‘Money I’ll never have’: $15K US visa bond halts Malawians’ American dreams

In the rural valleys of Malawi, where homes are built of mud and grass, and electricity is scarce, Tamala Chunda spent his evenings bent over borrowed textbooks, reading by the dim light of a kerosene lamp.

During the day, he helped his parents care for the family’s few goats and tended their half-acre maize field in Emanyaleni village, some 400km (249 miles) from the capital city, Lilongwe. By night, he studied until his eyes stung, convinced that education was the only way to escape the poverty that had trapped his village for generations.
That conviction carried him through his final examinations, where he ranked among the top 10 students in his secondary school.

Then, this May, a letter arrived that seemed to vindicate every late-night hour and every sacrificed childhood game: a full scholarship to the University of Dayton in Ohio, the United States.

“I thought life was about to change for the first time,” Chunda told Al Jazeera. “For my entire family, not just myself.”

News of the award brought celebration to his grass-thatched home, where family and neighbours gathered to mark what felt like a rare triumph. His parents, subsistence farmers battling drought and rising fertiliser costs, marked the occasion by slaughtering their most valuable goat, a rare luxury in a village where many families survive on a single meal a day.

Distant neighbours even walked for miles to offer their congratulations to the boy who had become a beacon of hope for the children around him.
But just months later, that dream unravelled.

The US embassy informed Chunda that before travelling, he would have to post a $15,000 visa bond – more than 20 years of the average income in Malawi, where the gross domestic product (GDP) per person is just $580, and most families live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

“That scholarship offer was the first time I thought the world outside my village was opening up for me,” he said. “Now it feels as if I’m being informed that no matter how hard I work, doors will remain sealed by money I will never have.”