Banking with Bwanas

I walk into the crowded Standard Bank in Zomba. The odor of a hundred people who walked to the bank today hits me in the face as I walk in. They all stand in a long snaking line leading up to a few open counters, with tellers handling stacks of 500 note Kwacha bills. They are the largest denomination worth about three US dollars each. If I were a middle class Malawian, I would now be residing myself to a fate of waiting perhaps an hour or more in this line just to deposit a few thousand Kwacha, the equivalent of fifty or sixty bucks.

But I am not a middle class Malawian, at least not any more. Since I left the Peace Corps, were I made about as much as an average college educated Malawian as a volunteer, I’m now in a different social class. I own my own car. I live in Mulunguzi, the 90210 of Zomba. I travel to the lake for weekend get-aways. I am the director at work and I have four employees at home. I am now a bwana, a boss.

Now when I walk into the bank, I walk through the crowded lobby and locate the staircase leading to the second floor. I walk up the stairs, pass a vault on my right and head into the next office. Faith recognizes me when I walk in, saying “Good afternoon Mr. Dalious, how can I help you today?” I sit down in a clean and comfortable chair, which seems always to be empty and waiting for me. Faith, my priority banking representative, hands me the form I require to withdraw or deposit funds. I either surrender or accept a large stack of Kwacha, a few hundred dollars, and thank Faith for her time. I am already on my way back down the stairs, through the lobby and out the front door. On my way out, it seems like no one has moved in the lobby since I entered, and that more than a few people are looking at me inquisitively. But then they realize that I am a bwana.

Being a bwana comes difficultly for me. I don’t feel like I have worked all that hard to get here; it seems more like a privilege or inheritance for being born in a certain place. Nor do I want to be a bwana. Its not that I do not want a car or to live in a nice house, but rather that I wish everyone would have the opportunity to acquire such things. And I don’t mind being an employer, in fact I am coming to enjoy it, but I would like to think that all my employees could hope to one day rise to my position. This is not the case in Malawi and given the current state of affairs, it doesn’t seem like it will happen any time soon. The problem with being a bwana here is that with the status you are granted an unjust entitlement to have what you want while others go without.

So what can I do? I answer when someone calls out bwana. I enjoy my mobility and my comfortable home. And I do my best to respect those around me. For I have been around long enough to know that there is little I can do personally to lift this country out of poverty, to create opportunities for those who have been given few, but also to know the worth of treating those waiting in line, the people who work for me and even the crippled beggars waiting outside for loose change with the respect they deserve. Though it often feels like an insignificantly small gesture to acknowledge someone, the alternative is to deny that which not even a bwana should be entitled to deny, an individual’s dignity.