OUT OF NCHIMA ESTATE CAME A STORY

By Pacharo Felix Munthali
Nchima estate, situated in Thyolo, 4254 hectares, owned by UK investors called Plantation and General Investment is a quiet place. Allocated south of Blantyre, the estate within it has two villages, Lipulo and Mtamangale supplemented by greenish scenery of tea radiating a kind of beauty never illusioned before.
With seemingly caring management, the estate if you are a visitor zooms out a motion picture that all in the estate is well.
But as you board off a vehicle and put your feet on ground, treading, in the estate, the real view that is rather perplexing and sobering comes into scrutiny. The inequality in the estate is just too much; the gap between the majority who form part of the labourers and the very few who are rich is just a chasm.
Bare-footed children with no or worn out shirts, some having their shorts or skirts hosting patches upon patches glean at you. They smile as if all is well. They don't know what the future has for them in stock. They look at the estate as if was created for them to die there, possibly die as poor as their parents.

A BIT OF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Nchima Estate is very old, so much that asking the workers all they manage is scratching their heads. It has always been there before 1900, it is a very old estate. Ever since the estate has been there, there have been all sorts of land disputes. There has always been shortage of land for the ordinary people.
As such the estate in 1981/2 donated "land to the villagers" after pressure had become too much to handle, says Moses Masanje, Tea Manager.
Also in 1993 there was another encroachment by the villagers into the estate by the villagers and it was tense - as a result the villagers were again given some lands.
Such is a kind of tale that spills a background of Nchima estate. The estate came earlier than villagers. "The villagers are there to offer labour," says one worker.

IMPLICATION ON CHILDREN
The children whenever they see cars or see food in their plates may be smiling; innocently in fact. But they don't know how their parents struggle, for the work of the whole day only to pocket a mere MK108.00, probably less than one dollar per day, a threshold set by the World Bank.
The children may be proud of their fathers, but they don't know how their future is like. With MK108.00 wage per day and having a family of seven children, owning an almost one-quarter of the football pitch, half of which is not health for growing crops, the money fall short of meeting all the expenses.
"If my son can be selected to secondary school, I don't know how I can pay his school fee," laments one woman who identifies her self as Make Joji about her son who is at Nchima Primary school, a school run by the estate.

ANY HOPE
The ordeal may be tearful; the future of the children gloomy, probably to some waiting for the past to somersault to the future, but there is light illuminating at the far end of the dark and bumpy tunnel.
The programme of Kudzigulira Malo is doing wonders. For the few that have been reallocated are singing successes. Those that are to be reallocated are anxious to be allocated to new places for a song of success to be sung.
"About US$1050 is allocated to a person of which 8% is for reallocation, 30% for land acquisition and 62% is for land development," says David Chinyanya, Community based Rural Land Programme Officer in Mulanje, Thyolo, Mangochi and Machinga.
Some are having bumper yields, selling the surplus. The money is helping the children to be looked after well - at least for a better tomorrow; a kind of tomorrow where the future parents are well informed, feed their children, they don't dream of working for some but for themselves.