Nkhunda left Malawi in 1932. At this point he was already a father, with a son Daih and two daughters, Betty and Nyazura. Nkhunda migrated with around 15-20 other young male Tumbuka from Usisya, led by experienced migrants. They travelled entirely on foot, walking along the main road to Blantyre before following the railway line – “a contemporary GPS” - down south through Southern Malawi and Mozambique.

During the walk south, Nkhunda fell sick with diarrhoea and had to stop – causing the group to split in two. Those continuing on their travels walked to Port Elizabeth, but a number of close friends stayed back with him to make sure that he returned to health. This smaller group then travelled on together to Johannesburg. They were not the first from Usisya to head south and initially stayed at the home of a Malawian called Chiume in Boksburg to acclimatise and find work. At this point the group that had travelled together since Nkhata Bay dispersed, finding different jobs across the Rand.

Gilead didn’t know what the first job of his grandfather was, but Nkhunda ended up working on one of the unfederated Rand mines. His superior education from the Livingstonia Mission, most notably his grasp of English, meant that he was immediately picked out as a “boss boy”. Throughout his time in South Africa, Nkhunda lived in Daveyton initially renting a room from a local, and during his time there learnt Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, as well as Fanakolo - the language of the mines. Nkhunda's wife Maria never joined him in South Africa, but this wasn’t really a choice – she had to stay to look after the family, and physically it was very arduous to walk the huge distance.

Nkhunda remained on the Rand for 20 years, but would travel back to Malawi periodically by train, perhaps once every four or five years. During such visits he brought back gifts for everyone in the village; mainly cheap clothes which were imported by the suitcase load. Nkhunda also brought numerous items of clothing for himself. A sharp suit and tie bought in South Africa was Nkhunda’s dress code of choice. He returned back to Malawi permanently in 1952, travelling by train with 5 bicycles, 4 of which he sold.

Gilead did not believe that Nkhunda worked as a miner because it was honourable, but because “it was easy - it was the easiest place to go and find work, not everyone wanted to work on the mine because of the hardships associated with work on the mine, but if you were a foreigner you would go for anything. Mining was the most available job around.”

The money he earned abroad however meant that his children were all very well educated. They all attended Bandawe Presbyterian Mission School in Usisya which was very expensive and only for the “well-to-do”. Many well-educated families in the area had a history of migration, with skills and wealth accumulating over the generations; migration becoming a “springboard for success”.

On his return to Usisya in 1952, Nkhunda set up a small shop selling groceries, but passed away only 6 months later, the shop subsequently closing down.

Nevertheless he did leave the legacy of his children. Daih went on to become a leading preacher for the Watch Tower movement in Malawi, whilst the education of Betty and Nyazura distinguished them from other women in Usisya. Both went on to marry migrants from Usisya. Betty married and migrated with Chris Chiume, a well-educated migrant who worked at the Wankie Colliery in Zimbabwe, whilst Nyazura similarly married Gladwell Gondwe, a miner who worked at Roodeport, west of Johannesburg. Both lived abroad until their husbands retired in the 1980s. In this sense, Usisya migrants came to constitute some sort of a distinct class – the wakuharare; “those who have been to Harare, those who have been to all over.”

They also took away my passport promising to get it formalised or renewed and return it but never came or posted it back.

I had to go to the Malawian embassy in Harare but they were saying they needed $150 and the process would take very long. So I just gave up and decided to live without Malawian passport.

I came by train which I boarded in Blantyre. My home area is Kalembo and we travelled by bus to Blantyre got into a train – Limbi, Tyoro.

Came through Mozambique and faced serious problems at their border. The officials took away our clothes, goods and other things during searching.

In the aftermath of the land reform life was totally transformed because our white employer left for South Africa in 2004

We have been staying here since then doing piecemeal jobs and practising subsistence agriculture. When the new settlers came in they occupied most of the fields in the process allocating a small portion of the farm to the remaining farm workers.

However, some of us who had been of long service managed to get better land deals. I was allocated 10 acres of land whilst my eldest son Sidi got 4 acres.

Basically, farm workers brokered land deals with the new black settlers.

It is from these pieces of land that they have been growing tobacco as a cash crop on a small scale supplementing their meagre salaries that they occasionally get from the new farmers.

Over the years, these farm workers, because of a lack of a rural home and failure to return to Malawi due to family commitments, the former commercial farms have become their retirement homes where they practise A2 farming.

The land reform opened up numerous opportunities for some of these migrants.

We are now independent small-scale tobacco producers in our own right. We share the old farm equipment and resources during the tobacco season and produce a few bales of tobacco for sale at the end of the season.

In situations where a new black entrepreneur occupied the farm, farm workers remained as employees but under poor working conditions.