Chikondi & Kutemwa: A Tragedy

Cam Stanley, Returned Education 2012 Peace Corps Malawi Volunteer, rewrote Romeo and Juliet to be more applicable to modern day Malawi. In his version of the tragedy, protagonists are named Chikondi and Kutemwa. The drama was first performed during Camp Sky 2014 (seen in the photo below). Malawian cultural and linguistic references were met with boisterous laughter from our student audience again this year. 

SCENE:

A Malawian garden. Like other gardens, except mostly just maize. The sun is setting, cooking fires are boiling, and chickens are annoyingly making noise. Chikondi sneaks back into the Chirwa compound for another glance of Kutemwa, a girl he met at the Chirwa disco earlier in the evening. P-Square can still be heard in the background.

CHIKONDI: Tis easy kuseka [to laugh] about being cut by a panga knife if one has never been cut by one before! If chief Chirwa were to find me trespassing in his munda [garden] he would sure strike me down with such a blade. Especially since I killed that annoying chicken of his that just would not. Shut. Up.

(ENTER KUTEMWA on balcony, unaware of Chikondi’s presence)

CHIKONDI (spying Kutemwa): But soft! What light through yonder mawindowi breaks? It is Kutemwa, and she rises like the zuwa [sun]. She makes my soul kuvina [dance] like the gulu wamkulu.

(ENTER Guli Wamkulu suit, led by Ali, “performing” the traditional Chewa dance as seen in picture 3)

She makes my heart thump like the pounding vula [rains] of February against a tin-roofed house. She makes me feel like there are ngumbi [huge mayfly thingies] fluttering around in my solar plexus and in my spleen——OH! (CLUTCHES HEART) ….but mostly she makes me feel oh so very, very chabwino

She is talking-but no words leave her mouth-her eyes, they do the talking. They say “Ndikufuna Chikondi…” [I want Chikondi], I’m so going in. [starts inching closer, panics, stops, and retreats] Ah, I am too bold, what if they’re talking about that Mphatso guy instead? She talks, but not to I. Her eyes, so bright and beautiful as if the two fairest nyennenzi [stars] in the sky had to leave to go work in the munda [garden] a while and Mulungu [God] asked her own eyes to twinkle in their places until they come back, which could be anytime between 20 minutes and 2 days. If those were her eyes up there in the night sky zona [in truth], they would light up the darkness better than ESCOM ever could. And cocks would crow to welcome a new day. See how she covers her chitenje around her. Oh, that I were cut of that cloth so I could wrap myself around her!

KUTEMWA (sensing somebody is there): Odi? Hello?

CHIKONDI (aside, hiding): she speaks! Speak again, my angel. For thou art as glorious to this night, being over my head, as is a fish eagle of heaven, and mere mortals lay back and watch as she soars upon the bosom of the air, until when she plunges into love’s madzi [waters] to snatch her prey as you have my heart. Ndimakukondani [I love you]

KUTEMWA (who still doesn’t know that Chikondi is there and is pretty much talking to herself like a cray person): O Chikondi, Chikondi, Ali kuti [where is] Chikondi? Deny thy abambo [father], and refuse thy nyumba [house]. Or if thou wilt not, I shall ask another. Like Justin Bieber. Or that nice guy Mphatso.

CHIKONDI (aside, still, like a creep): She doth thinks she speaks alone by herself, but she doth not. Which is kind of hilarious. But dare I sayeth something?

KUTEMWA (still unawares of Chikondi): he is a Banda. And I a Chirwa. Enemies, in name. How can a name come between love? What’s in a name? That which we call nsima by any other name would still taste as delicious. For Chikondi, the same. Chimodzimodz. Lose thy name, and trade it for my love!

CHIKONDI (loudly): I am no baptized under a new name. Hence, I will never be Chikondi.

KUTEMWA (finally noticing Chikondi): Chifukwa! Chiyani! [what! Why!] Who’s there! Dost thou be a burgler!?

CHIKONDI (stepping on stage, calmly): Muli bwanji? [how are you?]

KUTEMWA (calmly, unstartled): Ndili bwino, kaya inu? [I’m fine, how are you? This is a joke about how all Malawians automatically greet each other no matter the circumstance upon meeting. Witty, progressive, funny stuff]

CHIKONDI: Ndili bwino. (turns dramatically towards Kutemwa) I am no burgler by trade, fair miss, just one who wishes to burgle your heart…

KUTEMWA: My ears hath heard you speak only ten words before, and yet I know your voice. Chikondi? Of Banda?

CHIKONDI: Neither of those, if you like.

KUTEMWA: How did you get here? The munda walls are high and difficult, and to be here is death if my family espies your Banda face.

CHIKONDI: I flew over the walls on the wings of love, for there is no fence that can keep me from you. Also, you left the gate wide open. And the watchman is asleep.

KUTEMWA: If you are seen, they’ll murder thee!

CHIKONDI: I’d rather die now, ended by their hate, than to die and never feel your love. Hey, unrelated, but do you have any Cokes? Ndatopa [I’m tired]

KUTEMWA: I don’t want to come off as desperate or clingy, but doth thee love me?

CHIKONDI: I swear by the moon…

KUTEMWA: AH AHHHH. The moon? The inconstant moon? As reliable as a minibus? Is it waxing or is it waning? Big and bright one night, small and dim another. Do not swear by the moon, or you may change as quickly as it does.

CHIKONDI: Okay… (looks around) Let me instead swear by the goat. Gentle goat, ever persistent in its bleating, who never works but always eats, who serves no perceivable purpose yet still endures, intimidated by no errant bicycle or slaughterer’s blade. Let my love be as stubbornly constant as the goat. And I do not just say this because a goat was the second thing I saw to swear by after the moon, but because that even if wert thou a pair of Nike sneakers as far as that vast market stand wash’d with the farthest sea of people, I would adventure for such merchandise

KUTEMWA: Swear by nothing then. Tonight has moved too fast, too sudden, like lightning which is here and gone in a flash. Let us say good usiku [night].

CHIKONDI: Wilt though leave me so unsatisfied?

KUTEMWA: Ok, then borrow me your radio.

CHIKONDI: How about the exchange of your love’s faithful vow for mind?

KUTEMWA: I have already given it. And yet will do it again.

(An threatening amayi voice yells bloody murder, angrily, death-like, rage-filled, from the house)

KUTEMWA: Stay but a little. My mother just said she misplaced the salt again [classic misdirect! Bet you thought the Amayi was mad but she really just wanted salt! Classic!]. (goes behind wall/disappears)

CHIKONDI: O, blessed usiku! Is it real? Is it a dream?

KUTEMWA (returned): SMS me mawa [tomorrow] if you wish to propose marriage, also where and when and I will follow.

CHIKONDI: Actually, I’m out of airtime

KUTEMWA: Ok, well come here mawa. At what o’clock shall I expect thee?

CHIKONDI: I don’t know, some time after tea? If it is not raining? And you provide biscuits? [

KUTEMWA: Good night! A thousand times good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I will say good night till it be the morrow!

CHIKONDI: Tiwonana.