Once upon a rhythm of memory and time, in the soft folds of Malawi’s highlands, there bloomed a boy called Vincent — the first blossom in a garden of five siblings.
He was the crown jewel of his mother’s pride, a mind so sharp that it cut through arithmetic like a hot blade through sugarcane. In the dust-choked classrooms of his youth, young Vincent dazzled.
His teachers whispered of his brilliance as though it were myth: “This one,” they said, “has stars where others have skulls.”
In both primary and secondary school, his name fluttered at the top of the charts like a flag in a winning wind. And yet, when he sat for the revered government examinations, and returned with a majestic eight points—a feat many would kill for— Uncle Vinny wept.
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Not out of failure, but because he had dreamed of six. Perfection was his compass; mediocrity, even if golden, his heartbreak.
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At university, he chose the austere beauty of numbers— accounting— and with a scroll in his hand and ambition in his step, he journeyed south to the mines of South Africa. There, amidst the humming of machines and the glint of precious stones, Uncle Vinny rose—like morning over the Karoo—to the seat of financial controller.
He drove sleek machines of metal, sipped fine whiskies aged longer than most marriages, and moved through life like a man who had won the lottery of sweat. And who could begrudge him? The man had earned his glory. When he returned to Malawi during holidays, we felt the ground shift.
We, his nieces and nephews, would flock to him like birds to a baobab tree in fruit. He came bearing gifts, stories and laughter—his tales of South African escapades wrapped in humour, half-truths and that special kind of exaggeration only favourite uncles are allowed to use.
He gathered us by the fireside like a chief of folklore, and while some of his stories may have danced too far from reality, none of us cared. They were stories laced with golden threads. We loved him. He was our giant, our dream uncle — Uncle Vinny. But even giants grow old.
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Years wore on, and the mines grew silent behind him. He retired and came home —not just to Malawi, but to the tender arms of his family and the soil that had once known his boyhood feet. But the brilliance began to dim. The sharp mind that once saw the world in equations and clarity began to blur.
Uncle Vinny drank more now. He wandered. He grew quiet. The flame flickered. His hearing faded. Then came the slow procession of ailments— diabetes, high blood pressure, the weight of pneumonia. Eventually, his memory—once as reliable as sunrise— began to slip through the fingers of time like grains of nsima.
Two years ago, he left us. A soft, sorrowful wind blew that day. But even in his final chapters, Uncle Vinny taught us the lesson of seasons. That genius has its prime, but even the sun must set. That age is not the enemy, but the great equaliser—patient and inevitable.
And when I think of Uncle Vinny, my thoughts leap unexpectedly to our beloved Malawi, and to a name that once sat at the summit of power: Peter Mutharika. A man of formidable mind, a scholar of constitutions and a former shepherd of the nation— but now, at 86, he stands at the gates of political return, asking again to be entrusted with the burdens of State.
It is a question that weighs heavy. We remember, do we not, the elections of June 23, 2020, after the court ordered a re-run, when the country stirred awake with a democratic heartbeat. Then, Mutharika—81 and weary—was but a shadow of the candidate he once was. His campaign was brief, almost whispered. He stood, but did not run. He spoke, but did not march. And still, the people chose change.
Now, at 86, what miracle of strength does he promise that he could not offer at 81? Who will hold the levers of State when he must rest? Who will carry the heavy satchel of decisions, speeches and sleepless nights? We do not question his legacy—no. We honour it.
Just as we honour Uncle Vinny, once the pride of the classroom, then the mines, then the fireside. But there is dignity in stepping aside. In knowing when the pen must pass to another hand. Mutharika was, and will always be, one of Malawi’s brightest sons.
His legacy lives in legal texts and the memory of governance. But public life is no country for the old. It demands sunrise energy, not twilight fatigue. To lead a nation is not merely to remember the Constitution—it is to have the stamina to live it every day.
And, so, in Uncle Vinny’s story, perhaps there is a quiet echo for Malawi: that every season has its hour, and every hero must one day become the elder, the adviser, the honoured ancestor—not the runner in the race.
Let us respect our elders not by pushing them to the frontlines, but by giving them chairs of honour on the veranda of history, where they can watch and smile as the young take up the plough. Let Uncle Vinny rest. Let Mutharika rest. Malawi still has roads to build, and the path ahead demands younger feet.
