Your Birthday Messages: Richie Responds

It is another wonderful Friday and once again we get to be treated with an article. I should have been coming in with a low morale following a low readership from last week’s article. I do understand that the titling of the article put a good number of people off because the mention of Game of Thrones made everyone thing that I wanted to talk about the same HBO TV show that people have been tweeting and posting online about. What I wanted to focus on, however, was closer to home and relatable to everyone regardless of their Game of Thrones watching status. On the other hand, I am back in full throttle having maintained the excitement of celebrating my 26^th birthday.

For some reason, this year’s birthday is one that I had been looking forward to for long as I was looking forward to making amends for the raw celebrations in the past two years. I was eyeing the possibility of celebrating a birthday without having to suffer from the aftermath of the previous night’s beverages and it seemed that people joined in the prayers for the same; so much so that when I was going to work the day after I was fresh as the newborn I was supposed to be.

The birthday in itself was not without some wonderful happenings. From the eve of the birthday, I was all over town trying to jump start myself into a celebratory mood. A drink there, football there, a chat there and some little dance there. That was all in the middle of the night and by the time we crossed over into the actual day in the company of the men I will refer to only as the Philosopher and DS, we had already generated enough memories for the night. The following day was punctuated by visits, calls, a barbecue and a few more drinks but on the high of it all I found myself hosting the prayers for our ward. Yes. Ku mphakati. Mphakati wa lachitatu unali kunyumba kwa Bambo ndi Mayi Kamwezi .  I think analengeza choncho kutchalitchi. Later in that evening I found myself being joined by more friends for more meat, chat and games (along with a bit of a drink, of course). Another special thing? My sister who isn’t a night crawler managed to walk in and crash the party around 2200 hours. Awesome things.

Throughout the day I found joy in taking a look at the WhatsApp and Facebook posts that people made. Worth noting was that there was this one picture of me that was trending with all sorts of captions on WhatsApp status posts. It is probably one of my best recent pictures and I was not surprised it was all over. I was however fascinated by the people who were posting pictures of me that I personally didn’t have (either they took them and didn’t share or I lost them). There was a mixture of tones in the messages that came through. Some were these good “happy birthday Mr Nice guy” messages while others were oscillating on the opposite side of good. And then there was the usual mukwatire stuff (its no longer mugwire nowadays). Looking at the messages, I felt like publicly replying to some of them through this article and sharing some of the lessons that I have learnt from them.

The first thing that came through my mind is the diversity of the tones in which the messages came through. Being a guy who considers himself 80 percent single, it was awesome to get “happy birthday, future husband” messages which helped to neutralize the “happy birthday, idiot brother” messages. There were a lot people who wrote these messages and they kept me busy. I tried to look at it with a positive eye when people I do not normally talk to called on the day, rather than take it that they had just remembered me for one day of the year and that they would go back to ignoring me for the rest of the year.

I was fascinated in particular by the way some people wrote my whole CV in their birthday posts citing how I am always there and how I handed them opportunities they needed the most (I probably am not that good). Others cited me as a mentor and a brother (the one thing I have been known to suck at) and these were all good things to hear. These are probably things some of you have not seen of me for a very good reason but hearing them drove a point home. It gladdened my heart to hear that there are people who have some good memories of me; those who regard me as a positive addition to their lives. Since I began to think about the purpose of life, I have always thought of life as something worth sharing and the fact that I have been able to share it with a few meant a lot.

And then came the milandu part. There were people who just couldn’t let the chance to drop nukes on me pass. One that caught my attention? The one fair lady to whom I was this awesome mentor in my days in college. To her, since we graduated I have been hardly available and she couldn’t help but wonder whether I had dropped her on the premise that I felt she was fully grown and independent. Maganizo aketu, eti? The thought of this dragged me to the idea of sharing my life and while I was celebrating that I had made some positive impact in other people’s lives, I felt like I had not done as much as I possibly could. This ended up being a challenge to me and perhaps after saving the screenshot of that post I will go back to the drawing board and figure out how I can be available for those in need.

Prior to the birthday, one Wanangwa Ndovi (I can’t help but mention this one) jumped on me with a 20 minute lecture on how I needed to “respond to the needs of my body and get married”. 20 minutes! This was followed by other numerous messages of nephews and nieces asking for their aunt and brothers and sisters asking for alamu. Another lost  soul went on to send a message on how I should settle for one lady as opposed to my habit of (in his view) introducing him to a new prospective candidate every week. I need to put it right out here that I do not introduce new ladies to this guy every week. He is probably just tired of waiting for me to get back to my dating days after close to two and a half years since my last relationship. Like any other social being, I have gotten excited about people and since he pushes me to ask what is going on, he has probably heard about 3 of them. Basitu. He thinks he can hold me ransom over that. On the other hand, the fact that he threw that in my face made me realize that there is a certain line of thought that categorizes me as someone who has overstayed in his single days and someone who is impatient and unforgiving when it comes issues of love and relationships. That is a story for another epistle, but I do realize that being 26 pushes my deadline of having a live copy of my DNA on a jumping castle is fast approaching. I will do something about it, I promise.

One thing that I noticed is that there were other people who preferred to post a picture of me on their status without actually throwing a direct message to me. The problem with that was that with calls and messages coming in from any of the 1171 WhatsApp contacts plus the friends around, it was difficult to take a peep at some status post. The result? Some walked to me asking what kind of heartless man couldn’t view their status when they had struggled to get the nice pictures posted and spiced them with a nice caption. I understand that sometimes we like to show the world that we are wishing people the best but we need to mind the audience. If you want to send me a message of congratulations or wishes to someone, you might want to ring them before you post it on Twitter where they may not be. The same is the case with me. You have to post it directly to me because you may never know if you are not on the list of people who are on the mute list. Tanenatu.

Having said all that, I think this was one of the best birthday celebration ever. I am still pondering on all the things that were said to me and I will surely respond with some positive action and words. Those who pledged piglets and bottles of Kombeza should honor their pledges just like my brother, Francis honored his (I won’t tell you what he pledged). I am 26 and old.