Biographies

BIOGRAPHIES

The following histories outline the lives of migrants who left Malawi in the 1940s and 50s. Retold by the migrants themselves or their relatives during May and June 2014, they offer an insight into the lives of the hundreds of thousands who left Malawi to find greener pastures.

Sem Chatola Banda

Sem Banda, was a cosmopolitan hotelier and businessman. Travelling across Southern Africa he spoke numerous languages; Zulu, Xhosa, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Tswana, along with English and Chitonga, which he picked up whilst working in the South African hotel industry - friends and family would always joke that his Chicewa, the national language of Malawi was relatively poor. Sem first arrived in South Africa in 1950, but left to Zimbabwe, in 1957, before returning to the Republic of South Africa in 1973...

Melrin Mtegha

Melrin Mtegha was a housewife throughout her life, both in Malawi and South Africa. This however did not stop her having considerable influence within local politics and the Malawian Jehovah's Witness community. Her son Gilead Mtegha reflected in June 2014, his father Daih "was a firm believer - and my mother even more." Converted by her husband in 1958, she is now 86 and still involved with the Jehovah's Witness Women's Guild - "if you go and speak to her now she will preach, she will try and convert you"...

Yusuf Saidi

Yusuf Saidi was a "deeply religious" man. In May 2014 his daughter Sakina Mohamed recounted, "before anything he was a Muslim". Travelling to South Africa in the mid-1950s, Yusuf worked in numerous mosques across the Transvaal, starting as a muezzin in Kerk Street, Johannesburg before establishing himself a well-respected and well-loved muazin and imam in Marabastad from the 1960s. Also a spiritual healer and loving father, Yusuf spent his adult life in South Africa, only retuning once to Malawi in 1987. His life history was retold by his daughter Sakina Mohamed, grand-daughter Rabia Kamdar, fellow Marabastad Muslim Ismail Kallah and fellow Malawian Signal Phiri in May and June 2014...

Natane Soloman Mwale

Natane Soloman Mwale worked for 5 decades as a gardener in South Africa, before retiring in 2000. With large families both in Malawi and South Africa, he now lives comfortably in Tembisa Township, to the east of Johannesburg. He is now an elder at the Tembisa branch of the Zambezi Church, which he has been a member of since 1978 and still conducts some small business...

Daih Mtegha

In 1951 Daih Mtegha followed his father, Nkhunda Mtegha, to South Africa. Raised for most of his life by his mother Maria in Nkhata Bay and highly educated, Daih didn't consider becoming a miner like his father - his son Gilead reflecting in June 2014, "he was trained - he had a profession, he was in a class above being a miner." Instead Daih worked for a number of years in Cape Town as a medical assistant. By the mid-1950s however he had abandoned this profession to become a Jehovah's Witness missionary - a role that would define the rest of his later life both in South Africa and back in Malawi...

Signal Phiri

Signal Ayathu Phiri first came to South Africa in 1952. Representative of a new generation of migrants, he did not walk all the way from Malawi, but used motor transport to head south. Initially working as a farm labourer, Signal quickly attained skills as a cook which would allow him to take up numerous jobs in South Africa over the next two decades. A dedicated Muslim, he has worked for the Pretoria Muslim Trust since 1979 and still retains an important position within the community... Pretoria Muslim community.

Samuel Phiri

Samuel ‘Daddy’ Phiri came to South Africa in 1943 at the age of 23, walking from Malawi with 14 other friends. He was born in Chiradzulu District and attended Parma School there, but left from Zomba, after the death of his father “to go to work” in order to earn money; “he wanted buy clothes, to help the mother”. By this time he was already married, leaving behind a wife, Sarah. He would remain abroad for over two decades “because he was upset, he did not come home”...

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