The Nkhamanga environmental situation: Is it indeed a wrath from the gods and ancestors?
Mabingo gha vula ghakubenuka waka literally meaning “the rain clouds are just flying over our area”, has become a common expression among my kinsfolk, whenever I visit my home village. The village is called Gwamba in the Northern part of Malawi in an area called Nkhamanga in the district of Rumphi.
Rainy season brings smiles to my people, a majority of who are subsistence farmers. My people celebrate rains because they are a good sign of a season of plenty. However, on my regular trips around Christmas I have noticed that the mood has changed over the last decade. The rains no longer come on time if they make it at all. The faces of the people are now gloomy.
The rain crisis has prompted the elders of the area to look to the past. They are now invoking the ancestral spirits, pleading for mercy to give them rains. They have resorted to organizing visits to one of the ancestral shrines, Mangwengwe. They offer sacrifices to the ancestors, usually some locally brewed beer and animal meat, to seek their intervention.