I was parked at the side of the main road from Lilongwe to Ncheu. Two 50-kilogram bags of flour were tied tightly to my old Yamaha. My phone screen was broken and stuck between my ear and shoulder. “Eya boss, eya. Chicko here. I am at the Ncheu crossing,” I said. “The two bags are heavy, and there are too many trucks. I can reach town by seven. Is seven still okay?”
“Seven is too late!” the boss shouted into my ear. “Play around on that highway and I’ll give the job to the boy with the new bike!”
I looked down at my back tire; it was nearly flat. Then I looked at the Ncheu crossing again. One truck after another came roaring down the road, throwing dust into my face. “No, boss. I’m crossing now. I’m on my way.”
I pushed the Yamaha onto the middle of the highway and looked at the white line on the asphalt. Behind me, the two bags of flour moved from side to side. I held the handlebars tightly.
A white Land Cruiser came from the Lilongwe side fast, overtaking a truck. Then it was coming straight up to me, and there was no space left for me. I heard the driver before I saw his face. “You want to die on this highway? This is not a village path! Move!” I tried to turn the handlebar. There was no space for me on this road—ah!
Vroom—thud! and I was on the ground. White flour covered the black tarmac road. I don’t really remember everything that happened next. My body felt heavy. People shouted, but their voices were far away. When I tried to move, a sharp pain shot up from my leg. I was afraid to look, but I had to know how badly I was hurt. I stopped breathing and slowly looked.
My leg was against a sharp black rock beside the drain. Blood gushed from it and mixed with the dust. “My leg! Mama! The rock is in my leg!”
The next thing I knew, I was on a hard bench in the corridor of the nearby public hospital, just off the Lilongwe-Ncheu highway. Nurses and doctors in faded uniforms sat on the chairs against the wall opposite me. Some had their arms folded. Others fanned themselves with files. Others stared at the floor. Then there were the sick people. The corridor was filled with them. Some had small children in their arms.
My wife Chickondi was standing over me, holding my swollen leg that was still covered in dust from the tarmac.
“We told you,” a nurse said. She didn’t even look at us. She just fanned herself with a file. “We’re on strike. We can’t touch anyone. You might as well go to a private hospital.”
I tried to lift my leg. Pain shot upwards again. When the pain was gone, I noticed the woman next to us. She had a child on her lap and a small basket filled with green vegetables stood on the seat beside her. She looked at my leg, then at Chickondi. “Daughter,” she said, “if you wait for these doctors to do something, your husband will lose that leg. Come to my home with me. I can treat that wound.”
Chickondi looked at the sitting nurses, then at my leg, then said, “Mama, I think you’re right. If we stay here, we get nothing. Please, take us.”
Later that day, I lay on a mat with the sun on my face. My leg was swollen. I had it stretched before me. The woman was right above me with a wooden mortar; pounding leaves had turned her hands green. She added a black powder from a small tin.
“Hold it tight,” she told Chickondi when she was done with the mortar, not even looking at my foot. “If you fear blood, sit down.”
I felt Chickondi’s hands grab my ankle hard. I began to shake but she didn’t let go. “I am holding on,” she said.
Mwamini lifted a bucket of warm water with cassava leaves in it. Steam rose from it. “This will burn you,” she said.
I gripped the edge of the mat, trying to be a man, clenching my teeth. “It’s okay, mama. It’s okay.”
When I couldn’t hold it anymore I screamed louder than I ever did before. “Ah! Ah! It burns!”
Mwamini was done with the hot water. Now, she was scooping cool green paste from the mortar and spread it thick on the wound. “There. Cool!” Mrs Mwamini said. She lifted my leg a little, and looked down at the shadow from my broken leg that fell on the dust. Then she put three fingers together and used them to draw in the dust, right below the shadow of my broken leg. Then she drew three more lines that crossed the other lines.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She didn’t look up. Sweat ran over her upper lip. “You see this shadow?” She pointed with her chin at the shadow under the lines she had drawn. “This is where your leg was broken.”
I looked at the lines she had drawn under the shadow of my broken leg. “I am closing the broken bone inside by drawing these lines under the shadow of your leg.” She took a piece of a mat, precut into a square of about 30 by 30 centimeters, and wrapped it over the green medicine tightly. “You will not move this leg for several weeks.”
I moved my toes once. “It’s tight, mama. This piece of mat is holding tight!”
Chickondi touched it. “It’s hard like cement!” she said.
Mwamini wiped her green hands on her skirt and stood up. “Now, I will be coming over to treat you every evening.”
The next evening, just before dark, Mwamini arrived with her basket as she had promised. Chickondi had already filled a basin with warm water.
Mwamini knelt before me and untied the bandages, removed the mat and washed off yesterday’s green paste slowly. Then she poured warm water with fresh cassava leaves and massaged my leg. When she was done, she scooped thick green paste and pressed it hard into my leg with her palm. Something inside my leg snapped. “Ah! Mama! Slowly, it hurts!”
Mwamini stopped and looked at me with her hands frozen in the air.
Then Chickondi pushed Mwamini’s hands away. “Mama! You broke the bone again?”
Mwamini touched my leg gently now, slowly washing the wound. It was healing, turning brown and there was no blood anymore. “Wound has healed. Look. But inside… Inside I made a mistake. Bone shifted.”
I looked at my leg. The wound had closed and it looked clean. But my leg was still stiff, swollen, and I couldn’t move my toes at all. It was also hurting very deep inside.
On the fourth week after the accident, Mwamini removed the mat. My leg looked odd. The swelling had reduced but it still was thicker than the other leg. Then there was an uneven bump in the middle. I felt the bump with my fingers. “Mama, why is it like this? It is not straight.”
“The inside bone shifted when I pressed hard that day, but it will hold. You will walk again,” she said, patting my back. “You will have to get used to the shape.”
I tried to wiggle my toes, but nothing moved. Mwamini pressed my foot, smiling a little. “You feel my hand?”
I nodded. “Yes, mama.”
“The inside is healing now. The toes will come later,” she said.
Chickondi touched the swollen leg. “It’s not the same,” she said, covering my leg with a chitenge. “But you can move it now.”
The dry season came six months later. I was sitting up straight on a low stool outside in the yard. My leg was still thick. But still, that uneven bump. I looked down at my foot and wiggled my toes slowly. They moved. “Eh! Chickondi! Look!” I screamed.
Chickondi screamed, laughed and clapped her hands. “It’s moving! Oh my God!”
Then Kamwendo came with a stick. He put it in my hand. “Try to stand with help.”
I held the stick and put my weight on it. The pain was still there, but it was not the same. I stood there with one leg thicker than the other. My body leaned to one side. “Ah! I am standing!”
I started walking slowly, limping, but walking away from the stool toward the main road.
