The Maravi Post

NDATA, Thyolo--An emotionally charged Peter Mutharika told mourners at Ndata that his sister in-law Callista Mutharika "will never walk alone" as a widow.

Peter said this after Pres Joyce Banda had implored on the Mutharika family to take care of the former first lady who lost her president-husband on April 5 after suffering a heart attack.

He thanked Callista for the "love you gave my brother. You will never walk alone."

He said the family should accept "God's will."

Mutharika, 78, died while serving his second and final term which will end in 2014.

Pres Joyce Banda is now Malawi’s new president. She was sworn in two days after Mutharika’s death, becoming the first female head of state in southern Africa and the second on the continent.

Peter, who was being groomed by his brother to succeed him, is now leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

He promised supporters that he would never abandon them.

"I am here in Malawi no matter how difficult the future will be,” said Mutharika, a former university professor who taught law in the United States for many years before returning to Malawi enter politics.
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©2012 The Maravi Post. Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment

UPDATED:

LILONGWE—The remains of President Bingu wa Mutharika will be brought home from South Africa on Saturday and not on Thursday, according to a foreign affairs official.

No reason was given for the change.

There are plans to bury Mutharika on April 23, Malawi's new president Joyce Banda said on Tuesday.

But the date wasn’t set in stone, she added.

“I met Professor Peter Mutharika this morning and we are taking into account issues the family wants,” Banda said. Peter is Bingu's younger brother and current foreign affairs minister.

Banda said Minister of Health Jean Kalirani had travelled to South Africa to finalise arrangements to bring the dead body home.

Mutharika died from a heart attacke last Thursday. The government had said he would be airlifted to South Africa for treatment but hospital and government sources in Malawi said the president was already dead when he was taken to a South African military hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Sources now say Mutharika's remains were taken to South Africa to be embalmed.

A foreign affairs official has told MaraPost a South African military plane will fly home Mutharika’s remains.

Mutharika's body will lie in state in Mzuzu, Lilongwe and Blantyre before burial at his Ndata Farm in Thyolo where his first wife Ethel, who died in 2007, is also buried.
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©2012 The Maravi Post. Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment

PROFILE II

JOYCE Banda, the new President of Malawi, has joined an exclusive club that only has her and Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Banda ascended to power last Saturday following the death on April 5 of 78-year-old President Bingu wa Mutharika after a heart attack.
 
In a largely conservative patriarchal society Joyce Banda was a surprise choice for vice-presidential candidate when President Mutharika chose her as his running mate for the May 2009 elections. In a society where women are inculcated to be always meek, she also surprised many when she resisted calls within the then ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to endorse the Mutharika’s President's younger brother, Foreign Affairs Minister, Peter, to succeed the President in 2014 when he was scheduled to retire.
 
The decision not to endorse Prof. Mutharika's candidature earned her expulsion from the ruling party and daily derision at public rallies and on state airwaves. A senior ruling party official openly said Malawi wasn’t ready for a female president while First Lady Callista Mutharika said Mrs. Banda was fooling herself for she was a mere market woman selling mandasi (fritters.)
 
Banda took all these in her stride, saying she was glad to be identified with market women because over 80 per cent of Malawian women belong to that category.
 
"Yes, she's right, I'm indeed a mandasi seller and I'm pride of it because the majority of women in Malawi are like us, mandasi sellers.
 
The question of whether Malawi was ready for a female president or not was settled on Saturday when Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo swore her to become Malawi's fourth president since independence from Britain in 1964.
 
Born Joyce Hilda Mtila the eldest in a family of five children some 62 years ago, President Banda's life has been full of activity. Her father, a police officer, was a drum major in the Police Brass Band. Her association with music would continue later in life when her youngest sister, Anjimile, ran US superstar Madonna's charity Raising Malawi.
 
"My legacy is heavily rooted in my background for it is my background that is the genesis of what I have been able to accomplish and stand for," she says.
 
Banda founded the National Association of Business Women (NABW) in 1989 which made her popular among the rural poor for it gave start-up cash for small-scale businesswomen.
 
"The women didn’t go to school when they were young because parents preferred to send their brothers, the women couldn’t access loans in their own right because the banks sought the approval of a male dependant, the women couldn’t make decisions at household level because they didn’t bring any income into the household," she recalls. "Such revelations convinced me that women’s empowerment would help unlock many of the challenges Malawian women were facing and for us in NABW we believed that economic empowerment would be a good starting point to changing lives of women for the better."
 
She adds: "One lesson I have learnt is that it is wrong to assume that all what the poor are entitled to are only small amounts of money. In later life I have learnt that even the poor can manage bigger amount of money in their businesses as long as there is the right framework to guide the business operations."
 
Her involvement with rural businesswomen made her joint winner with former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano in 1997 of the US-based Hunger Project's Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger.
 
"As I grew up and traversed through the lengths and breadths of Malawi, I became increasingly aware of the extent of the dehumanising levels of rural poverty manifested in poor housing, food insecurity, limited or no access to social amenities and poor road infrastructure among other aspects," says President Banda.

Joyce Banda cut her teeth in politics in 1999 when she won a seat in Parliament for the former ruling United Democratic Front of former president Bakili Muluzi. She held a number of cabinet positions in both the Muluzi and Mutharika administrations.

She has ascended to power at a time Malawi is facing serious economic challenges. Because of the late President Mutharika's abrasive politics, most of Malawi's traditional Western donors have deserted Malawi leaving the southern African country with historic shortages of foreign currency, fuel and essential drugs. So southern Africa's first female president, and the continent's second, has her work cut out for her and she has to hit the ground running.
 
"My Government will work towards normalising relations with our traditional partners," she says.
 
Already her phone hasn’t stopped ringing. British Minister for Africa Henry Bellingham called to promise London's willingness to send an envoy to Lilongwe to normalise the soured relations. Across the Atlantic, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also offered similar assurances, so did the European Union's Catherine Ashton and the IMF.
 
But it will not be an easy task for Banda to implement some conditions by donors which have the potential to make her unpopular. For instance, the IMF wants a steep devaluation of the currency, the kwacha, which will automatically push prices of essential goods through the roof. A deeply religious woman she is, she may also have to confront the touchy issue of doing away with homophobic laws.
 
But for now the goodwill of both within and outside is palpable. She might wish to maintain that if she wants to prove that market women have it after all.
 
President Banda walked out an abusive marriage in 1981with her three children. It taught her something and this is what she told me:

"Most African women are taught to endure abusive marriages. They say endurance means a good wife but most women endure abusive relationship because they are not empowered economically, they depend on their husbands."
 
She is now married to retired Chief Justice Richard Banda with whom he has two children.
 
"My dear husband, Richard, has been the driving force behind my success and rise to whatever level I am now," she says. "My story and legacy is incomplete without his mention."
 
On the PP Government's political philosophy, President Banda says: "The main policy objective of the Peoples Party Government will be to create wealth through economic growth and job creation as a means of achieving poverty reduction."
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©2012 The Maravi Post. Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment

Culinary advisory: Please, try this at home.

BERLIN, Germany--MANY people I have met here in Berlin, Germany say the döner kebab is their national dish.
 
Mustafa Wilmaz, owner of the Kabibar Bistro Café and Bar, says it could well be because the döner kebab is widely eaten in Berlin and the whole of Germany. He says it’s a simplified version of a Turkish specialty but was actually developed in Berlin.
 
Wilmaz says that the döner kebab was created four decades ago by Mahmut Aygün, a Turkish immigrant who revolutionized German fast food with his tasty creation.
 
It is documented that Aygün came up with the now ubiquitous döner while working at the “City Imbiss” snack shop in West Berlin in 1971.
 
Cutting meat off a huge rotating spit, he was inspired to put it in pita bread and dress it up with vegetables and yoghurt sauce. Selling for just two marks, the döner quickly became a staple German street food alongside Teutonic favourites such as the bratwurst.
 
At a distance, all döner shops look similar as meat sears away on a giant spindle which guys of Turkish origin will cut and put together with some colorful salads—very tempting indeed.

But looks can be deceiving, according to Wilmaz who says every döner shop and indeed every döner is unique. The different flavours, savoured by locals and international travelers, represent the different people who live here and statics show that Berlin is home to thousands of immigrants from all over the globe.
 
The local cuisine is a genuine culinary melting pot.

"We assume that döner kebab is the Germans' favorite fast food by now," Yunus Ulusoy, an expert from the Center for the Study of Turkey in Essen, recently told The Local, a Germany News in English.
 
He said their university had done extensive research on how this ethnic specialty had conquered Germany's culinary mainstream.
 
The secret behind the döner's success story is not only its satisfying grilled taste, Ulusoy said, but also the big portions and its affordability — a regular doner in a pita costs only between 2.50 Euros and 5 Euros ($3.30 to $6.70).

On a good day, Wilmaz sells “about 300 doner kebabs a day and my customers are of different races.”
 
People here say that there's not a single traditional Berlin recipe that hasn't been modified in some way by foreign influences.

Currywurst, a hot boiled and sliced sausage with tomato sauce and a large amount of curry powder usually served with chips is another of such.

But of all the dishes that have wow the Berliners, Wimalz says that the döner tops the lists even in his Bistro.
 
What goes into the döner Kebab?

“Shaved lamb, goat, chicken, turkey, beef, or mixed meats roasted on a spit,” says Wilmaz.
 
Less common alternatives include fish and sausage.
 
“In a prepared dish, seasoned meat is stacked on a vertical spit in the shape of an inverted cone. It is turned slowly, cooking against a vertical rotisserie. A tomato, onion or pineapple may be placed at the top of the stack for additional flavouring,” Wilmaz says.
 
The meat is cooked by charcoal, wood, cast iron, electric, or gas burner. If the meat isn’t fatty enough, strips of fat are added so that the roasting meat remains always moist and crisp.
 
The rate of roasting can be adjusted by varying the strength of the heat and the distance between the heat and the meat, allowing the cook to adjust to varying rates of consumption. The outside of the meat is sliced vertically in thin, crisp shavings when done.
 
While cooking, the meat is shaved off the stack with a large knife, an electric knife or a small circular saw, dropping to a circular tray below to be retrieved.

It is often served wrapped in a flatbread such as a pita or tortilla, and is a common fast food item in The Middle East, Europe, the Caucasus, North America and Australia.

It’s not easy to describe the goodness once you sink your teeth into it. Try this at home and you will not regret it. Enjoy.
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©2012 The Maravi Post. Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment