Forgiveness and Tolerance for the Past; a Set of Random Thoughts

It is another awesome Friday and once again we have our read. I have to start with a word of thanks on the positive feedback I got from the previous article. I never expected anyone to find that relatable or thought provoking. Turns out, however, that there are a lot of people who buy “mbatatesi ya Violet” from Blantyre market and a lot more who think carrier bag sellers are thieves. Either way, your feedback on this and the future articles will be greatly appreciated too.

In one of the nights of this week, I found myself in a late night reflection on forgiveness. One would wonder as to why I was pondering about forgiveness. The reason was simple; I have always looked at myself as an unforgiving guy and I would like to change. The question I found myself on this particular night, however, was that of how deep and how wide my forgiveness scope needs to go. Practicality.

Knowing me, I know that some of you would play the Christian card and dismiss my late night reflection with the Christian virtue of unlimited forgiveness which Jesus preached and practiced. I would say that it is a fair argument to throw in the ring. I do forgive people for doing things that are too stupid for my liking and you are more likely to walk away unpunished even if you did the most annoying things to me. I had been thinking about how I need to enforce the habit of instant forgiveness and forgetting the wrongs people do when I drifted into another dimension of the matter; the reflection of how best one can make peace with the past lives of other people.
The whole thing of somebody’s past life seems like a whole trivial thing that doesn’t have to be considered. Forward ever and backward never, right? Sounds logical, in a way, but there are times that we have to consider that life can be very contextual. A friend of mine recently asked me as to what I would do if an old friend sent me a text thanking me for the success he is registering from an investment of money he stole from me. Being a person who loves progress, I had mixed feelings about the question. I would be happy to know that my friend has made it in life but on the other hand I would be unhappy because of the loss of the money and what opportunities it would have cost me. Perhaps this is not the most fitting example to the topic we are about to discuss.

I once shared about how the mystery of marriage still puzzles me. Two people who were total strangers to each other somehow meet up and agree to stay under one roof, make a life together and procreate. Traditionally, these are people who would be in the second or third decade of their lives and there is much which has happened by the time they meet. The most important thing that comes up is about how they are going to adjust to one another and make a life together but sometimes the past comes in the way. That brings the important question. How much of someone’s undesirable past can you tolerate?

You might have heard of stories of people who have ended their hot relationships and broken engagements after learning a thing or two about their spouse. Usually, these are people who venture into their relationships red hot after having preserved their dignity and keeping themselves for the supposedly perfect Mr. or Miss Right. The whole thing of learning about the past of their loved one leads to the thought that they are not the one but while these realizations have led to the breaking of some unions, some relationships have stayed intact after partners found skeletons in each other’s closets.

At some point I found myself debating this issue with two friends of mine. We were arguing out this topic from the sexual angle having had spent some time dissecting a recent breakup that had happened when the guy realized that his angel had not had the cleanest history prior to their meeting. It was a pub talk, anyway, and when you are there anything goes. You can forgive a brother for gossiping. There were three viewpoints. The first one was that the past does not matter and it should be left alone. The other one was that these things matter so much and they should be brought into consideration way before the proposal or before saying yes. Those were two people on the extremes but the third view was more of a pacifier between the two. Those who were of this idea had the argument that it is impossible to be rigid about such a decision because it would heavily depend on the gravity of the “sins” committed. I am not at liberty to disclose which line of thought I subscribe to but I think each of those lines of thought would apply depending on how forgiving one is.

When relationships sail through rough waters midway through the seas because of past discoveries unearthed in the course of the voyage, people tend to blame the discoverer for not doing their homework in profiling their partner prior to the relationship. What we tend to forget is that there are people that are pros at hiding their true colors. There is also the church factor that we have to consider.  There are many who go about their business living a life that is generally considered immoral before making a U-turn in the name of turning to God. All things have passed away… You are a new creation. While many Christian brothers and sisters find solace in this “new creation” thinking, there are others who think along the lines of playing it safe and considering the past life. Differences in levels of faith? Maybe. Maybe not.

Perhaps the other factor in this past life equation is the “ex-factor”. We can all agree that zibwenzi zamasiku ano sizimalimba despite whatever. We can also agree that people are going intimate in most of the later day relationships. You may hate the fact that I have mentioned it and you may stone me for the same, but the fact remains that this is the truth. This whole sex thing brings a certain kind of bond between people to an extent that partners find it hard to let it go. End result? Some find it hard to move on and cling to the same person despite being on the receiving end of various forms of abuse. That is common, but it is not that related to what we are talking about here. The danger with these “once intimate” ex-lovers is the whole recurrences of intimate moments that happen way after people have moved on to get into other relationships. It is popularly known as enjoying retirement benefits in the morally-deprived societies of the day and from the way people see it, it is not much of big deal to many. The insecurities from the thoughts of the ex-factor will probably be the reason some of us will stay in singlehood too long even for our own liking (which is already long, anyway). Zocheza, koma zoona.

The late night reflection that led to the conception of this article reminded me that I need to be more forgiving than I already am. You should probably be converted to the life of forgiveness too. On the other hand, reading this article should also help you delineate unconditional forgiveness with tolerance to somebody’s past. Achina Paulo enawa amatha kudzasintha ndikukhalanso Saulo and you never know what the past they repented from will throw into your future. Let us learn to balance the need for getting together with our own past history and the history of our business partners, workmates, spouses and associates. If we want to bury it, that is one way to go but if we want to dig their past, let us do it while ready to live with what we find.. or walk away.

Perhaps it's high time sone of us forgave ourselves and came to terms with our past lives, anyway.
Enjoy the weekend.

Town Life: The Survival of the Fittest?

Wonderful Friday, isn’t it?

Greetings.

I am in no mood of wasting your time with lengthy pleasantries this evening so I will go on and tell you about my love for music. I am one of those people you would describe as a person who is liberal with his taste for music. My phone playlist which boasts of a 200 song playlist at any given time contains songs by Atoht Manje through Tekno Miles, Ndirande Anglican Voices, The Weekend, Frank Josiah, Slaughterhouse to Avalon Band. It is not so surprising, therefore, that I at some point found myself listening to a Joe Gwaladi song. I don’t know the proper title of the song, but if I am not mistaken it only had one line that was repeated through the three minutes or so. Kumangozazitsa tauni, geni yake yogulitsa minkhaka. You got me right. You are just filling the town but all you do is sell cucumbers.

When I first heard the song, I found it demeaning. I walked in the shows of those who do the good job of bringing cucumbers from whichever corner of the country (I don’t even know where they rear or grow them, whatever it is) to town so that we can add them to our salads as we strive to trim our big tummies. The artist was probably insensitive but there was no such outcry. This was the Gwaladi of the N’nafa Bulu and Khoswe Chipongwe fame and people were used to his lyrics.

I probably fell in love with Gwaladi’s songs in late 2010 prior to joining college but more than seven years down the line I found myself relating with the cucumber song. Reason? I actually had my brain oscillate at the same frequency and wavelength with Gwaladi’s. I feel like there are some people whose presence in town should be brought to question based on what they do. Before you label me as a self-elevating discriminatory idiot, my point here is just that I find it hard to imagine how some people survive town based on how expensive town life is. There are many groups of people prying on their trades in town but one that strikes me is the army of young men selling plastic carrier bags in town; anyamata a majumbo.

If you are the kind of guy who buys imported tomatoes and potatoes in Shoprite, you wouldn’t relate with what I mean. If you are the kind of person who goes into these fancy shops to buy Gucci wa Tanzania for clothing, you wouldn’t understand me wither. These are guys who are all over Blantyre and Limbe markets, opportunistically waiting for the shopper to make a stop at a potato vendor’s bag so that they can provide the much needed “jumbo ya K50”. These are the same guys who wait for you to buy 3 kilos of rice before they come running to give you a lecture on how thin your plastic bag is and how likely you are to lose your rice if you don’t protect your stuff with an extra plastic bag.

I have always wondered as to whether these guys make enough money to keep them thriving in town and this question has always lingered based on the assumption that these people are here in town for one thing alone; kugulitsa majumbo. I have always thought of it as an impossible venture considering rentals, food, clothing and all. You possibly wouldn’t make enough for all that out of plastic bag sales.

My new habbit of buying things in bulk turned me into a regular visitor of Blantyre market and one things I observed is that there is always a pack of boys following you as you go into the market. These, of course, are not carrier bag sellers. They are sellers of mbatatesi ya Ntcheu who always pester you by “forcing” you to buy their merchandise or not regardless of whether you are going there for  food products or just a hair cut. Once you manage to get convinced by one of them, the other follows with a plastic bag. They never do their business together but their operations are heavily linked and one depends heavily on another. One day, I happened to carry my own durable plastic bag when I was going for some shopping  in Blantyre market. That was the last time I did it upon interaction with mnyamata wamajumbo who wondered as to how he was going to survive town if we continued using the plastic bags we got from our big shopping centers for potato shopping. That was the turning point for me, and whenever I don’t carry a backpack, I find myself making these guys a couple of bucks richer by buying their products.

My interaction with these guys who sell plastic bags has given me the answer to my question as to whether life is easy for them. The discovery was in line with what I had initially theorized. Life is generally hard for the guys and they do not have it easy. One of them, who had offered to carry my stuff and see me off the market once got over the lane and started to ask me if I had an extra K1000 to help him pay his rentals as his landlord was on his neck. He went on to tell me how he was finding it hard to find his basic needs and was hardly getting by. The poor guy was just unlucky because I was broke and half functional, having splashed on some hydrocarbons prior to the emergency shopping stint.

I once got into a discussion with my sister who happened to be sharing some shopping tips for Limbe market with me. She gave me some unsolicited lecture on how I needed to pay much attention to where my money is, especially when navigating the most crowded of places in the market. In her knowledge, it is anyamata a majumbo who steal from people in the market. It is not a far-fetched assertion, if you are to think about it.

Perhaps this is just one example but there are many who are really struggling. Like Gwaladi’s minkhaka song, this isn’t meant to demean them. They are out here serving a certain purpose. What I tend to wonder is just this thing of whether the return are worth migrating from kwa Kalimezako in Neno to kwa Gayesi in the middle of Mbayani… whether running around town and struggling with rentals is relly something to leave the simple village life for. Perhaps some of us cannot have the best answers to these questions. I can only hope that I will keep having enough so that I can tell wa jumbo to keep the change whenever I give a K200 note and get my K50 plastic bag. It may not be much, but we never know  how much of a difference that could make.

A Tale from Mua

Friday!

It feels great to come to the end of a lazy week. I woke up to realize that it is the end of yet another week but zthe emptiness of the week was so much so that there was nothing that I could jump at in a bid to draw some inspiration for an article. How sad!

I happen to be on holiday which means that I haven’t been doing some life-saving lately. That, in itself takes away a big chunk of opportunities for ‘article fishing’. On the other hand, an adventurous holiday brought me in touch with something that I could possibly share with the readership.
I like to move around a lot and we happen to be reading this article thanks to the miracle of a suboptimal account balance (again). If I had the enablers, I probably would have been in the middle of nowhere with no internet access feasting on some raw cassava with the villagers or playing on some beach in the northern parts of Malawi… and I would have forgotten to draft something for the dear reader. On the other hand, we are here and I would like to share an interesting experience from the holidays.

Having survived a trip to Neno and back, I found myself on another bus last Friday. The destination was Mua mission, which is in the eastern part of Dedza district, along the Blantyre-Salima road. I happened to be on this trip with a group of church-mates and we were headed to Mua to interact and share the little we had gathered with the students of Mua School for the Deaf.
This trip to Mua was my third, having gone to the place two times prior (when I was in college). The first time I went there was for a Catholic students’ trip, which was aimed at exploring the concepts of enculturation that is heavily practiced in the mission there. The trip had its own highs and lows that are best not mentioned but it was a good and eye-opening experience.
Some of you might be surprised by this but the College of Medicine organizes these trips for doctors to be to go to Mua and appreciate the depth of the culture and some of the interactions between health issues and our culture. This trip was another eye opener because we got to explore Mua’s heritage rooms in the cultural museum.

I was still looking forward to seeing Mua despite having gone there two times. I mean, I feel like it is one of those places that never gets old. I would probably be unfair to you if I don’t give you a background of the place and a couple of reasons as to why you should take some time to visit Mua.
Mua Mission was established in 1902 by Catholic missionaries called the White Fathers. It was built on a slave trade route from Mangochi to Lilongwe (that probably crossed the mountains in Mua and went through the present day Bembeke). The site was preferred mostly because of its friendly locals who allowed for co-existence with the missionaries and received Christianity with warm hands. Like any other Christian (or Muslim) missionaries, they preached against the local traditions and called on the faithful to renounce some defining traditions like Gulewamkulu.
The later years saw the coming in of another of the White Fathers. This was Fr Claude Boucher from Canada and he, like other missionaries before him, came to do some pastoral work at the mission. His work and interaction with the flock at the mission got him interested in the Chewa culture and gave him the curiosity to understand more. That curiosity was so much so that he ended up being an initiate in the Chewa culture and it led him into studying and building a museum dedicated to the history and traditions of the Chewa, Ngoni and Yao tribes. This place attracts both local and international tourists who want to learn about the culture and to see the cultural carvings and paintings that are exhibited in the gallery.
I had interacted with Fr Claude (who changed his name to Chagomerana Chisale) in the previous visits and I had enjoyed his narration of the history of the place which he likes to deliver in fluent Chichewa. This was the reason I was more than excited when I heard that he had asked to meet us and show us around the heritage center. Little did I know that this chat with the extraordinary missionary would be a source of yet another thought-provoking discussion.

Our discussion took and interesting beginning. Fr Claude asked us to introduce ourselves by where we came from and our tribes. He then asked us if we were initiated in our cultures. To his disappointment, it was only two Chewa guys who gave a positive response. He, then began to give his talk of how important it was for us to recognize and honor our cultural roots. Slowly the narrative began to show the convergence of Biblical history, culture and modern day religion.

The highlight of the talk came in when Fr Claude pointed out that Christian missionaries did not show up in this country until around the 19th Century. He also highlighted that it is good to note that local people knew about God way before the coming of the missionaries and more importantly that God did not get to know and be interested in African people in the 19th Century. He also explained that there was a good intersection and common ground between Christian and cultural principles although the early missionaries chose to dismiss everything traditional as pagan. His point was simply that there is need for us to recognize that religion and culture are not contradictory but rather complementary. Adding to that, he pointed out that most of church rites originate from middle eastern (Jewish) culture from which the church was conceived and European (Greek, Roman, etc) through which the faith was propagated. He ended the culture and religion parts of the talk by asking us to imagine what the church would have been like if Christ were born among our kinsmen.

Thoughts of this talk were reignited when I bumped into some guys discussing the interesting link between Christian missionary work and colonialism. While this might not have been a related thing, it got me to think about whether it was possible for early missionaries could have managed to blend into the culture like the later day Chagomerana Chisale. It also got me to think about the necessity of allowing the application of traditional elements in modern day Christianity (that thing of playing the mbalule and guguda drum during a Catholic mass of CCAP service). I honestly do not have the answer to that and I will leave it to you to ponder.

The curiosity and exceptional enthusiasm of people like Fr Claude gave birth to Mua’s Kungoni Cultural Heritage Center which boasts of a very rich cultural history and a huge collection of arts. For people who would like to spend some time and learn more about the Chewa, Ngoni and Yao Culture, Mua is the place to go. With a visit to Mua, you would also get the chance to visit a place called Pamtondo pa Namalikhate, a story around which I will leave to you to find out. If you are looking forward to spending a couple of days at the place, Namalikhate village which is around the mission premises is there to sort out your accommodation and catering needs.
Kamuzu Banda once said that to travel is to learn. His sentiments were echoed by one Annie Matumbi who encouraged us all to visit the attractions we have in the country. Perhaps this cultural place could go on the list when you want to visit some place different.

Have a lovely weekend.

Ambitions

Greetings.

It is yet another wonderful Friday. Last week you all had to endure my lament about my not so healthy account. In between then and now, my employer sorted it out. I was happy for a few hours but in a matter of hours we are almost back to the crying state. Perhaps some of us will never recover from these things and our aim should just be that of redefining what financial stability is for us. I loved every piece of feedback that was generated from last week's article and that is mostly because I discovered that I am not alone in this boat of "variable financial stability".

I had been feeling bad about myself and my account and other things to an extent that I got myself looking for some remedy. I found myself looking for solace in some book and rather disappointingly it was not the expected Bible. This is a book whose subtitle emphasizes on the need for having a counter-intuitive approach to life. The book has the same ideas and connotations some of you might have read from "the Case of the Prison Monger"; expect little and you will be fine.

The Case of the Prison Monger...

This was a story about one Matteos Gudu who found solace in imprisonment. This was one guy who perpetually committed crimes that earned him long sentences and made sure he always stayed behind bars. Those actions, according to the story, originated from an attitude of being satisfied by little and not wanting more than than the basic. The case ended with the "prison monger" protesting to the judge about the sentence after being sentenced to immediate freedom for a crime he had committed.

This, of course was a fictional story. Such attitudes are almost extinct and we do not have people who expect that little around here (on earth) anymore. Even our MOG's are demanding motorbikes from their flock and Buddhist monks are down from the Himalayas into the open. The general trend out here is that people are getting more ambitious with passing time. People want to make mote money and they want to have more power.

One would wonder as to whwy there has been an increasing hunger for power and money. My first response would be that it is human nature to have a hunger for more. Somehow we end up aiming for something only yo start looking forward to the next level thing the moment we get it. I am inclined to think that this is a universal problem as opposed to that of the selected few.

The outburst of motivational speakers has also led to an escalation of the malignant ambition problem. There are people who are masquerading under the motivational speaker badge and they are all over prescribing a certain standard of life, living under which implies that you are a suboptimal human. Some motivators have made us believe that those of us who are working are not living to our full potential. You can't expect people to be satisfied with little with these toxic messages being thrown around.

Back to the book I was reading...

The book insinuated that most of us are ending up worrying too much. About our situations because we have gotten to live in a world where people who have nothing to worry about end up worrying about everything. In his own words, the author cited that rates of depression are rising when everyone has a flat screen TV in their house and they can have there groceries delivered at the click of a button. This assertion might be more American than it is local but the idea is that with the improving living conditions, depression rates have to be on the fall as opposed to rise.

The social media might also be another contributing factor to the increase in the number of morbidly ambitious people. We are living in a world where people live picture perfect lives on Instagram and Whatsapp. The HD pictures from other people; adding to the fact that people like to base their satisfaction on comparison of others fuels hunger for more in the "have nots". At the end of the day it goes down to people wanting to appear successful rather than being successful. We are in the "impressions over reality" age.

Having said all this, one might wonder as to what we are suggesting as Richie Online. From the preceding paragraphs, it might be one might think that we (me and like minded fellas) are of the idea that three meals a day are all a human needs on God's green Earth. If you are to recall what I wrote in the previous article, I pointed out that we all need to live for others. With that in mind, modest earnings might not be the way to go. On the other hand, self-enrichment is greatly discouraged and should not exist in society. This whole thing of people sharing ma 40 mita should be a thing of the past. The main point is that there should be a balance between ambitions, abilities and motives for gaining more.

I will probably be called Captain Obvious for drafting this but having learnt about a counter-intuitive approach to life, I care less. 

Enjoy the long weekend.

Ndiye mwati holiday ya Monday ndi ya chani?