Friday Reflections: Poverty

It is another Friday.

A couple of days ago, I happened to be chatting with my sister over Whatsapp  and we happened to be sharing about work. The good lady shared a story of how one of the visitors (from the Netherlands) burst into tears upon seeing the conditions in which Malawians are living in.

Having grown up in various corners of Malawi, I have a very good idea of the conditions in which people in the warm heart of Africa live; a majority of them, at least. On the other hand, I recently spent a few days in the country from which the visitor who shed tears came from. I can relate the two and understand why someone would shed tears upon seeing our living conditions.

If you were to ask me the main difference between a poor African nation like Malawi and a rich European nation before I had a feel of what life is like on the other end, I would have shouted about the cost of living. The voyage I recently had showed me otherwise and what I have discovered is that life out there is very expensive but people do not feel the heat of it because they have reasonable earnings.

I am not good at following the numbers, but I am told that a good proportion of Malawians live on under one US dollar per day. That would be impossible for pretty much any European country, based on the statistics that I, even with my lack of interest found. The main point here is that our main problem is not the ever-increasing cost of living. Although the cost of living poses a great challenge, the main problem is that generally our incomes are very low at all costs.

I made an observation (I might have shared this already) that the problems that we have at a national level are the same that we have at an individual level. I am not sure if it is that climb from individuals into the government, or rather trickle down in the opposite fashion. The issue is that the problem of low earning hits everyone from the subsistence farmer at Nyezelera in Phalombe through the civil servant working in Blantyre before hitting the government machinery itself (somehow it spares politicians and some “connected “ senior gaf’ment officials).

That being said, I have always wondered why we are still in this state as a nation despite the many good things that are in the country; self-acclaimed patriots, self acclaimed educated folks, a promising economy, wise and dynamic leaderships (with other alternatives being transformational and the other adjectives mukudziwa aja) and natural resources. For a long time I used to think that we are where we are because we are doing the wrong things in our efforts to resurrect the economy. After a period of thinking deep and a couple of experiences, however, I have decided that the problem is that we do the right things the wrong way.

I will dwell much on agriculture because I am told Malawi is an agri-based economy (si mumatero a Tadala Rambiki ndi a Lenard Nkusa?) If we take a look at some advanced economies in the world, we will discover that a good number do thrive on agriculture. They have stable economies while we stay and enjoy our gold medals in poverty. Difference? They have realized the potential in agriculture and decided to commercialize it to make the most of it. If you come to Malawi, there comes a time when people talk about mechanizing and commericializing farming. The next thing you hear is that the tractors meant for the job have ended up on some minister’s farm or rather are rotting in some government warehouse. People continue to break their backs digging more than 2500 years after the biblical Prophet Elisha used a plough in his garden. Calculate the efficiency…

Going down to the individual level, the so-called farmer at the grassroots is failing to sustain himself comfortably because he cannot earn enough from his trade all thanks to the poor farming methods and marketing of products. The blame goes to the rain despite the potential of irrigation which remains untapped.

This example on agriculture came to mind because of the looming hunger in the country; a country which has all it takes to have enough and more when it comes to food. There is a lot that we are doing wrong with the right things; talk of education (si tikumachotsa mayeso ku secondary ndikumangokweza ma fees a ku college, paja?), tourism, mining, agriculture, agriculture, transport, agriculture, energy, agriculture, (all other industries you can think of fall here), entertainment and agriculture. The government, the faith community, the private sector, the media and all of us are busy doing the right things in the wrong way and the few who try to initiate positive change either do not get support or receive the greatest resistance ever (mukudziwa inu).

The interesting thing about this is that it is all to do with the way we think about the resources and systems we have at our disposal. What we need is a change in the way we think about them and possibly we will get to a level where we will use what we have to the fullest for our good as individuals and as a nation.

Ndi zimenezitu. If you want to change the nation from an importing to an exporting nation, growing industrial hemp might not be a good idea. To me the best starting point would be making sure we all have to satisfy our insatiable appetite for nsima. Before others get too many PhDs and many honorary whatevers we might want to make sure that there is equitable access to tertiary education among the wandu of this nation.

Just examples, eti?

Take home message? Look into your own life and see the things you do. They are probably right, but do you do them right enough to make the most out of them? Udzifunse wekha.

Random reflections on a Friday evening.

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