by Raphael Tenthani, correspondent Blantyre, Malawi, January 25 2006

I never thought there could be anything positive about prison life … until the police knocked at my door over a story I’d filed about ghosts that were allegedly disturbing president Bingu wa Mutharika’s sleep so much that he had to abandon his palace.

The bizarre story was fun to write. It made it to the front pages of world newspapers and the BBC gave it the prominence it deserved.

But the president was not amused. Although many in Malawi still believe in ghosts, some commentators thought it was not ghosts the president was seeing.

The old man, they alleged, might have hit the bottle a bit too hard and – in an inebriated state – was seeing things.

Palatial guests

Having been a reporter for the BBC for more than six years, I never thought a simple story about unwelcome palatial guests could be the one responsible for the clipping of my freedom.

But I do not regret the 36 hours I spent inside Lilongwe police station because the experience was an eye-opener.

I have done several stories about prisons and prison life but, with hindsight, I realise all were cleverly choreographed.

On this occasion, my colleague and I were accorded pop star treatment and offered some blankets, a rare treat in Malawi cells where inmates sleep on bare floors.

While the stories from hardcore inmates were surreal and movie-like – one vowed to chop off the foot of the cop who had busted him – others were pathetic.

There was one boy who was said to have stolen a mobile phone. He kept running from one cell to another, picking a quarrel with a guard here or inmate there.

We were freed when the inspector general of police signed our bail papers after which the president invited us to his palace ‘for a chat’.

‘I can offer you the keys to any room to sleep the night and show me any ghost you see, for I have never seen any here,’ he told us cheerfully.

Tuk tuk

The ghost story provided a welcome departure from the usual routine of covering the latest statistics on HIV/Aids and food shortages.

It seems, apart from political squabbles, the only big stories here are these.

It is not all doom and gloom, though. Having been to the UK, other parts of Europe and America, I appreciate the weather in Malawi.

I go about in shorts and short sleeves throughout the year for even in winter the temperature hardly drops below 15 degrees.

Malawians are generally friendly people, and I have almost all the ministers’ private mobile numbers.

Everyday food comprises maize flour made into a thick porridge we call msima, and chicken or meat, but Malawi offers almost all cuisines.

There is an Indian restaurant just down the street from where I work. A Chinese restaurant, called Hong Kong, is on another corner. An Ethiopian restaurant offers what its owners call ‘real’ African cuisine and there are many pizzerias.

After a day’s hard work, which normally ends at about 7pm, it is an unwritten routine for journalists to meet at the Sportsman’s Bar for a couple of sun-downers (although the sun goes down at 5.30pm here).

Then we saunter into the townships. This is where we get the latest gossip that often turns into big stories.

Our police officers are not well paid so they do not drink in exclusive bars. It is in cheap joints we meet them and, in exchange for a few beers, they let us in on the story of some major politician they will arrest ‘tomorrow’.

In fact, during my arrest, half of the 20 officers who came to the scene had drunk from my pocket the previous night.

I do not want to believe that that is why they did not subject me to the humiliation of slapping handcuffs on my wrists...

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