An Invitation to a Writing Party

It is another Friday. In the Catholic church, we like to describe days after landmark days or according to seasons, so we could safely say that this is the first Friday after Valentine’s Day ( or Men’s Conference or the All-Star weekend) depending on your likings, interests and sense of humor. Bottom line is that this is a Friday and as per tradition, we are here feeding on some opinions from the Richie Online HQ in Naperi.

Month number two of the year is getting to an end. I came into the year without bothering to draft any blueprint to guide me of how I would spend my time in the year. The effect to this, I had surmised, would be that I would be having episodes of idleness and moments when I could not feel like the year was taking forever to end. Things turned out to be the exact opposite.

You might agree with me that this year has been a bit of a nuisance and it has always been filled with events that have kept Malawians, who I have learnt are gullible and trigger-happy keyboard warriors on the social media very busy for almost every day. Think of it this way. This year gave us the conclusion to the constitutional court case whose end we all highly anticipated. Then there was the issue of the potential homicide case of the young lady in Lilongwe which turned everyone on Facebook and WhatsApp into an expert in detective work and forensic pathology. We continued marching against Jane Ansah and her MEC.

When the constitutional court ruling came, the country exploded into a frenzy. It looks, to me, like there are a lot of people who were not too happy with the results of the presidential elections. After we had sobered up, we began discussing the implications of the ruling and that was where we got busy learning and unlearning the complicated nature of partisan politics. To add to that, the respondents in the case decided to appeal and get stay orders. Tic toc. Then there was the Public Appointments Committee of the August House which came in with it’s inquiry on the competence of the electoral commission. You must have enjoyed the proceedings on the radio. Just as we were about to get bored, the ruling party came in with it’s own demonstrations, demanding justice. Now those ones kept us busy for all the reasons, most of them wrong. I will not get into that though.

If you begin to think about it, the days in this year have just been flying by. People even went on to joke that this year’s January did not have that much of a sting when compared with the other years because it was so fast-paced we didn’t realize we were broke.

I earlier talked about how I did not write any sort of scribbling to guide my time expenditure in this year of 2020 and how I thought the decision would leave me idle and bored. Turns out not. It has been a year full of things popping out of nowhere and just as I was thinking that relinquishing some responsibilities would make things better, more things popped up to clutter my desk. If you are to ask me, a 2020 day lasts about 22 hour and 15 minutes and a week lasting 6 days flat. Each and every time it gets to Friday, I always find myself wondering why the job of finding content for this blog has come a bit too early in the week and I have realized that I am hardly keeping up. When I look at the next few months to check if things will get any better, all I am getting is an assurance that it will get worse. This is why I have this proposition. I will rent out this blog to some who have fact-based opinions to share.

We have, previously seen articles from the likes of the Venomous Hope, Pemphero Mphande, Alexious Kamangila, TD Rambiki and many others. If you thought those were the only humans who could write in the Richie Online community, well, you might need to think again because there are plenty of those. I am pretty sure that people will come up and fill these spaces with articles while I am away. Eeetu. Inuyo mudzitilemberako apa. Osamangowerenga. If you can read, you can write.

Some of you might be wondering why I have gotten to the point of thinking of dropping writing on a platform I have touted as my number one tool for venting the hot gases in the enclosure of my skull. Well. I might have found a girlfriend to whom I am talking nowadays. Or maybe I won’t need to vent in the next few months. The big reason, however, would be that I have with time learnt that whenever you have something important to do, you need to lay off a few less important things to make time for the one that matters. I can hear you calling me Captain Obvious, but that is alright.

In my early years of college, I learnt an important lesson from an example that I cannot believe that I am using. I am sure that you know a thing or two about supplementary examinations. At some gossipers came to me to tell me the demographics of the people they had seen on campus, preparing for supplementary examinations. The campus, obviously had some religious diversity, but even without belonging to a particular denomination, one would notice that there were heavyweights in each of the denomination groupings. What this human concluded, then was that the people who were the most dedicated to church things dominated he supplementary examination demographic. Followed by those who used to spend entire weekends and a majority of their weekdays in the bar and at Kabila tavern. I would like to think that it was a coincidence because other azitsogoleri used to do pretty well.

On one Friday, I was walking about on campus when I bumped into this human who was a dedicated church-goer and charismatic preacher. Well. On top of going to a traditional church, the guy was a leading member of the youth wing of one of the popular ministries at the time. Now this was the meeting day for his traditional congregation on the campus and there was an activity going on at his ministry. I asked him why he was not in any of the gatherings and he told me that he was going to study for examinations that were on in a few days. He added that he wanted to make use of the Friday night because he had yet another school to go to for a preaching over the weekend. Closer to home, there were guys who despite being in senior medical school classes (which qualifies you to give the ndimakhala bize excuse to almost everything) were teaching Sunday School classes at St Montfort CI church. Somehow they managed to get through without much difficulty.

Now I am not saying that church activities were associated with supplementary examinations. I would say the same about alcohol. I do not think that I was that dedicated at church when I had my taste of supplementary examinations. I would just like to point out that I have learnt from the school preacherman and the Sunday school teachers. There are times that you have to multitask and there are times that you have to leave one thing and focus on the other. Prioritization of tasks is one skill worth harnessing and I hope all of you master it.

Perhaps this is time for me to take a break from Richie Online. We will see.

Let me, then, call upon all of you to bring on your articles in the seven or so weeks that I will be away. Rules are simple. 1400 words max, or two A4 pages. Font size 11 and face Callibri.

Nafe timve nawo kuti mmutu mwanumo mumayenda chani.

Have a nice weekend.

That Screenshot

Greetings. It is yet another Friday and once again we get to converge on this blog to have a feel of what is going out of the vents on the head of today’s author. As we said, this is a venting platform which comes with traces of radical opinions and traces of wisdom on a rare day. Today is one typical day and we will do exactly that.

It is Valentine’s day and this means that the number of hits on this article will go down as people are busy sorting out their love lives. Or admiring others who are busy doing so. A Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you who celebrate the day. As for those of you who are like me, tiyeni tidzipanga zathu. The LORD remains our shepherd and he will lay us in greener pastures.

On to the issue of the day…

The day was Saturday, the 8^th of February, 2020. I was at home and glued to La Liga TV thanks to the combination of weekend boredom, loneliness and my love for Spanish football. There happened to be a game between RCD Espanyol and Mallorca, teams you probably have never heard about. It was not so surprising, then that I had my phone in hand, texting and scrolling through other social media pages. Having exhausted chats with people who are usually on my texting list and received blue ticks from my crush, it was time to close WhatsApp and switch to Facebook.

I should say something about Facebook before we go on with this. There are a lot of people who think that is some sort of outdated social network which has no place in a modern person’s life in the 2020s. I beg to differ because I still find Facebook interesting. There are those people who send you a friend request without knowing you prior and without any purpose whatsoever. Then there are those people who people deem authorities in current affairs; those humans who always have an analytical opinion on each and every current affair in the country. I, like many normal humans with intellect prefer the latter. Then there are those funny humans who are posting memes, the news pages, celebrity and entertainment pages and those who post pictures with the caption “FB sungire”. They all make the network interesting in their own way.

I was nicely scrolling on my news feed when I found something that caught my eye. Now this was a post on a social group called Stress Free Malawi. For some that may not know what this group is all about, it seeks to relieve stress. People generally post satire things which attract satire comments. Others come and read the comments and there it ends. On another note, the group can be a bit of a meme-generator as some posts and comments end up being taken as screenshot and posted by meme lords and ladies on other social networks.

By now, you probably know where I am going with this. This human had posted on this stress-relief group; asking us single people how we were going to survive Valentine’s Day. Now in as much as I am single, I have not lost a single hair on my head and I do not have a headache because of the singleness. I did not expect to have a diagnosis of disseminated nyekhwelitis secondary to prolonged singleness (that’s what doctors would write in your health book), so in my mind I wanted to convey a message; that being single would not make the day any different. My premise was that there are some holidays and prominent days that some of us have survived despite not having any direct involvement. To me, a single person on Valentine’s Day is just like a Muslim on Christmas day or a Christian on the Eid-ul-fitr holiday. For some reason, however, I chose to illustrate this with a rather extreme example and I ended up asking how the person who made the original post thought people without AIDS survive on World AIDS day. The comment was made and the local man continued scrolling without giving it much thought.

After an early retirement to bed, I found myself waking to five messages containing the screenshot of the post and the comment I had made. Well. Maybe people saw it, found it funny and took a screenshot. Those who have never had some actual personal time with me could not believe it was me and others sought to clarify if it was really me. As the day went, things got crazy because the messages started coming in from people whose contacts I actually did not have prior. Surprisingly, the messages and statuses kept coming from all over, days after. Common caption? “Mwatchuka”. Now I do not think that the viral nature of the post amounted to fame for me; without an explanation but I would like to comment on things I learnt.

The first thing is about the personality of me, as Richard Kamwezi. I have had people describe me in a lot of different ways, some of which are in direct opposition to others. The fact that some people were surprised with the comment I made to the extent of seeking verification as to whether it was me who had actually thought of an typed such a comment in such a group makes me think that they did not see it coming and they were not ready for that side of me. Well. There is another side of this coin and it has what is called a sense of humor.  Then came the doctor card because some thought that a person who is a doctor should not be making such comments. Well. I beg to differ. I think we all need a lighter moment and such forums provide a way of blowing off steam. These are chat groups comments on which some of us like to read. If we can read and enjoy what others are posting, why not comment and let others read too?

One open-minded friend of mine who happens to be a faithful reader on this page wondered why the thing that took my name to a social media blowout was a satirical comment when I had spent years writing proper articles on an established platform (of sorts). That might say something about my marketing skills for my blog which now has a readership of less than 80 hits per article on peak days nowadays. Perhaps, however, it also says something about the gullible nature of the human soul. Timakonda zinthu.

If you are to ask me or others who are experts at jokes (tsk tsk), what I had done here was to recycle and old joke and repackage it to suit the situation. Nothing serious. Someone thought it was funny and sent it to a Marymount alumni group and automatically others, who originally did not think it was funny found the joke in it and started throwing it around. Well. Not how I planned it, but it happened anyway. A recycled joke is not supposed to cross borders, though. But it did and six days after the post I am still receiving the screenshot. You like things, you people; our elections case, our commissioners, our Bushiri, our snakes and all that stuff. 

So, how has it been in my few days of having a screenshot of my stupid comment go viral? Well. Pretty normal. I like to be low key and do not like to have my name circulating. I realized one thing, though. Not many would pay attention to the name, and even if they did, they would hardly put it to a face. Well. Even if they did, then what? I will tell you one thing that has been very irritating, though. I have been having people resuscitating fossilized friendships just because they have gotten a screenshot with my name on it. Well. I guess some things we just have to bear with. I am glad, though that no one has come to me to complain that they found the thing offensive. If you have, my apologies. Timangocheza.

If you could remind me, I would like to write an article about how not to love next week.

Reporting live from the Men’s Conference.

Perhaps you could talk a look at the 2014 and 2016 Valentine's Day articles from Richie Online on the links below. 

Valentine's Day 2014

Valentine's Day 2016

Excitement

It is yet another wonderful Friday. The country has sort of quietened down from the noise of the judgement of the constitutional court and the press release the president gave us. Now that you are looking out of things to talk about for now, I guess you can have time to read and reflect on the wisdom from Naperi.

If you have noticed, nowadays this blog is sort of running away from focusing on current affairs. The reason is simple. The motto of the blog suggests it is all about giving fact-based opinions; opinions substantiated by facts or alternative facts (if such things exist). Today, however I will talk about some current affairs to set the pace for the topic of excitement, which we will be discussing today.

When the registrar of the high court announced that the judgement of the court would be announced on Monday, the 3rd of February, 2020, everyone got excited about it. By the said time of 900 hours, everyone was tuned in to a radio of sorts, probably expecting a 30 minute to one hour pronouncement; not unlilke yours truly. Somehow, the hours passed until it was way after working hours when the judges indicated that they wanted to consult security personnel about whether they could continue or call it a day. They were given a nod to continue and they went on. Then came the judgement which declared the presidential election not credible and the incumbent not duly credible.


I was half asleep but from the peep on WhatsApp and other social networks, I could see that people were excited. I was periodically woken up by the person in our area who had decided that to celebrate he needed to play some loud celebratory music. There was whistling, dancing and jeering that probably lasted until close to midnight. You might be wondering why I am narrating this with a tone that sounds like I am excluding myself from those who were excited with the verdict. I was, but the judgement was more shocking than it was exciting to me. To be honest, I never expected the judges to rule against the electoral body.

Days later, there were speeches and addresses declaring the interest to appeal and all, but eventually the excitement is dying down with people considering the election and how best the majority vote (50%+1) can be achieved in the election. I will not comment on who I think will win or how this whole thing will go, but since everyone’s excitement is down I will talk about why I was not excited about the judgement; I had thought about the implications and I realized we were not out of the woods yet. I mean… What if the same party and candidate win the fresh election? Or better still, what if a different person wins but pulls a performance that is below our expectations? That is the pessimist in me, but now that we are there, I will transition to the issue of the day which is excitement.

On one beautiful afternoon, I got tired of working and I went downstairs to see a friend. After I pulled her out of the office and dragged her to the café, I spent a whole lot of time (probably half an hour) lecturing her about how it was not good to thrive on excitement. Excitement is not a good thing to hinge on when making decisions, I repeatedly said. When I was done making noise, she asked me as to why I had been given her the lecture and my response was simple and honest, although not complete; I was talking to myself. At the time, there were some exciting opportunities that were being dangled in my face. Some were career related, and on the other part there was this beautiful girl with whom I was clicking. Well. I managed to get the career opportunity, because it is the internship I was talking about last week. As you can guess, things did not go so well on the other side and I am still single, which is why I was continually reminding myself not to get excited about the whole thing from the start. It was a prophylaxis that worked to my good.

Over the years, there have been things that have been exciting us and driving us into a frenzy; some so routine and others not. We have all seen the excitement that comes with the festive season, year in year out. And there are those random things that happen around like demonstrations. We ended up hailing what we loved to call the Msundwe brigade (and some still do) despite the death of a police officer and the dirty police brutality that followed. We all become forensic pathologists or defense attorneys depending on whether it is a murder or a constitutional court case that is trending but all that might not matter much to us (though it does to others). What matters are these Ponzi schemes that are dangled to us like carrots in front of a rabbit, prompting us to join and make easy money.

At some point after I graduated, someone introduced me to something called Bitcoin. Now this was the time when the concept of cryptocurrencies was only coming out. It seemed to be a very popular thing by then; you put in a few hundred thousands and the money keeps swelling until you decide that you have had enough and you want your money back. Now, this was way before I had gotten crazy enough to start reading about the block chain, the Satoshi white papers and everything I read about cryptocurrencies (if you are into that sort of thing). I have sort of upped my game lately and I am able to read all that, so I understand the upside and downside of sing cryptocurrencies over central banking (which is the normal way that we all use). Over the years, we have seen a lot of cryptocurrencies and the amount of money people have lost in crypto scams in Africa alone is huge. For those of you that like reading, you might want to look up the crypto-queen. Spoiler alert. What you will get are articles about one Dr Ruja Ignatova who went away with over $3 million in people’s money, invested as cryptocurrency. At the moment, we have things like Jamalife and AIM Global which a few of the people I know are into. People are busy showing us the things they sell and the networks they make to make a lot of money and I am hoping it is what they are showing us. Then there is the betting syndrome. A few people who once in a while succeed and get some millions have swayed most from reality and people are getting addicted to betting. Excitement with easy money.

I wanted to talk about the excitement people get to have when they have met new potential lovers or when the relationship is just starting but I do not want to be called a disgruntled person like the founders of the UTM party. I will, instead talk about the excitement that is building up for next week. As a lot of you who produce a bit of oxytocin might know, next week is Valentine’s day. I know so because I have seen posts from friends who are taking orders of Valentine’s day gifts (Avon products, dresses from China and so on). There is a lot of excitement, and some of us who are oxytocin deficient are wondering whether the excitement is warranted. But tili ndi vuto, so do not feel guilty if you feel like we are a bit weird.

All in all, like I told this female colleague of mine and reminded myself, it is not good to thrive on excitement. When you are excited, it is not always easy for one to make sound decisions with positive results that have a bit of what we call longevity. We have seen it in politics (moto wa mapesi, zikuni za utsi, Mgwirizano Coalition ndi zinzake). We have also seen it in Ponzi schemes with people losing money to a promise of a better life and massive returns. Most of those do not work. We shouldn’t talk about love lives because at the end of the day we tend to be living in good health without the people we told we can’t live without. Basitu. Life goes on.

Who wants to hang out this coming Sunday afternoon, by the way? Just come. But don’t be excited.