Al Letson - Love Song for Malawi

 

So, I get an email one day with this amazing opportunity. See, this organization is looking for a playwright. They are taking this playwright to Malawi, which at the time I didn't even know where Malawi was. But I did a quick Google search and it turns out that Malawi is a small country in Africa, kind of on the east side, but not on the coast. And in this email, they were looking for a playwright with these specific qualities. I felt like I was playing perfectly fit for this one. 

 

First of all, they were looking for a playwright who had some journalistic chops. And I thought, check. Secondly, a lot of the people in this play were going to be people of faith. And so, I thought, “Hey, my dad is a Baptist preacher.” I grew up in the church and I still go to church every now and then. [audience chuckles] I mean, I'm a little church-ish, you know? Check. Three, it was going to Africa. I'm Black. Check. [audience laughter] So, I'm thinking, "This is perfect for me." 

 

So, I fill out the information, I send it in, I send some samples and all that stuff. And literally, six weeks later, I am on a plane to Malawi. Now, when I get to the airport, it's the first time that I meet the collaborators. There's Bob Shop, who is the creator and has his big idea about this story, and director Pam Berlin. And so, we're going to Malawi to tell the story of Malawi's transition from dictator to democracy.

 

Now, getting on the plane with these two people that I didn't really know, I was a little bit worried. I travel a lot, and sometimes you get bad travel partners, and that's not good, but Bob and Pam were amazing. I fell in love with them. We just became family. And the whole ride over there, I'm thinking to myself, "All right, so, I'm not going to buy into that whole narrative of a Black man coming home to Africa.” It's just so corny and played out. 

 

Listen, I have every single Erykah Badu album ever recorded. [audience laughter] I love all of that stuff. But I just thought, “I'm just not going to buy into that. I'm going to treat the Malawians the same way I treat people when I go to London or Barcelona. They're just people and high different culture. It's going to be good." I'm glad that I thought that way, because when we got to Malawi, the Malawians treated me just like the white people I was with. No big deal. I don't know. Deep down inside, secretly, I was expecting a "Welcome home brother" parade, but [audience laughter] that didn't happen. But look, it was fine. 

 

So, we're there, and we're researching, and we're learning about Malawi, and we're learning about this dictator. And this dictator did what dictators do, bad things. He killed people. He locked people up in prison for no reason. And as the writer, I told everybody, "I really need to see what a Malawian prison looks like. Because I've seen American prisons, but I don't know what a Malawian one looks like." And so, I want to wrap my head around that.

 

And so, we went to this prison called the Makuyu Prison. And the Makuyu Prison was the worst of all the prisons during the reign of Kamuzu Banda. And so, we get into the prison and we're in this little vestibule-type room, and it's really dark. While we're in there, we're talking to the warden and to the guards, and they're like, "You cannot take any pictures." But I'm a radio guy, right? So, I've got my audio equipment. And they say that, “It's fine. You can take your audio equipment." I'm really excited, because I am here to document all this, and I've got my radio equipment, and I am prepared. Because before I went on this trip in America, I'd been doing some reporting, and I'd gone into a prison, and I had learned how to do the prison thing as a reporter.

 

And it's really simple. You just go into the prison, you puff your chest up, and you do this, "Don't fuck with me. Tell me your story. [audience laughter] Don't fuck with me. Tell me your story. Don't fuck with me. Tell me your story." So, I am in that vestibule, and I'm just getting ready. Just getting ready, and then they open the doors up, and it leads to the yard. And the light just pours in. It is so bright that I can't see anything, except these figures begin to walk towards the door. I can see them, and it's just these black shadows. After a couple minutes, my eyes begin to adjust. I look out, and they were all Black boys between the ages of maybe 14 and 20. And it just broke my heart.

 

And I thought, "What is it that it is a crime in this world to be a young Black boy?" I mentor some kids back home in Jacksonville, Florida, and I'm looking at these boys and I'm seeing their face. I'm looking at them, and I'm seeing my children's face, and my heart is just ruined. But I think to myself, "You've got a job to do. Go out there and do it." So, I take a deep breath, I grab my microphone, and I walk into that prison. And once we get inside, there's a deacon with the church who works with the boys there, and he says that the boys have this choir. They never get a chance to sing for anybody, and would we mind if they sung for us. And I thought, "Oh, yes. I mean, I got my recording. Yes, let's do it."

 

And so, we walk around the corner into this other room. Now, this prison doesn't look like any American prison. The floors are a red clay material, as are the walls. The area that we're in has a corrugated steel roof, but you can still see puddles of water on the floor. There's a little bit of human feces in the corners. The boys are dressed in dirty white tank tops and shorts. Some have flip flops; some don't have any shoes on, and they line up. There's about 25 to 30 boys in front of me. And the boy facing me opens his mouth and begins to sing. It is the clearest note, and it hits me. And then, suddenly, all the boys behind him join in.

 

Now, the whole time that we've been in Malawi, all the singing that we've heard has been call and response. And that's exactly what this is. The boy sings at the beginning, and then everybody joins in. And as they sung, the song hit me like a wall of sound. I could feel it hitting my nose, going through my face and coming out through the back, and it just surrounded me. And on that first song, I was being very much a reporter, just holding my microphone and trying to take it all in. But by the time the second song came around, I found myself rocking with the boys. And in the third song, I was in the middle of all the boys. I'm dancing, [audience chuckles] I'm singing words. I don't even know what the hell I'm saying. [audience laughter]

 

I'm rocking with it, and my hands go down. In the midst of that, I can feel my heart coming back together. So, I'm dancing and I'm looking at these boys and feeling the connection, that connection that I didn't think I'd ever have in Africa. It is happening right there with these boys right now, that these are like my children, that we are one. And in that, I'm feeling my heart come back together. So, I go to move my hands to my chest. Ad as I go to move, I feel resistance. The first thing that came to my mind was, am I underwater? Because that's what it felt like, the way you move underwater. Like, there's resistance there. Of course, I'm not underwater, but it felt like it.

 

And then, all that Southern Baptist preaching that my father had given me over the years hit me like a ton of bricks, and I thought, "I am in the presence of God." I just wanted to fall on my knees, because I didn't feel worthy of it. But I'm working and I'm with these boys, and I can't fall on my knees. So, I just stayed there, and let that feeling envelop me, just like the song. I started to get these feelings. I think it is so arrogant for me to say that I heard the voice of God. But you know how you have an emotion and you pair that with a word, so you feel good inside and that's happiness. You feel upset and that's sad. 

 

Well, I felt these feelings and they became words, and it was just, "It is well. That even in this shitty little jail, it is well." And I got this. The boys finished singing, and I held on to that feeling in my heart. Afterwards, the boys came up and I talked to them. I tried to give them words of encouragement. We got in the Land Rover, and headed back to the hotel. While we were driving, Bob, Pam, and the driver, they all wanted to talk about this thing. They were being very intellectual about what had just happened. I couldn't do it. I could not deal with that. So, I just put my headphones on.

 

As we were driving, it just hit me full speed. I could just feel myself getting bigger and bigger with all these emotions. I felt like I was about to pop. I don't know what Pam saw, but she grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and the tears just flowed out of my eyes. I must have cried the entire ride. It was about 40 minutes. We got back to the hotel, and I had one last interview to do. This was the big one coming up. And so, I collected myself. I knew that I had to empty my recorder, because I'd just done a lot of recording in the jail. Now, when I walked in the jail, I had 10 files on the recorder. When I walked out of the jail, I had 14 files on the recorder. When I went to my room to download all the sound, I had 10 files on the recorder. The 10th file was corrupted, and it messed everything up after that. 

 

I felt like a complete failure. Because I came all the way to Malawi to document this, and I failed. So, I had to go downstairs, and talk to Bob and Pam. I told them that I didn't have it. And I cried. Pam grabbed my hand, and she said, "It's okay. It's all right. We were never supposed to have that audio. Because if we did, we would just be looking for the moment when God appeared, and we would never find it. It would never be there. It's got to live in our hearts, in our minds. We have to hold onto it there." 

 

I finished up the next interview, and a day or two later, I hopped on a plane and I went home. It took a while. But a year later, I finished that play. And Pam was right. I didn't need a recording. I hold that memory in my heart and go back to it all the time when I need it. When I was in Malawi, I thought that when I came back to America, I was going to go to church, that I was going to be the kid that my dad always wanted me to be [chuckles], that hell, maybe I'd be a preacher. I don't know. I felt like I was going to change. When I got back to America, I drove by a church and I couldn't even look at it. I couldn't comprehend it and I can't talk to anybody in my family about it. They just won't understand. But I haven't been to church since, because I feel like my entire life growing up, I had been handed this glass of water. When I was in Malawi, I swam in the ocean. And no glass will ever be good enough again. Thank you.