Greetings.
It is a beautiful Friday and once again we have our article for the week. Last week I threw in something about resignations with a focus on the Jacob Zuma situation and the reaction it generated. In the same article, however, I pointed out how I had wanted to write something about my K4, 903.31 account balance and how I managed to get my account balance to an amount below the Book balance of K5000 way before the halfway mark of the month. Over the course of the week, I have been in a constant debate of whether to still bring that up on the blog or not. The best alternative for me was something to do with the functional status of our commercial capital and it's markets. Hopefully that will come up later because I made the final decision to write a "feel my pain" article on my not-so-favorable financial status when I got feedback from one Nkhwachi.
Nkhwachi is one friend of mine who follows and reads every blog post I make. I bumped into him at Kaya Lounge where we went to feast on the Chelsea-Barcelona game. We talked about a few things over the halftime break and one of the things he pointed out was that he likes my articles when they are more personal as opposed to topical. That sort of made sense to me and that was probably the most useful piece of feedback I have ever received from a reader. It sort of tallied with the one Cornelius Huwa's description of what Richie Online is. When he was asked as to what the blog about, he said something interesting, but rather ironically I had not given it much of a serious thought until recently. What these two gentlemen said will in the long run help me to be focused and to be a bit more strict with the "fact-based opinions" motto of the Richie Online blog. We have been having too many articles that were too topical and too serious here.
To the meat of the day...
A couple of weeks ago, I had a rude awakening when I got the "Insufficient Funds" alert upon attempting to buy airtime on National Bank's MO626 ice. I found it funny because the amount of airtime I was looking for was K200. With a cat's curiosity, I changed the mission and went on to check the account balance. Voila! K4, 903.31! I laughed at myself because I had gone down to my all-time low when it comes to account balance. You might wonder as to why I laughed at myself like that. Well. I had seen it coming. My account had been a ticking bomb and I knew that such would have happened at any point owing to my financial policy.
I did not grow up giving much thought to finances and personal financial management. Realities caught up with me when I went to secondary school where I had to manage the little monies I had and to nicely manage them. The money didn't have a lot of exit channels then; tea break money, occasional supplementary extra vegetables when the relish was unfavorable and church contributions. We also had some once in a while trips which I usually wasn't part of, anyway. And then there was the tricky thing of saving money for transport at the end of the term. Tricky thing, if you are to ask me. While the secondary school thing had it's part in helping me grow along the personal finance management trail, it was college that shaped my philosophy around monetary ins and outs.
I got into college in December, 2010. This was the time when the University of Malawi decided to run away from it's responsibilities of providing food and accommodation; opting to give out meal and accommodation allowances to students and outsourcing the services. Then came the famous MalSwitch which provided us with credit cards through which we received the meal allowances. This change was an interesting development because immediately after people got control of the money, the food dynamics changed. People stopped going to the cafeteria with some opting for a soft drink afnd snack twice daily and some opting to go to subways za chips and those restaurants in shanks at the market near Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.
Others started operating some make-shift catering services in their rooms. The services started small with people boiling spaghetti and eggs in kettles. By the time I was finishing, there were people who had a full kitchen on campus; equipped with a got plate, rice cooker, deep fryer and toasters. One might justify the presence of the artillery with the fact that with the rising cost of living, life was becoming unmanageable on the allowances. On the other hand, the days that immediately followed the switch from getting meals to getting meal allowances saw people divert the "food money" to fashion. U diva ndi u yoo. We saw a lot of people who came in as traditionals get new outfits that were more suitable for college; sneakers, leggings, weaves, t-shirts, suits and all. Some of you might wonder as to where I was in all the frenzy. I am a foodie and I always put my food first. I diverted a little money for airtime (there was some girl I was hoping for, then) but that was it.
Over time, I started to grow and to appreciate the thin line between wants and needs. I am not too sure as to why this awakening came in (probably from the combination of Bible studies, Henry Kachaje teachings and my mixed up mind) but I later got to over-apply the fact that people do not need money, but rather the things that money can buy. In college? This sort of made life simple. Get the meal allowances, pay a lump sum to the not-so-good external caterers and enjoy your meals for the whole month. I graduated with the same idea and it has remained rooted in me to an extent that I hardly have any extra cash by the sixth day post-salary.
The belief that I don't need money is one reason for which money almost always has a fast exit from my custody. For some reason, I don't find it necessary to be keeping a bunch of notes or fancy numbers in National Bank's computers (I am told that money is just a bunch of numbers in a computer nowadays) when I can have the goods and services the same can pay for. Along those lines, I always have a nicely made budget way before the salary; bills, groceries, lunch and transport and then something for home development. Not much of savings in this end. By the time I get the bank alert, the only thing that I do is to throw the change around via MO626 and then grab my card and go to the shop and Blantyre market via the ATM. Zikatero zatha.
This whole thing works well for me. I have pretty much everything I need and my life runs pretty okay. It is the Matteos Gudu type of life, devoid of balling and KFC meals and along with it comes a rare type of enforcement of discipline. Good as it is, however, this "I don't need money so I won't keep money" type of thinking has it's own challenges.
Earlier this year, Blantyre Water Board people decided that I wasn't worth of receiving their water so they came over and disconnected it. As usual, I had spent my money on my survival kit and snacks (bought a lot of snacks to keep me company when watching basketball games over the festive season). By the time the BWB uninvited guests were coming in, I almost had nothing. How I solved it was a story for another day but the fact remains that I was forced to endure a significant waterless period because I didn't have the money on me. And then there are those moments that friends and relatives (who have an idea of what your salary is) call you for you to borrow them "ka handede". Such people do not believe when you say you have run out, but who could blame them? While their opinion of me matters less, I feel bad about not being able to help. I mean, it is a situation one could avoid by being normal with their personal finance management.
You can probably already draw the unsolicited lesson from the article. One needs to have some sort of Plan B with their finances and if you are the kind of person th at cares about friends and family, sometimes you need to reserve a few thousand bucks in case they show up looking for help. It is important to reach out in such circumstances.
I, perhaps, will not change despite everything. When the February salary comes, I will probably fly to Lilongwe and finish the change from the purchase of the air ticket at some beach in Salima. I will end up feeling bad about it later, but I will recover from that and tell myself there was nothing I could do about it.
There is a huge diversity in the way people manage their money. Others go on the extreme side and save all they can while others invest. Some are ballers whose monies end up in some club at the first opportunity while weirdos like live a barter oriented life and believe in keeping material things as opposed to money or investments. I believe that there are pros and cons to each of the modalities of expenditure. I also believe that each and every person needs to make a proper monetary plan and set personalized goals about how much they want to make and spend and where they want to reach financially. With planning comes discipline and that way you create some controlled environment in which you can not fall neck deep into financial difficulties and bad debt.
Our friends who work in banks have probably received their salaries by now. I hope you will offer some of that money. I need to beef up the embarrassing "below book balance in my account. Inbox me for account details if you want to rescue a brother.
Have a lovely weekend.
Friday, 23 February 2018
Friday, 16 February 2018
Resignations
It is yet another Friday and once again we are treated with an article. I must admit that this was not the article that I had prepared to draft and send, but along the way I had to discard the article in which I was explaining why I have exactly K4, 903.00 in my account shortly after the mid-month mark; and why people need to avoid (mis)managing their finances the way I do.
So… the resignation.
I was on call when I read the news that Jacob Zuma had stepped down as the President of the rainbow nation. The news did not come as a surprise to me because over time I had been hearing the Zuma’s party, the African National Congress had been recalling him. Some of us may not understand why the party leaders had the guts to recall its own leader but this happened due to the political structure of South Africa. While political parties field candidates and running mates who automatically become president and vice president respectively, things are different in South Africa. There, people vote for a party which nominates the leader of the nation pending approval by parliament. The party, then, has the power of recalling their person should they feel dissatisfied with the performance (or something along those lines). Thabo Mbeki suffered the same fate, paving way for Zuma to be at the helm and now Zuma has also been recalled, giving way to one Ramaphosa whose State of the Nation Address I am watching as I draft this. It is interesting to learn that this month has an estimated net worth of a whopping $450 million at his ascendance to presidency. I will probably get back to that.
The news of Zuma’s resignation was not exciting enough to get a space on the Richie Online blog. If Mugabe didn’t get the privileged, we wouldn’t have given it to someone who didn’t even hit double digits in the number of years of his tenure. This article came up as a reaction to the mass reaction of the African continent especially the disproportionate reaction of my fellow Malawians who have taken it to the social media to celebrate as if Zuma’s resignation is going to bring the end to our electricity woes.
There has been a diverse range of reactions to the resignations. There are some who have chosen to remain silent about it while some have blown the whole thing out of proportion and taken it to the social media with long celebratory posts. There are two or three sections whose reactions made me take an interest in this issue and craft this writing about the resignation in relation to our own country.
The jokers took this as a moment to laugh at poor Jacob. The social media got awash with memes of jobless Jacob and videos of him dancing traditional dances in a funny way. In one of the Catholic groups, some posted memes about Jacob saying that he was giving up the presidency for the Lenten season, in which Catholics are meant to fast and give up other things as a way of devoting to meditation and prayer in a bid to get closer to God. This, again, was expected. When I went to check out my Facebook feed, I found that almost all the local news pages were awash with the news of the resignation. This is where I found the unexpected; Malawians praising Jacob Zuma for being a hero and paving way for another person when he had seen that things were not good. This was totally unexpected and I wondered if these people were in the know of what was going on in South Africa. This, to me, was the same thing that the BBC did when they posted a headline “President Mugabe Resigns Voluntarily”. Mugabe’s resignation was not voluntary for all I know. He walked out when he was at the verge of being faced by the humiliation of impeachment proceedings. He knew that there was nothing for him and did not want to be ousted with an impeachment hearing. This fresh resignation is pretty much the same as Mugabe’s. Someone was cornered and he should not be praised for bowing out when all had been clearly lost.
Some people went on and posted a picture of a fallen Mugabe and Zuma in the comment section. The picture also had a picture of a some old fella (probably Mu7, as the Venomous Hope spells his name) clinging to the Ugandan flagpole and someone else hanging on to what looked like the Malawian flag. In the eyes of these people, there was hope that these oldies were going to resign, following the lead of their fellows who have led the way. From the look of things, the people who were commenting did not understand that the Zuma resignation had been conceived by pressure from the people he was serving. They used the system and their constitutional provisions to get rid of the president when they felt like they needed to. I am not sure if they did it for the right reason. That is their thing to worry about. My worry is that we have been reduced to people who are hoping that our bad leaders will wake up with a strong conviction and decide to resign after reflecting on their wrongs. That is not going to happen, if you are to ask me. My other worry is that while we have many people who are not happy with the leadership, they will probably not take the initiative and do something to change the state of the leadership through the ballot when they have a chance to.
African leaders hardly have the remorse that can make them resign and we need to learn to live with that. While other countries talk of succession, most African leaders hear “suck session”. For them it means that they need to be suckling out the wealth of their countries while they still can. To hope that these leaders would resign voluntarily without sufficient pressure is to live with a futile dream that will not come to actualization.
I am hoping that all the praises that were showered on Zuma were mere jokes and that we will realize, sooner than later, that the power of shaping the country’s leadership lies in our hands (well, to some extent) and that we need to do something to reclaim and reshape the destiny of this country. Mugabe and Zuma might have resigned, but our citizenry should not resign to fate and hope that things will solve themselves.
And oh! Did the Ethiopian Prime Minister just resign too?
Enjoy the weekend.
So… the resignation.
I was on call when I read the news that Jacob Zuma had stepped down as the President of the rainbow nation. The news did not come as a surprise to me because over time I had been hearing the Zuma’s party, the African National Congress had been recalling him. Some of us may not understand why the party leaders had the guts to recall its own leader but this happened due to the political structure of South Africa. While political parties field candidates and running mates who automatically become president and vice president respectively, things are different in South Africa. There, people vote for a party which nominates the leader of the nation pending approval by parliament. The party, then, has the power of recalling their person should they feel dissatisfied with the performance (or something along those lines). Thabo Mbeki suffered the same fate, paving way for Zuma to be at the helm and now Zuma has also been recalled, giving way to one Ramaphosa whose State of the Nation Address I am watching as I draft this. It is interesting to learn that this month has an estimated net worth of a whopping $450 million at his ascendance to presidency. I will probably get back to that.
The news of Zuma’s resignation was not exciting enough to get a space on the Richie Online blog. If Mugabe didn’t get the privileged, we wouldn’t have given it to someone who didn’t even hit double digits in the number of years of his tenure. This article came up as a reaction to the mass reaction of the African continent especially the disproportionate reaction of my fellow Malawians who have taken it to the social media to celebrate as if Zuma’s resignation is going to bring the end to our electricity woes.
There has been a diverse range of reactions to the resignations. There are some who have chosen to remain silent about it while some have blown the whole thing out of proportion and taken it to the social media with long celebratory posts. There are two or three sections whose reactions made me take an interest in this issue and craft this writing about the resignation in relation to our own country.
The jokers took this as a moment to laugh at poor Jacob. The social media got awash with memes of jobless Jacob and videos of him dancing traditional dances in a funny way. In one of the Catholic groups, some posted memes about Jacob saying that he was giving up the presidency for the Lenten season, in which Catholics are meant to fast and give up other things as a way of devoting to meditation and prayer in a bid to get closer to God. This, again, was expected. When I went to check out my Facebook feed, I found that almost all the local news pages were awash with the news of the resignation. This is where I found the unexpected; Malawians praising Jacob Zuma for being a hero and paving way for another person when he had seen that things were not good. This was totally unexpected and I wondered if these people were in the know of what was going on in South Africa. This, to me, was the same thing that the BBC did when they posted a headline “President Mugabe Resigns Voluntarily”. Mugabe’s resignation was not voluntary for all I know. He walked out when he was at the verge of being faced by the humiliation of impeachment proceedings. He knew that there was nothing for him and did not want to be ousted with an impeachment hearing. This fresh resignation is pretty much the same as Mugabe’s. Someone was cornered and he should not be praised for bowing out when all had been clearly lost.
Some people went on and posted a picture of a fallen Mugabe and Zuma in the comment section. The picture also had a picture of a some old fella (probably Mu7, as the Venomous Hope spells his name) clinging to the Ugandan flagpole and someone else hanging on to what looked like the Malawian flag. In the eyes of these people, there was hope that these oldies were going to resign, following the lead of their fellows who have led the way. From the look of things, the people who were commenting did not understand that the Zuma resignation had been conceived by pressure from the people he was serving. They used the system and their constitutional provisions to get rid of the president when they felt like they needed to. I am not sure if they did it for the right reason. That is their thing to worry about. My worry is that we have been reduced to people who are hoping that our bad leaders will wake up with a strong conviction and decide to resign after reflecting on their wrongs. That is not going to happen, if you are to ask me. My other worry is that while we have many people who are not happy with the leadership, they will probably not take the initiative and do something to change the state of the leadership through the ballot when they have a chance to.
African leaders hardly have the remorse that can make them resign and we need to learn to live with that. While other countries talk of succession, most African leaders hear “suck session”. For them it means that they need to be suckling out the wealth of their countries while they still can. To hope that these leaders would resign voluntarily without sufficient pressure is to live with a futile dream that will not come to actualization.
I am hoping that all the praises that were showered on Zuma were mere jokes and that we will realize, sooner than later, that the power of shaping the country’s leadership lies in our hands (well, to some extent) and that we need to do something to reclaim and reshape the destiny of this country. Mugabe and Zuma might have resigned, but our citizenry should not resign to fate and hope that things will solve themselves.
And oh! Did the Ethiopian Prime Minister just resign too?
Enjoy the weekend.
Friday, 9 February 2018
OF CONFERENCES, MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS IN MALAWI
By Tadala Rambiki
“Us, Malawians have spent a lot of money on workshops, conferences and meetings and I am personally yet to see the outcomes and results from such”. That was the writing of one renowned private sector individual his Facebook page. The writing got me thinking and reflecting on how much I have also been involved in such events. I have had firsthand experience in organizing such gatherings and have attended an enormous number of those (in the agricultural sector). Meetings have been "necessary" for information sharing and mostly “strategizing” on how to develop Malawi and its citizens. I must say I feel sorry for my country because the resources, both financial and human, wasted on these meetings outweigh the results and impact realized at the end of the day.
I used to think this was a trend in the agricultural sector alone, but I was surprised to hear my father lament of the same issue in the education sector and the owner and editor of this page also share experiences of the same in the health sector. This got me reflecting on what is wrong with most of these meetings and how far we have fallen from the initial purposes of conferences which the pioneers of such ideas really intended them to achieve. I have tried to outline some of the key issues that are wrong with such events and while the list is not exhaustive, it brings the problem to the limelight sets the pace as to how we can start to correct some of the wrongs as we (the readers) become leaders of different institutions.
First and foremost, we all know the phrase “Time is money” is well understood and even spoken by the idlest Malawian. It is sad, however, to note that during these meetings the “Guest of honor” who is also mostly a political figure hiding behind the government mask, is almost ALWAYS late. It is sad to notice that this is how much we do not value our time and let alone how the “guest of honor” belittles the value of time to the other. Mostly, this individual also has his speech written for him…understand me well here…. BY the organizing institution. And I have been one of the people who have written speeches for government officials for events organized by my institution. What baffles me is how most of these literally “read” trough the speech. one would wonder if these people know what they attend are all about and if they believe in the significance of the same. Do we even need these guests of honor at all?
Secondly, a good part of the day is spent on listening to bureaucratic speeches. These serve three purposes only; to commend the current government regime for the support rendered and good job it is doing; to pat the organizing institution on the back for the job it is doing; to thank donors for their financial support and beg for more, Period! Well, sometimes the challenges we are facing in the sector are also outlined. That’s when the well learned start to comment “…we need a holistic approach… we need to look at things from a different angle…development needs to be inclusive”, after which we clap hands and go our different way. The question that keeps bothering me is that of what is the holistic way and of course the inclusive way. We will keep saying these fancy words, but again... nothing will change.
Thirdly, the reason why people attend such conferences…. allowances. I remember, there was an outcry when donors moved a motion to say all government meetings will be held on “full-board” arrangements. It is very impressive with what speed both Government and NGOs moved to squash down this idea. So this is the summary of the arrangement…. “I invite you to the meeting to give you information that will benefit you individually and as an institution…and I have to pay you for it”. This has been so rooted in the minds of policy makers, development practitioners and all those who were supposed to be using these meetings to devise mechanisms to ensure the development of the country, so much that if there are no allowances…you will be lucky to have a fruitful participation or even any participants at all.
Lastly, the last item on the program is “way forward” which signals the strategy that have to be put in place to deal with the challenges or issues that have been noted in the conference or workshop. This is a whole topic all together for another day, because we have over 10 policies and strategies in all key sectors that outline the challenges we are facing in the key sectors so much that we have even moved to introduce the Malawi National Condom Strategy…which I am yet to read. As that is not enough, the “way forward” actually NEVER goes forward. This is evidenced by how much we keep discussing the same issues over and over again in different fora.
Many may wonder what this was all about, well two main issues. Looking at the amount of money, time and energy that is channeled towards most conferences, do we need all these conferences and workshops? Don’t we really know what is wrong and how to address those? Do not get me wrong, not all are actually useless but I would say most conferences out there are being hosted to tick boxes in project documents rather than providing solutions to prevailing challenges. As such, as some of us are in positions or moving towards positions where we would be drivers of change let us reconsider how we can go back and redesign our workshops or meetings to ensure that we do not completely turn these events into fund raising activities.
“Us, Malawians have spent a lot of money on workshops, conferences and meetings and I am personally yet to see the outcomes and results from such”. That was the writing of one renowned private sector individual his Facebook page. The writing got me thinking and reflecting on how much I have also been involved in such events. I have had firsthand experience in organizing such gatherings and have attended an enormous number of those (in the agricultural sector). Meetings have been "necessary" for information sharing and mostly “strategizing” on how to develop Malawi and its citizens. I must say I feel sorry for my country because the resources, both financial and human, wasted on these meetings outweigh the results and impact realized at the end of the day.
I used to think this was a trend in the agricultural sector alone, but I was surprised to hear my father lament of the same issue in the education sector and the owner and editor of this page also share experiences of the same in the health sector. This got me reflecting on what is wrong with most of these meetings and how far we have fallen from the initial purposes of conferences which the pioneers of such ideas really intended them to achieve. I have tried to outline some of the key issues that are wrong with such events and while the list is not exhaustive, it brings the problem to the limelight sets the pace as to how we can start to correct some of the wrongs as we (the readers) become leaders of different institutions.
First and foremost, we all know the phrase “Time is money” is well understood and even spoken by the idlest Malawian. It is sad, however, to note that during these meetings the “Guest of honor” who is also mostly a political figure hiding behind the government mask, is almost ALWAYS late. It is sad to notice that this is how much we do not value our time and let alone how the “guest of honor” belittles the value of time to the other. Mostly, this individual also has his speech written for him…understand me well here…. BY the organizing institution. And I have been one of the people who have written speeches for government officials for events organized by my institution. What baffles me is how most of these literally “read” trough the speech. one would wonder if these people know what they attend are all about and if they believe in the significance of the same. Do we even need these guests of honor at all?
Secondly, a good part of the day is spent on listening to bureaucratic speeches. These serve three purposes only; to commend the current government regime for the support rendered and good job it is doing; to pat the organizing institution on the back for the job it is doing; to thank donors for their financial support and beg for more, Period! Well, sometimes the challenges we are facing in the sector are also outlined. That’s when the well learned start to comment “…we need a holistic approach… we need to look at things from a different angle…development needs to be inclusive”, after which we clap hands and go our different way. The question that keeps bothering me is that of what is the holistic way and of course the inclusive way. We will keep saying these fancy words, but again... nothing will change.
Thirdly, the reason why people attend such conferences…. allowances. I remember, there was an outcry when donors moved a motion to say all government meetings will be held on “full-board” arrangements. It is very impressive with what speed both Government and NGOs moved to squash down this idea. So this is the summary of the arrangement…. “I invite you to the meeting to give you information that will benefit you individually and as an institution…and I have to pay you for it”. This has been so rooted in the minds of policy makers, development practitioners and all those who were supposed to be using these meetings to devise mechanisms to ensure the development of the country, so much that if there are no allowances…you will be lucky to have a fruitful participation or even any participants at all.
Lastly, the last item on the program is “way forward” which signals the strategy that have to be put in place to deal with the challenges or issues that have been noted in the conference or workshop. This is a whole topic all together for another day, because we have over 10 policies and strategies in all key sectors that outline the challenges we are facing in the key sectors so much that we have even moved to introduce the Malawi National Condom Strategy…which I am yet to read. As that is not enough, the “way forward” actually NEVER goes forward. This is evidenced by how much we keep discussing the same issues over and over again in different fora.
Many may wonder what this was all about, well two main issues. Looking at the amount of money, time and energy that is channeled towards most conferences, do we need all these conferences and workshops? Don’t we really know what is wrong and how to address those? Do not get me wrong, not all are actually useless but I would say most conferences out there are being hosted to tick boxes in project documents rather than providing solutions to prevailing challenges. As such, as some of us are in positions or moving towards positions where we would be drivers of change let us reconsider how we can go back and redesign our workshops or meetings to ensure that we do not completely turn these events into fund raising activities.
Friday, 2 February 2018
HIV/AIDS
Greetings.
I hope that this finds you, my dear reader, well. It is good to write again after my one week break in which I rented the blog out to Walter; who some of you have decided to call “a politician”. I am not too sure if that is the most fitting title but I am sure that you had your reasons for calling him that.
Those of you who have been Friday Readers for some time might attest to the fact that I have always tried to keep a quarter mile distance between my work and my blog. This is because I have always wanted to avoid some unethical mixtures between my doctoring and writing jobs. Lately, however, I have realized that I cannot run away from using this blog to share the message of healthy living and I have decided to make it an obligation to use this blog for the same purpose whenever I can.
Topic of the day? HIV and AIDS. I am pretty sure that all of us are aware of this pandemic. The media is awash with issues to do with HIV and AIDS and people are always telling us how best to avoid contracting the deadly virus and how to live a healthy life when we have it. There are also messages encouraging us to go for testing and counseling and sermons against discriminating people with HIV and AIDS. This is why I am pretty comfortable to say that issues to do with HIV and AIDS are not new to everyone, to say the least. I am told that the new Primary school curriculum has also incorporated in a subject called Life Skills. This knowledge has not come in without results and one of the areas in which we have made more progress is the area of discrimation. While it we might have sections of the society discriminating people with HIV and AIDS, we have made bigger strides in eliminating the malpractice in the society in general. On the other hand, I still think that we could do better in the areas of voluntary counseling and testing and prevention.
Talks about the transmission of HIV have been mostly academic and people have always mentioned things like mother to child transmission and contact with contaminated body fluids along with sexual intercourse as modes of transmission of the virus. I am not disputing the facts here, but one thing we have to understand is that a majority of the transmissions are sexual. To me, this entails that if we are to cut up on the (unsafe? Topic for another day) sex we might just be able to reduce the spread of HIV. From my observations, however, people seem not to have this HIV thing in mind when they are going about their sex lives and part of this might emanate from the fact that people do not perceive themselves to be vulnerable to the disease. The same lack of perceived vulnerability has led to sub-optimal numbers when it comes to testing and counseling and despite the fact that we have free HIV testing and counseling services across the nation, the same are underutilized. We hardly see people going for testing and counseling voluntarily by the strict meaning of the word. People usually like to go for testing when they have had exposure to HIV and would like to get PEP (post exposure prophylaxis; the drugs people get upon being exposed to the virus through sexual or blood contact, to avoid infection). The danger with this thing of not knowing your HIV status is that people miss the opportunity of getting an early intervention before the infection progresses to full blown disease, a point at which treatment becomes difficult due to the nature of both the disease and the drugs.
Needless to say, there are some people who have been going for testing and counseling but the interpretation and the application of the results has been another thing that leaves a lot to be desired. I would say that we do not have much of a problem with those who test negative for HIV. These ones are told to play it safe to maintain the status and most of them abide to the simple rule. Those who test positive, on the other hand tend to have problems on this end. You might have heard that radio play where someone thought it was the end of their life upon testing positive for HIV. Those are real life situations and while many might have moved away from such, there are people who are still stuck in that mentality. Ideally, people who test positive are also supposed to stay safe to avoid contracting resistant strains of the virus (from a medical perspective) and to avoid spreading it to others (from umunthu). We all know that there are people who have deliberately gone against this advice and they are busy giving and gathering all sorts of HIV bugs to anyone they get a chance to lie with. The other important implication of a positive test is the need for starting of HIV treatment despite disease status. This, again, has been a problem to many as some think that they are not supposed to be taking medications whilst they are still feeling okay.
Having highlighted some of the problems we have when it comes to attitudes towards HIV and AIDS, I have a couple of facts and fact-based opinions (professional opinions, if you will) to share.
I have every reason to believe that prevention is the best way of running away from the problems that arise from HIV infection and AIDS. We should not fall for the trap of undermining the disease that has affected millions worldwide and has affected almost every family (taking it from our liberal definition of family).
HIV testing and counseling services are free and are readily available for our use. We need to take advantage of such and utilize them. The results thereof need to be applied for our health living and having gone for testing and counseling, we need to be advocates for the same in our circles.
Amongst us are antiretroviral drugs which are used to suppress the virus in infected people. Though not curative, these drugs have been tested and proven to be a source of a healthy life for people living with the virus. Perhaps the one thing that many do not recognize is that with the viral suppression ARVs bring about comes the reduced risk of the transmission of the virus. This entails that people who religiously take these drugs are not as infectious as others who are not treatment. This, however, should not be used as a leeway for a careless life of having unsafe sex with people who are infected as there might be some minimal risk of transmission.
A word on post-exposure anaphylaxis. As I already shared, these are drugs that protect people that have been exposed to HIV but would like to prevent the infection. For those of us who work with sharp instruments and blood in the hospital, these drugs come in handy considering the times we spill bodily fluids and cut ourselves with contaminated needles. Outside the medical circles, the same drugs are used for people who have had exposure through such things as blood contact as well as through sexual exposure. From my observation, there are some people who are in the habit of taking PEP and some take it a couple of times a year owing to their repeated sexual exposures (unsafe sex and condom accidents; if such a thing exists). The fact that some people haven’t yet embraced is that PEP is an ARV combination which is just a bit weaker and as such people need to have their status known before they get on it. The danger about taking PEP without getting tested is that should one take the drugs while they are already positive, they risk getting resistance to ARVs and as such antiretroviral therapy may not work on them when they need it the most. I guess you will now understand why that nurse or doctor friend of yours always acts jumpy whenever you talk about them smuggling some PEP out for a brother. There are protocols surrounding these drugs and they were made for a good reason; for your good.
The above paragraphs might have been full of technical hibber jabber but I would like to bring you to the reason I wrote this whole thing. Most of us have grown up taking the HIV/AIDS pandemic lightly. I was like you, but having worked in the hospitals, I have come to understand the burden this virus lords on families, societies and this nation as a whole. I am not too sure as to how true this is, but I have heard that there was a time when one regime was thinking of stopping either the farm input subsidy or free antiretroviral treatment, considering the financial burden they exert on the nation’s economy. The point is that some of us may not fear the disease because we do not care about our own lives. If we cannot play it safe for ourselves, let us do it for our families and our nation.
Have a lovely weekend. Remember to play it safe and to get tested.
I hope that this finds you, my dear reader, well. It is good to write again after my one week break in which I rented the blog out to Walter; who some of you have decided to call “a politician”. I am not too sure if that is the most fitting title but I am sure that you had your reasons for calling him that.
Those of you who have been Friday Readers for some time might attest to the fact that I have always tried to keep a quarter mile distance between my work and my blog. This is because I have always wanted to avoid some unethical mixtures between my doctoring and writing jobs. Lately, however, I have realized that I cannot run away from using this blog to share the message of healthy living and I have decided to make it an obligation to use this blog for the same purpose whenever I can.
Topic of the day? HIV and AIDS. I am pretty sure that all of us are aware of this pandemic. The media is awash with issues to do with HIV and AIDS and people are always telling us how best to avoid contracting the deadly virus and how to live a healthy life when we have it. There are also messages encouraging us to go for testing and counseling and sermons against discriminating people with HIV and AIDS. This is why I am pretty comfortable to say that issues to do with HIV and AIDS are not new to everyone, to say the least. I am told that the new Primary school curriculum has also incorporated in a subject called Life Skills. This knowledge has not come in without results and one of the areas in which we have made more progress is the area of discrimation. While it we might have sections of the society discriminating people with HIV and AIDS, we have made bigger strides in eliminating the malpractice in the society in general. On the other hand, I still think that we could do better in the areas of voluntary counseling and testing and prevention.
Talks about the transmission of HIV have been mostly academic and people have always mentioned things like mother to child transmission and contact with contaminated body fluids along with sexual intercourse as modes of transmission of the virus. I am not disputing the facts here, but one thing we have to understand is that a majority of the transmissions are sexual. To me, this entails that if we are to cut up on the (unsafe? Topic for another day) sex we might just be able to reduce the spread of HIV. From my observations, however, people seem not to have this HIV thing in mind when they are going about their sex lives and part of this might emanate from the fact that people do not perceive themselves to be vulnerable to the disease. The same lack of perceived vulnerability has led to sub-optimal numbers when it comes to testing and counseling and despite the fact that we have free HIV testing and counseling services across the nation, the same are underutilized. We hardly see people going for testing and counseling voluntarily by the strict meaning of the word. People usually like to go for testing when they have had exposure to HIV and would like to get PEP (post exposure prophylaxis; the drugs people get upon being exposed to the virus through sexual or blood contact, to avoid infection). The danger with this thing of not knowing your HIV status is that people miss the opportunity of getting an early intervention before the infection progresses to full blown disease, a point at which treatment becomes difficult due to the nature of both the disease and the drugs.
Needless to say, there are some people who have been going for testing and counseling but the interpretation and the application of the results has been another thing that leaves a lot to be desired. I would say that we do not have much of a problem with those who test negative for HIV. These ones are told to play it safe to maintain the status and most of them abide to the simple rule. Those who test positive, on the other hand tend to have problems on this end. You might have heard that radio play where someone thought it was the end of their life upon testing positive for HIV. Those are real life situations and while many might have moved away from such, there are people who are still stuck in that mentality. Ideally, people who test positive are also supposed to stay safe to avoid contracting resistant strains of the virus (from a medical perspective) and to avoid spreading it to others (from umunthu). We all know that there are people who have deliberately gone against this advice and they are busy giving and gathering all sorts of HIV bugs to anyone they get a chance to lie with. The other important implication of a positive test is the need for starting of HIV treatment despite disease status. This, again, has been a problem to many as some think that they are not supposed to be taking medications whilst they are still feeling okay.
Having highlighted some of the problems we have when it comes to attitudes towards HIV and AIDS, I have a couple of facts and fact-based opinions (professional opinions, if you will) to share.
I have every reason to believe that prevention is the best way of running away from the problems that arise from HIV infection and AIDS. We should not fall for the trap of undermining the disease that has affected millions worldwide and has affected almost every family (taking it from our liberal definition of family).
HIV testing and counseling services are free and are readily available for our use. We need to take advantage of such and utilize them. The results thereof need to be applied for our health living and having gone for testing and counseling, we need to be advocates for the same in our circles.
Amongst us are antiretroviral drugs which are used to suppress the virus in infected people. Though not curative, these drugs have been tested and proven to be a source of a healthy life for people living with the virus. Perhaps the one thing that many do not recognize is that with the viral suppression ARVs bring about comes the reduced risk of the transmission of the virus. This entails that people who religiously take these drugs are not as infectious as others who are not treatment. This, however, should not be used as a leeway for a careless life of having unsafe sex with people who are infected as there might be some minimal risk of transmission.
A word on post-exposure anaphylaxis. As I already shared, these are drugs that protect people that have been exposed to HIV but would like to prevent the infection. For those of us who work with sharp instruments and blood in the hospital, these drugs come in handy considering the times we spill bodily fluids and cut ourselves with contaminated needles. Outside the medical circles, the same drugs are used for people who have had exposure through such things as blood contact as well as through sexual exposure. From my observation, there are some people who are in the habit of taking PEP and some take it a couple of times a year owing to their repeated sexual exposures (unsafe sex and condom accidents; if such a thing exists). The fact that some people haven’t yet embraced is that PEP is an ARV combination which is just a bit weaker and as such people need to have their status known before they get on it. The danger about taking PEP without getting tested is that should one take the drugs while they are already positive, they risk getting resistance to ARVs and as such antiretroviral therapy may not work on them when they need it the most. I guess you will now understand why that nurse or doctor friend of yours always acts jumpy whenever you talk about them smuggling some PEP out for a brother. There are protocols surrounding these drugs and they were made for a good reason; for your good.
The above paragraphs might have been full of technical hibber jabber but I would like to bring you to the reason I wrote this whole thing. Most of us have grown up taking the HIV/AIDS pandemic lightly. I was like you, but having worked in the hospitals, I have come to understand the burden this virus lords on families, societies and this nation as a whole. I am not too sure as to how true this is, but I have heard that there was a time when one regime was thinking of stopping either the farm input subsidy or free antiretroviral treatment, considering the financial burden they exert on the nation’s economy. The point is that some of us may not fear the disease because we do not care about our own lives. If we cannot play it safe for ourselves, let us do it for our families and our nation.
Have a lovely weekend. Remember to play it safe and to get tested.
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