They Lied

 

It is one wonderful Friday and once again we get to gather under the shade of the Richie Online tree for a dose of some alternative wisdom in the form of fact-based opinions. Here we are.

When I wrote the article last week, I did not get much of feedback. I however found one of the two comments that I got very interesting. In an article where I was writing about the longevity of relationships, someone explained a different perspective that I have overlooked. Whereas I was talking about relationships lasting longer than they used to and most people in relationships taking it to the altar, this human explained how marriages are not lasting nowadays. That one got me. I do not want to spend much time commenting on this comment, but perhaps it is high time we balanced longevity of a relationship with the longevity of the institution of marriage.

On to the stuff of the day.

Yesterday happened to be Mother’s Day in Malawi. It is the day when we specially honor our mothers and celebrate them for the work they did in raising us. It is the sort of day on which I buy groceries for a certain amount and drop them by a Naphiri’s place only to get back home with things equaling or surpassing the value on the way back. That was the thing we all used to get criticized for back then. The Google age has brought in a different dimension. Mother’s day is more about people uploading pictures of their mothers on social media platforms, expressing how they miss their departed mothers and more interestingly others criticizing their friends for posting. I like the new line of criticism that came out this year. Not that I agree with the whole thing of criticizing one another for what people post (as I said, osamapangirana zochita), but I found it interesting to see someone bashing some people for posting their pastor’s wives with Mother’s day.  

 Joined the bandwagon of people who post pictures of their mothers on the day. There were a lot of reactions to the pictures and most of them were positive. Only a few people diverted from the focus of the pictures, my mum and went on to comment on my unkempt hair and beards. That was to be expected, anyway but that is not the point. The point is that there were people who took jabs at me for posting pictures of me and my mum while I did not do anything for her. Where they got the information on the latter, I am not sure.

This does not concern you that much, but I just want to give you a bit of the reasoning behind posting my mum on the day. I prefer to mark Mother’s day as the beginning of an appreciation week for my mum whose birthday falls within these days. We can all agree here that those of us who are privileged to have lived with our parents have something unique that we cherish them for. There is one thing about my mum and that is the fact that she knows how to start, hold and sustain a conversation. I can sit with that woman and chat for 3 hours straight and none of us would get bored. I hardly do that with any of my family members. I found myself thinking about that attribute when I began to compare my mum with other people with whom I ideally should be having good conversations. Anthu sititha kucheza out here.

Human interaction hinges on conversations and actions. Whether there is good interaction or bad blood between people mostly depends on conversations between two parties. Lately we have seen people compliment each other about kutha kucheza; entailing that the recipient of such good words mastered the art of human interaction. I regret to report to you that they lied. They are just excited about what you did at that particular moment. Simutha kucheza, ankolo. Well. Maybe you do. Here is my point.

The first important stage in interaction is picking who to interact with and for what. Not everyone you meet will be your friend in the long term. Some people, however, seem to not know or to deliberately ignore this fact. The result is that people tend to put too much effort into friendships that were not supposed to exist in the first place. Now those ones do not work as well as they are supposed to be and sometimes, they turn toxic.

The next important bit in the kucheza process is knowing what kind of topic to pick with who. Might not seem important but the subject of a chat needs to be thought through along the lines of context, person, relevance and other things along those lines. You cannot discuss everything with everyone. Just last night, I met a guy who just popped by where I was chatting with my friend at some bar and began telling us how he was robbed on the way from a drinking escapade a few days back. Did we care? No. We could not hide our boredom and we took out our phones breaking what was a phones off chat. And then people have this habit of bringing up sensitive issues with strangers; issues of sexuality and religion, for example. I like to believe that it is not just my opinion when I say that such issues need to be reserved for people with whom you have known well for some time. I have a couple of atheist friends, but I never have had the cajones to bring issues of religion when we have our casual chats. Guess why? They are not even relevant. I mean… Why not talk about football, movies or art? Some would wonder why I do not make the attempt to convert them. Story for another day.

Then there is the issue of knowing when to do what in a friendship. There are times that you need to amplify and times that you need to take a step back depending on the signs. Friendship are conceived for different reasons and end for different reasons too. It might be an issue of unfulfilled expectations. Sometimes people hear the wrong thing about you and begin to sideline you. These are things that happen but some of us do not handle them well and we tend to either miss or ignore the signs, ending up with forced friendships. This point cannot go without saying that friendship requires reciprocation as needed. When people do good things for you, you repay them with kindness. The opposite is not true, according to Christian teaching but the point is that noticing the kindness you used to get waning might be a sign that it is time to leave. Of course there is the issue of the balance between holding on to something that is not so useful and letting go of something that you could have benefitted from. Nkhani zovuta izi.

Like I said, not everyone knows how to handle these things in their entirety so if anyone told anyone that amatha kucheza, they lied.

A little confession.

When I posted that the title of today’s article would be what it is, I had not put together a single word on paper. I actually posted that to see if I could get any ideas and ideas I got. In the spirit of not disappointing those who contributed, let me share what people thought about people who lied.

We are a hundred and something days into the mandate of the Tonse gaffment (which rude people have decided to call goofment). A couple of weeks ago, el president presided over a media briefing in which he shared some of his achievements in his first 100 days in office. Some of you got mad and bashed the president for calling a glorifed presser to talk about achievements when he actually did not talk about achievements. Well. I will not comment on that despite some of you pushing me to write about it. I will however comment on the complacency and failure to implement the campaign promises on time on the new gaffment’s part. Remember 30 days amnesty? Have we heard of anyone returning money they stole from gaffment coffers? Expedited trials in corruption cases? A dedicated court for corruption cases? Hasn’t happened, right? Okay. I will not talk about 1 million jobs in the first year because we it is a bit too early; although I must admit that it doesn’t look too good. To some, the Tonse guys lied. Kuli nkhani ya ngongole iyi. Imeneyo ndisaipute kaye. I don't think it is time for me to start stepping on the toes of this government. Not yet, at least. 

Then there is the issue of the prophets of doom in the Covid-19. They somehow fed numbers to a computer and came up with a conclusion that millions of people were going to be infected and more than fifty thousand people will die. According to them, June and July were going to be the worst months to be a Malawian as we were going to be dying Italy style. Some people died, and the number may be higher than the one the official reports are showing but it surely is not 50k. There are probably more infections than we are made to believe, but they are not 15 million as others wanted to make us believe. Those guys lied to us.

I will also take liberty to remind you of your ex-spouses who told you that they could not live without you. You parted ways, but did they die? I put it to you, they lied too. And what about that guy who came to you and wanted a soft loan of ka fifty thousand. He said he will give you on Tuesday, right? Eeetu. Angongole. They lied too. Your prophet told you that you would get married by the end of 2019. Let’s not get into that, though.

A lot of people did say a lot of things to you. But they lied.