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31 On Critical Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge and Raisins Floating in Soda Water 365

Indigenous Knowledge and “the Old Ways of Knowing”

A guided educational tour near Cape MacLear, on the shore of Lake Malawi,
brought us closer to thinking about Mount Kasungu again. We would investigate
whether the same educational, sustainable tourism approaches could be reproduced
in this central, rural region of Kasungu. A few weeks earlier, I visited the Cape
MacLear National Park, a freshwater fish sanctuary designated a UNESCO World
Heritage Site for its diversity of cichlids and its research on the evolution of the
species. We were fortunate to receive a hiking tour of the park by local guides who
had started to delve into a new form of sustainable, educational tourism because, as
the senior guide of the two expressed, the alternative “party” tourism, the faux
beach resort Caribbean/reggae tourism, had “taken too much out of him,” both
physically and spiritually. What follows is an entry from my personal journal
entitled “Gramsci’s organic intellectual is alive and well and working in Cape
Maclear” that recounts that journey:
The plan was for our guides to take us up the mountain of Nkunguni (little ant) for an
educational outing combined with a bit of much-needed exercise. Our first description by
(the first guide) was that it would be a thirty-minute hike up the mountain and thirty-minute
hike down. Once (the second guide) joined us the next day and explained it would be a
two-hour walk up the mountain, we realized that the focus on the exercise might over-
shadow the education. Reality hit us hard past the gates of Lake Malawi National Park as
we saw the graves of the missionaries who were part of Dr. Robert Laws’ Livingstonia
missionary, established in 1875 and abandoned shortly thereafter due to the high rates of
Malaria. Our guides tell us it was the plan of Dr. Laws to place the missionary at the top
of the mountain, to ensure that the missionaries were both strong of body as well as mind
and spirit. However, their graves at the base do not inspire. Twenty minutes in, up the sharp
incline of the mountain, and it wasn’t just the feeling of being on a relentless stair-climber,
but it was the altitude difference that started causing havoc on the muscles of the non-
Malawians on this excursion. We’ve all heard of the benefits of high-altitude training for
athletes and the difference and advantages it gives once they acclimatize (if they are not
indigenous to the context) to it … experiencing it first hand is humbling. My thigh muscles
were screaming in pain and the familiar feeling of lactic acids building up after multiple
hockey games on a tournament weekend … that sitting-on-the-bench-don’t-send-me-out-
there-coach kind of pain. Periodically, (the second guide) would stop and show us various
plants and explaining their medicinal uses. I wish I could say that I paid complete attention
to the knowledge he was sharing, but every time he stopped, it was a chance to try and get
some oxygen in my body. Halfway up the mountain, the muscles cramped and said, “no
mas”; the legs couldn’t do it. Being a professor is an exceptional privilege, but this was a
life lesson that I need to spend more time exercising and less on the computer. Our senior
(second) guide, an expert motivator, knew exactly what to say. An earlier conversation
revealed that he was Yao and Muslim; the Yao tribe, converts to Islam through their interac-
tions with the Zanzaberi Arabs, and whose history, unfortunately, includes the capture and
selling of Malawians for the slave trade. So, Amwenye (Malawi term for anyone who is
Arab, Iranian, Pakistani, Indian, etc.) and Yao joked about our shared history, with our
Chewa colleagues laughing and wagging their disapproving fingers at us. Halfway up the
mountain I expressed that I couldn’t continue. “My Muslim brother, I know you have the
strength.” “How much further to the top?”I asked. “An hour more” he replied. “An hour?!!”
“Okay, half an hour”, he negotiated. Wow, this guy can modify time! I’m motivated, and
continue the climb and at the peak, I see why the hike was worth it. At its pinnacle we stop