| The ‘genius’ school drop-out who operated a pirate radio |
|
|
|
| Written by CLIFTON KAWANGA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 25 October 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
<
Only the villagers who work in tea fields know that life is not beautiful. They know how painful snake bites are; they labour everyday in the tea fields. Lucky are the children who go to school because at some point in life, education would free them from the tea fields. Those who drop out of school would grow in the tea fields; they would marry and father children who will live in the tea fields too. It is this category of drop outs that fits Gabriel Kondesi so well yet he has never contemplated of working in the tea fields. He used to repair radios until he dropped out of school when he was in Standard 7. He started his own radio station three years ago. “I dropped out of school because it did not interest me at all. School did not provide any clues,” Kondesi whose creativity earned him a 10 month sentence last Friday. The Magistrate gave him an option of K50,000 fine. He spent a night in prison. The villagers raised money, his father sold his property; all this was done to buy his freedom. The members of the community, who benefited from his creativity, could not allow him to share the same place with prisoners convicted for more serious crimes than his. “He made an honest mistake, this can only be classified as work of a genius,” says fellow broadcaster Gospel Kazako who travelled to Mulanje to free the boy. He did not have an idea that the villagers and his father had already done so. This was how Kondesi found himself in trouble: What would be regarded by town dwellers as toys revealed Kondesi’s creativity; an old cassette player, a Nokia 1110, capacitors, two aerials and transistors were enough to tempt his imagination. In his wisdom, this could transmit radio signals to villagers in his community. That is how he started the radio station three years ago. For the phone-in programmes, he connected lines to the microphone of the Nokia 1110 which he could attach to the cassette player while broadcasting live. The idea to house the station in a 2 by 3 metres structure, expertly sound-proofed by a cloth, distinguishes him from the many boys in his area whose only ambition would be to work in the tea fields. Kondesi made a difference. He was the managing director, the marketing manager, head of news, DJ and engineer. He employed 10 villagers, most of them of his age, to run the station either as DJs or presenters. Those without the voice were employed as sales assistants. “I employed 10 people but I could only pay them if I had the money,” says Kondesi adding that most of the money came from ‘advertisers’ and several programmes. The broadcasting time was between 7 am and 12 midnight week days. The station was usually closed on Saturdays and Sundays. “For an ordinary letter, which listeners were bringing, I was charging them K20. I charged K50 for any letter which was business in nature,” he says. The Standard 7 dropout says despite broadcasting for three years, he was yet to draw a schedule of programmes. “Most of the news was pure fiction but villagers were entertained by such news,” says Kondesi who two years ago tried to secure a licence from Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra). “I went to Macra with my father two years ago but I did not meet anyone who could assist me. I was not going there to pay, I went there to find out how I could get a licence,” says Kondesi who was warned by the Police two years ago before his arrest on October 14 this year. People from across the border also benefited from Kondesi’s initiative. “People from the other side were coming here to put their messages on the radio. It was helping the villagers here now there is a blackout,” says Kondesi. Some of the villagers agree that it is now difficult to live without the radio station that was part of their lives for the past 3 years. “I liked musical programmes and greetings by post … the programmes were entertaining,” said Linley Mollen from Souza Village, in Traditional Authority Njema. Kondesi was broadcasting illegally, according to the law, but the debate whether he deserved the sentence will not easily die. Perhaps the debate will only expose the deficiencies in the curriculum; perhaps the school curriculum does not address the needs of geniuses like Kondesi.
Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26
3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved." |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The tea that grows along the road to Mulanje is beautiful. It is so beautiful that even snakes live comfortably there.| < Prev | Next > |
|---|