Drunk Man in Kabindiza

originally written July 14, 2008

I was standing by the hot-cast iron pan, blackened with years of use, placed above a fire surrounded by bricks.  The guys were cooking up some chips (french fries) on the road just outside my house in Kabindiza village.  My friend Kim (another EWBer) was sitting by the house talking with the children and women of the village.  I was talking with Matapata, a health agent from the nearby clinic.  We hadn't seen each other in a few months and we were catching up.  Since most of the people in the village don't speak English, I gravitated toward Matapata as he is one of the few English speaking people in the village.  As we chatted, a drunk man (and I mean drunk!) walked up the side of the rod and stumbled over to me.  He started speaking very loudly (even though I was right in front of him), saying that I should feel free in Malawi.  That I should not judge people on the colour of their skin.  That I should consider Malawi my homeland.  He went on and on like this as everyone else remained silent.  He would jump into a fit of hysterical laughter in between every few sentences.  He then said that I should challenge people in the area.  "Challenge in what?" is what I replied.  He didn't have an answer.  There were times that his slurring was so bad that I couldn't understand his English.  I just stood there with my arms folded.  I make it a policy here not to encourage drunk behaviour and not to play along, because it is a big problem here, especially in the village.  He continued on this line of discussion for about 20 minutes, repeating the same things over and over again.  My patience was wearing thin.

He then started walking over to where the children were sitting with Kim.  I stole a glance from Barrack and he looked worried.  The drunk man was now laughing hysterically and yelling the same things at Kim as he did me, telling her to challenge the children to something.  I walked over and said to him (I later found out his name was Kennedy), Tiyeni! Let's go!  I walked him back to the street, and I tried to talk about where he lived and his family.  He kept yelling at me and I was definitely annoyed at this point.  After some time I thought he had left but I spotted him walking over to Kim again and yelling the same things.  I walked over to him and was ready to tell him where to go!  I was fed up.  But something stopped me...

All of a sudden I got it.  Here was a man who is obviously educated (he could speak English, which usually means he has graduated from high school, I later learned he used to be a teacher).  Perhaps his alcoholism is related to the fact that he feels that his potential has been stifled at every turn by his surroundings.  Now, obviously this is no excuse for anyone.  But, I thought of myself in that situation, would I be any different from Kennedy?  Perhaps not.  And would I want someone pushing me away and yelling at me in front of all my neighbours without knowing my story?  Without knowing what I had dealt with?  With what I was dealing with?  Probably not.  ...but, I needed to get him out of there and away from Kim and the children.  So I walked up to Kennedy and asked him if I could walk him to his house.  He agreed.  We started walking and he was spewing the same garbage about challenging and the like.  I kept changing the subject, trying to discern how much alcohol he actually had.  You know how after you no longer fear something, it appears ridiculous?  Well, I now saw that Kennedy was harmless, and that his unpredictability was not fearsome, but was a tad ridiculous, and I felt sorry for him...

At some point I realized that his house was was further that I had originally thought, and it was getting dark.  I stopped Kennedy at a point where I thought he would probably not come back to Barrack's house, at least tonight.  Zikomo.  Muyenda bwino.  Thank you.  Travel well.  While still heavily intoxicated, Kennedy understood that I was no longer escorting him the whole way.

All of a sudden, it seemed as if his features cleared and he said to me, "Thank you for handling the situation the way you did."  Then he fell back into his stupor and stumbled off.  I was a bit surprised at what I heard.  I smiled to myself and followed the dirt road back to Barrack's house, my heart a little lighter.  The descending sun slowly elongated the shadows to my left, before it disappeared behind the mountains for another night.