Inside Dr George nga Mtafu’s autobiography

I, the Mohashoi, had the rare opportunity of meeting, talking to, laughing with and, most importantly, reading and editing Dr George nga Mtafu’s yet to be released autobiography. I can’t recall its precise title because he had sent me a hard copy, some 350 pages to edit. How did he identify me to be his editor?

Well, Malawi is a small country where almost all people who matter know who is qualified in what. So, one day in mid-2013 magistrate Viva Nyimba called me. After exchanging a few jokes about who Abiti Joyce Befu, our leader of the Bottom Up expedition, really was, Viva broke the news.

“Dr Mtafu has written a book about his life and he wants you to edit it and give him professional advice for revision if need be,” Nyimba said.

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, you!” Viva said emphatically.

“Does he know me?”

“He does!” Viva answered, laughing.

“Okay. I am a bit busy this week. Can he email the material to me next week?”

“The hard copy is already here with me. I have no soft copy,” Viva said.

We agreed to meet the following week in town. When we met Viva gave me an executive briefcase containing Dr Mtafu’s autobiography. I took the briefcase home and immediately started reading. I did not stop until midnight.

Dr Mtafu’s recall and description of his boyhood life at Chizumulu was captivating: dancing malipenga, playing in the moonlight, swimming in the lake, playing small dhows in the calm waters and accompanying his father on fishing errands.

When he mentioned that he had travelled to and lived at Msuli, the story became personal because that is where I also grew up. Then he described how his world turned upside down when he lost his father. This death made his mother surrender him to the care of his uncle who taught in primary school in Nkhotakota.

I read about how he and Makachi Chirwa arrived at Chilema, Zomba, in total darkness to begin junior secondary studies at Malosa before he went to Blantyre Secondary School where he became engrossed in the anti-federation and pro-independence activities.

I read about how he found a scholarship to study medicine in Germany. It was here, Mtafu writes, that he met Elverly Kalonga who had been sent there to train as a nurse. Since Everly was a Seventh Day Adventist, Mtafu switched from Anglicanism. After all there was no Anglican Church in Hamburg at that time. They later married.

Since then Mtafu has always observed the Sabbath as a holy day and gone to pray. Ah! I said to myself. So Mtafu is a religious person after all!

I read on about his stay and practice in Germany and how he came back only to be arrested and thrown into jail at Mikuyu where he met Brown Mpiganjira and others prison graduates. Here the story takes a political turn and Mtafu mentions Mpanganjira as the brains behind the formation of the United Democratic Front. Sam Mpasu is also mentioned as another key player.

I read about his teaching stint at the College of Medicine, the ministerial appointments and his influence in turning Chizumulu and Likoma into a standalone district. His happiness at having achieved this is clear for all to read. His proposal for Malawians to start paying for access hospitals was not successful, he writes.

Then follows what most Malawians already know: how the UDF split because of Muluzi’s Third Term Issue. How two UDF camps, one led by Friday Jumbe and another by Mtafu emerged. Then the autobiography takes a predictive tone as Mtafu analyses the fortunes of the once popular ruling party. He argues that as long a Bakili Muluzi, whom he praises through and through as an extremely benevolent man, insisted that only his family and, particularly his son, should lead the UDF, the party had no future and stood no chance of winning the 2014 elections or any other election in the foreseeable future. There the story ends.

When I finished reading and editing the autobiography, I called Viva to call Dr Mtafu and tell him that I had finished. Two days later, he personally called and told me to meet him at Ryalls Hotel.

I found him there. He greeted me in Chitonga before asking me what I thought about his story. Great, I said. I handed over the briefcase containing the autobiography and I escorted him outside.

“What are you doing now?”I asked.

“I am the chief technical advisor in the Ministry of Health,” he replied.

“Where is your car?” I asked.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he said, smiling, as he pointed at a blue Nissan March parked a few metres from where we stood.

Dr Mtafu was driving this same car when, ironically, a Ministry of Health lorry crashed him to near-death last Tuesday. Rest in peace, our neurosurgeon.