auditing company.
Around the same time, I changed jobs from programmer at Commercial Bank in
Blantyre to systems analyst at Reserve Bank in Lilongwe. The Reserve Bank
building is just across the road from Aquarius House where KPMG Peat Marwick
offices were. My rented house was in the eastern part of the city.
And so it was that at the end of each work say I would stand
at the bus stop by Reserve Bank waiting for the bus going east. Across the road
stood this impeccably dressed beautiful girl waiting for the bus going west. I
asked somebody, “who is this girl that waits for the bus across the road?” The
person gave me the name of Tambu Manondo and where she worked. In those days,
knowing where a person worked meant you knew their phone number. So, I called
her and asked her out for a date in April 1987. Three months later we were
engaged and one year later we were married.
The dating/fiancée period of one year revealed to me Tambu’s positive attributes that reaffirmed to me that she was going to make a wonderful partner. She had a full cute girly giggle and liked to laugh at my silly jokes. Most importantly, she valued and loved children. She would go out of her way to check on the well-being of children even on occasions that were “her days”. Case in point, her family was meeting my family on what is considered an important occasion for my people to see the future bride. Tambu left her place and went where the children were to check if they had been given food to eat. And I just said, “wow!”
Let’s Start a Family
Our beautiful wedding was on April 30, 1988. One year later,
in April 1989, Tambu went to Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America to
join me as I was awarded an African Graduate Fellowship to study for a master’s
in computer science. Eight months earlier, I had met the family of Ken and
Karen Berry after I had been in Lexington for only one week. Due to not making
prior housing arrangements, the family of Jerry and Charlene Leach hosted me
for one week. On the Sunday of that week, they took me to their church named
Covenant Church. The church was forming a soccer team and Ken Berry went ahead
and recruited me. Ken and Karen Berry became
close friends.
As if to announce that Lexington will no longer be the same
with the arrival of Tambu, there was snow on Derby Day 1989 in Kentucky. The
Kentucky Derby is a big horse race that takes place on the first Saturday of
May each year in Louisville, Kentucky. There are three big horse races in
America that are called the Triple Crown. The first of these is the Kentucky
Derby. Although the actual race is only 2 minutes, people in Kentucky treat the
Derby the way soccer loving countries treat the world cup final. Winter is
supposed to have ended by Derby Day which means snow is unlikely. But 1989 was
different!
Life is usually lonely for a spouse of a graduate student in
America especially students from outside the United States. It was not any
different for Tambu. To fill time, Tambu attended classes to prepare for the
General Education Diploma (GED) high school equivalency test. She also started
working at Western Steer Restaurant. Tambu befriended a wife of another
graduate student from Rwanda who was in a similar situation. The new friend’s
name was Jean Munyabagisha. Ken and Karen Berry were instrumental in helping
Tambu settle. They invited Tambu and I to spend Christmas Eve 1989 in their
house with their three sons. We all woke up in the morning in their house and
opened presents. They also lent us their old Buick.
Tambu and I started attending Trinity Baptist Church off
Winchester Road in eastern part of Lexington, Kentucky. The wife of a prominent
former pastor of the church, Helen Brown, immediately took Tambu as a daughter.
Helen invited Tambu and I to every important gathering, especially
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners. Helen’s daughter, Amy, became
Tambu’s new sister. Amy’s Sunday School Class at Trinity Baptist for newly
married couples provided a strong social bond that alleviated some of Tambu’s
loneliness. Tambu was the first member of the Sunday school class to get pregnant.
She gave birth to her second son Ulalo on March 7, 1991. Ulalo became the son
of the whole Sunday school class.
Tambu and I returned to Malawi in May 1991. Back in
Lilongwe, Tambu started working at National Bank of Malawi. Two years later, in
1993, Tambu gave birth to her third and last son, named Kabelo Ufulu by Tambu’s
parents. Tambu and I moved to the university town of Zomba a few months after
Kabelo’s birth as I changed jobs leaving the software development profession
for academics. I became lecturer of computer science in the University of
Malawi.
New Town, Friends, and Happiness
Tambu’s next employer was a bank named New Building Society located
in downtown Zomba. She also studied and passed the high school Malawi Junior
Certificate of Education examinations that are equivalent to successfully
completing American 10th grade. It was amazing to watch her navigate the
different roles of professional woman, mother, student, as well as wife and
friend to many.
Two friends warrant mentioning both of whom are American.
One was a music professor named Mitch Strumpf. He had come to teach at the
University of Malawi in 1982. Mitch loved to cook and host dinners. He also
loved to be invited to dinners. Tambu and Mitch exchanged many dinner
invitations. The other friend was Dana Reitman. Dana came to Zomba with her
family as her husband was a Fulbright Scholar lecturing in sociology at the
University of Malawi. They have two young sons. Tambu and Dana went for walks,
did workouts, went shopping, and invited each other to many dinners. It was at
these dinners that Tambu’s planning and cooking shined.
Social circles in Zomba included membership in two Christian
organizations. One was a local branch of Gideons International, an American
nondenominal group that distributes free bibles, especially in hotels, schools,
and hospitals. The other was a multidenominational ad-hoc bible study group.
The latter helped Tambu reflect on her life and helped her become an even
better person.
Political Transition in Malawi
The period of 1992 to 1994 was important in the politics of
Malawi. The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) headed by Hastings Banda had been the
sole ruling party since independence in 1994. The party was initially popular
due to its leadership in fighting to end British colonialism. In 1964, there
were opposing political parties, but MCP won elections by landslides. A few
year later, however, Banda’s government banned opposing political parties and MCP
voted to make Banda life president. Malawi became a one-party country with an
unelected president. Every citizen was forced to be a member of MCP and women and
children were forced to go to political rallies and dance. Political opponents
were detained without trial.
The political winds changed starting in 1992 when some brave
Malawians started to openly challenge the one-party system. The opposition
gathered momentum when Catholic Bishops wrote a letter that was read in all churches.
The letter criticized the government. Due to the pressure, the law was changed
to allow multiple political parties to exist and multi-party general elections
were held in June 1994. Banda and MCP lost.
Tambu did not like the MCP. She particularly detested being
forced to go and dance at political rallies. She was all too eager to cast her
vote for any opposition party.
Pan-African
Two important events happened while in Zomba. First, Jean
Munyabagisha and her husband who had returned to their home country of Rwanda
fled the genocide there and ended up in a refugee camp in Malawi. Both passed
away later in the refugee camp due to very bad and unhygienic conditions.
Second, Tambu’s second sister became very ill due to HIV-AIDS. She spent some
of her last days in our home for the peace and quiet of Zomba to get away from
the hustle-and-bustle and noise of Blantyre. She passed away in 1995. These two
events opened Tambu’s eyes to immigration and HIV-AIDS as important causes to
support. She worked hard to bring awareness of the plight of immigrants and the
devastating effect of HIV-AIDS. More especially, she told people how these two
scourges were affecting Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tambu and her sons Ulalo and Kabelo returned to Lexington,
Kentucky, USA in May 1997. They came to join me as I had come back to pursue a
doctoral degree in computer science as required by my employment in the
University of Malawi.
