One on Professionalism

 It is yet another Friday. These days are supposed to be fun days with the social media frenzy starting on Thursday night with the “quarter to Friday” posts. This, however, is January and people do not have the financial muscle Friday. Adding to that, it is 2021 and Covid-19 is raging on. The new Covid-19 measures mean that a modern-day Friday is just another glorified Thursday but we at Richie Online have committed to maintaining the tradition of bringing some random thoughts through these articles.

It is hard to talk about anything without dragging the coronavirus into it nowadays so I will start with the President’s latest speech on the Covid-19 pandemic. Do not worry, though. I am not about to start punching holes into it although I must admit that I have a pathological itching for doing that to speeches to the man who constantly called APM’s speeches “empty” in his tenure as the Leader of Opposition. What I want to comment on, however is what he said after directing the Treasury to release funds to those who are responsible for managing the Covid-19 situation in the country. In his words, he pointed out how he did not expect any excuses from the Treasury as the disbursement of the funds was a matter of urgency. The mention of excuses had me wondering whether the excuses are some sort of default setting which the President was expecting to get had he not cautioned against such.

Those of you that have worked in or had interaction with the civil service would agree with me that processes are generally slow in the government machinery. For one reason or the other, things like processing a transfer, changing a pay point, getting information and many other seemingly simple tasks seem to take forever by the simple fact that they are happening in the civil service. I have tried to explore the reasons as to why that is the case and while I think some of the information is inaccurate, I feel like I may have some of the answers.

The first reason that one can think of when it comes to the talk of why things move at a three-toed sloth’s pace in the civil service is the issue of resistance to change. The core of the civil service is manned by some old guards who have developed complacency and the habit of postponing and delaying things that do not directly affect them. When young and innovative minds join, they are first filled with enthusiasm before they slowly get infected with the business as usual virus and begin to walk in the footsteps of their seniors.

Then there is this sense of pathological entitlement to money and things. People simply want extra money for doing things that were part of their job description in the first place. I once was told a story of someone who wanted to transfer from Zomba to Blantyre in the same ministry and department of the gaffment. After paying several visits to the Capitol Hill, one person on that end offered to help expedite the process upon being given “a little something”. That is the government machinery we have right now and before you start blaming politicians for messing this country up (and you should), you need to think of the people who are running the show. By the way, the person in question had to go to the Capitol several times because on multiple occasions the Human Resources people responsible were out for meetings. There you go, then. People want meetings with allowances as they best serve their personal interests. Have you ever tried to ask for information or materials from the government? These are things that people give for free at the completion of a formal request or click of a button. Here? People would ask you to give them money for data on how many primary schools there are in Chiradzulu district. Infuriating.

I would be unfair if I were to come here full of emotion to write about how the civil service has been filled with professionalism if I do not talk about the other areas where professionalism is lacking. The media comes to mind first. Over time, we have seen the deterioration in journalism standards. I, in particular like online publications and the Malawian online news leaves a lot to be desired. Day in and day out we see a lot of non-news items making it to the pages of our most visited online publications. As if that is not enough, these pieces of 21^st century, social media oriented, click-bait reports are plagued with grammatical errors and typos that the most basic editing should be able to sort out. One tends to wonder whether these so-called media houses even have editors or at least someone who checks whether an article is fit for consumption. I mean… Even at Richie Online we at least make sure that someone has a quick read and corrects some of the inaccuracies and the typos before an article gets published. Turns out our friends from the media do not care.

Then there are our television stations and their polarization towards the government. Back then when Malawi was being governed by APM and his blue army, this was the problem we had with the state broadcaster. For the private stations, however, it was hard to distinguish as to whether they were inclusive or anti-DPP/pro-opposition taking it from the fact that they used to cover opposition activities. All in all, the playfield was leveled owing to the visibility of the opposition on public television stations. At the dawn of the new regime, we saw the President and his Minister of (mis)Information pledging that the state television was going to be a station for all. They categorically stated that MBC was going to be inclusive and that they had directed the institution to stop being the ruling elite’s mouthpiece but right from the start those of us who were observing saw something wrong. Before the final result of the June 2020 election were announced, MBC was already broadcasting a Lazarus Chakwera documentary. One would wonder as to when this footage was filmed and edited, but somehow the state broadcaster had been working in the background covering all the possibilities. I would not be surprised if they have documentaries of Mr Peter Dominico Sinosi Driver Kuwani in their archives at this rate but that is not the point. The later day has seen most of the main local TV stations turn their microphones and cameras to the president and his (insert adjective of choice) cabinet. Are our television stations professional? I will leave that to you.

Then there is you and me. We sign contracts with our respective employers agreeing that we will be working from 7:30 to 4:30 with an hour-long lunch break. Did you show up at a good time at work today? I bet only half the people reading this can claim to have done so and some of them would be lying. Perhaps some of us are the kind that demand to get extra money for performing our duties or to undress ladies before employing or promoting them. Maybe some of us are not employed but running our own businesses and we are the kind who commit to obligations with no intentions whatsoever of honoring our pledges. If you are one of these, you are what is wrong with this country and could use some exorcism from the spirits of complacency and unprofessionalism, if there is such a word.

Last year was what we could happily call a year of interesting court cases. Remember the young lady who died under controversial circumstances? I remember reading many sworn affidavits from that case which got me wondering if those documents were supposed to be in free circulation on social media while the case was ongoing. I may not be a law professional, but my thoughts were that I was not supposed to see some of those things. While I may be wrong on the issue of legal documents, one thing that was disappointing was the fact that the social media was awash with memos that were supposed to be circulating within very tight circles. At some point, I remember seeing a memo from a government office to a private health facility. When I asked people from the office in question, they sadly told me that the memo was leaked before it got to its destination. That is the age we are in now. The age in which people’s pathological urge to unnecessarily share information supersedes their professionalism and ethics.

I have said a lot in this article and do not have to pick out the specific lessons. I am not sure about how to fix the civil service but I am sure someone up there knows. Maybe one day the reforms will begin to work on the ground and sanity will trickle down from Capitol Hill to the least of offices. Maybe. Just maybe when that happens then the wave of sanity will spread to the private and corporate sectors and our politicians will follow suit. I still look forward to the day when our service providers and businesspeople will act in a professional manner and honor their obligations. Yes! The day I will walk into an office and ask for data for my research without having to pay anyone.

Have a great weekend and remember that the fight against the coronavirus pandemic starts with you.

Now that you have seen it all

It is that time of the week again and once again we had to put up something fresh for the masses to read. By the masses I mean the 30 or so dedicated Richie online readers and a similar number to whom they pass the articles. To you, our dear regular leaders goes our word of thanks. We have started the year on a high note with good reception to the two Friday articles and the recently published mid-week piece. I guess there was a bit of wisdom in that but now I am about to ruin it. Well. Maybe not.

A couple of weeks ago, one man who takes me for some serious chap asked me as to what I thought my year 2020 was like and he was shocked when I told him that it was a wasted year. Here is what I meant. I did manage to do a few things relating to work. I added a few things to my failure resume and a few more to my success one but there wasn’t much positivity from it. Perhaps I may have judged myself harshly because my life revolves around my career but outside of that things were not good either.

To black out my 2020 pain, I turned to the book and to standup comedy. Guess what I was reading? The writings of Jeremy Clarkson. If you do not know who this guy is, this is one brilliant motoring presenter who was fired from the BBC for launching an unprovoked physical assault at a colleague because apparently there was no hot foot served on set while they were shooting an episode of a popular programme called Top Gear. At the time, the BBC had had enough of Jeremy’s behavior and not even the 1 million signature petition to reinstate him could save him. That is the man whose writings I spent my time on last year so you must understand when I say it was a wasted yet.

Apart from the books, one other useless thing I spent my time on was stand-up comedy. Now those of you who know me know pretty well that I cannot stand a comedy movie. I do not like funny characters but I surely like it when people go on stage and say funny things without having to wear the mask of a character. This is why I found the energy to download and repeatedly watch every Dave Chappelle comedy special as part of my gap filling and entertainment. I would like to tell you about one of those specials.

This one is called the Age of Spin and it was performed in the American city of Los Angeles. Apart from the weed, OJ Simpson and Kelvin Hart jokes, Dave Chappelle introduces one interesting concept that had me wondering on which side of luck our generation is. He started this joke by asking someone how old they were and when they mentioned 25, he dismissed them saying they were too young to know anything; adding that the younger generation must search on Google to know things he lived through.  He then went on to highlight how this is the age of spin when it is hard to care about anything because of the saturation of information and the way that events adverse or otherwise happen so frequently. He cited bombings all over the globe and mass shootings in the USA as something that is hard to keep track off considering how frequent they are. I found that concept interesting and lately it got me thinking about both lucky and unlucky our generation has been.

Most of the people who read these articles were born in the 80’sand 90’s and witnessed the turn of the millennium at a relatively young age. This is the generation that grew up listening to the radio and not watching satellite television. Some of you may remember Patrick Mphaka and his 5 Moba (however they spell it) program and how scary it was for a young mind. Witnessing the turn of the millennium was something big for most but is something that we do not really consider in our adult life.

Then we come to politics. While some of you may have been lucky to have been “aware” of what was going on during the Kamuzu regime, some of us started out with going to Bakili Muluzi’s rallies. That guy could stand on the podium for an hour and tell jokes about how he saw a woman’s underwear from the podium and people would still clap. He unconstitutionally tried to contest for his third term as president and we all know how that ended. Then came “the” Bingu (some have said if he was the leader we would have been in a lockdown with the police under orders to shoot to kill anyone found galivanting in the streets), his first term, landslide victory, falling out with his second in command, struggles of the third term and death while in office. We all saw that transition and what happened to the end of that term and beyond. Fast forward to 2019, there were those elections and how they were overturned to ensure that we have the current regime; that by the way promised us 1 million jobs in the first year of office. All these may seem ordinary when you don’t think much about them but growing up watching the political drama has been a marvel.

In our time, we have seen what is probably the best jump when it comes to the advancement in communications technology. When I was growing up in the suburb of Mbulumbuzi, no one in the whole area had a cellphone except for two rich gentlemen. And you know what? They had to pay a bill at MTL at the end of every month. Then came the influx of cellphones with Zain (the modern day Airtel) offering the ugly orange themed ZTE phone and TNM offering the ugly and small Tiago.  That was the local situation but globally we also saw the improvement which came with Android phones. Now droids replaced Symbian phones as the gadget for the elite and later  we saw the iPhone come to the scene. That has been good save for one thing. Smart phones are now in the hands of dumb people who do not have a better use of them other than trolling others on Twitter. That is the problem with our generation. We are used to these times in which we can be disrespectful to others without getting punched in the face for it.

Where are my sports fans at? Have you notices that our generation has the best athletes in almost every sports discipline? If we start with football, we are living in the ear of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo who are the best players of this age (I will park this). I am not a big fan of him but one has to give credit to one LeBron James as one of the all-time greats if not the greatest in basketball. Should I say something about Stephen Curry? We have seen the likes of Michael Phelps in swimming, Lance Armstrong in cycling, Ussain Bolt in sprinting, Kipchoe in marathon running, Simmone Biles in gymnastics and Lewis Hamilton in motor racing. These guys have pulled up impressive numbers and performances. I could go on to mention the likes of Rodger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in tennis along with the Williams sisters in the same sport. Tiger Woods in golf? You know the story. Then we have Mwawi Kumwenda, the netball genius who secured her own Puma shoe deal. Gaba? Ask me his story when you are done reading this.

Perhaps some of you may not relate to the names of the sports personalities I have mentioned but you can surely relate to the coronavirus. I am pretty sure that this virus has affected each and everyone in different ways. I know a couple of readers who will be going through this article while in isolation, nursing symptoms of the Rona. This event may not be the most pleasant, but it might be the highlight of our generation and now that we have seen it all, we need to survive this. Know why? Just so we can tell our grandchildren about it. In all honesty, I cannot wait to sit down with my children’s children only to lie to them about how all of you died and how it was just me  and 15 other people left with the job of rebuilding and repopulating the country. That could be a cool story until after they come around snooping and find this text about how I planned to lie to them 60 years earlier.

Perhaps this article may not have the same energy as the chainsaw manifesto I published on Tuesday. It may not be filled with the same lessons as the first two articles of the year but here are the two things you need to take from it. First one. Big things may happen to us but sometimes we do not notice them because we never take some time to reflect on what it going on and appreciate how significant. I call upon you today to take stock of your life and learn to appreciate the good experiences and to draw lessons from the not so good ones. The second one, of course is that on the coronavirus. The reminders cannot get too loud. We have known about the preventive measures for some time but one thing I need to talk about is the issue of selective prevention. There are some who observe preventive measures in the office but cannot do the same when they go home or to the local market. There are some who ae observing the measures but are not taking time to remind people they are always in close contact with to follow suit. Your spouse, maid, sibling, workmate, that church mate or everyone to whom you are close could be the reason you get infected.  The same thing we have said to covidiots that it is not about them will apply to you who are trying to stay safe; IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU! When protecting yourself, remind others who are close to you to do the same.

Now that you have seen it all and read this article, I wish you a wonderful weekend.

Dedicated to Wongani “Spentac” Kamfutso, who until his passing on Thursday January 14^th 2021 was an ardent Richie Online reader. May His Soul Rest in Eternal Peace.

Controlling the Covid-19 Narrative

It is not a Friday, but we shall do this, anyway.

Picture the year 1985.

The United States of America is on the thick of what is called the war on drugs. The government is using every relevant law-enforcement agency to prevent the influx, distribution and use of drugs into and within US borders. At the start of the battle, it is the police, the military, immigration, coast guard and FBI in the thick of this fight. Later, the leadership decides that it is important that they have an agency dedicated to the war on drugs and in 1973 the Drug Enforcement Administration is established. It is an underfunded organization whose headquarters is in some commercial building on top of a restaurant or something of the sort. At the end of the day, there is some sort of organization that is the face of the US war on drugs and the boys get cracking. They establish offices within the US and in Mexico. By this time, the biggest worry when it comes to drugs is not the white powder (cocaine) or heroin but rather weed (marijuana) which comes from Mexico by the tons.

Across the southern border in Mexico, Miguel-Angel Felix Gallardo has united all the drug trafficking organizations and formed an empire that is backed by higher levels of politicians and law enforcement personnel. And then the DEA steps in. They collaborate with local law enforcement in making busts of trucks carrying drugs across the border, but these are relatively small and sometimes they are gifted to them by the drug cartels as decoys. The agents ask for more personnel, security and equipment to no avail. They are told to be satisfied with their accomplishments and the much-needed support until one of them, Kiki Camarena gets tortured to death in 1985. His main sin was to discover a 200-acre field of marijuana on which hundreds of growers worked. His efforts then lead to the burning of the whole field costing the traffickers hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. He is then abducted, tortured and killed by the cartel. Upon the discovery of his death, the DEA and CIA go into overkill and send all sorts of men and surveillance equipment for the protection of agents in Mexico. Years down the line, DEA agents in Colombia and Mexico go on to say they feel untouchable and protected from Cartels because Kiki was their “Jesus” who died for their security. It took a death for them to act. You know where I am going with this, right?

Lets fast forward to 2019 and 2020.

We start hearing about the coronavirus that is causing all sorts of trouble and killing people in China. We sit back because China is halfway across the globe even though our little cousin is in China doing his postgraduate education in some undocumented part of China north of Beijing. The pandemic rages on and wreaks havoc in Iran and Italy. Still. No cause for alarm despite the people who visit such countries. At this point, we are several months into the new year and the virus is spreading across the globe and hitting our neighboring countries. We go on with elections (and I will not talk about the stupidity we spat in campaign rallies) saying that we need to sort out regime change before a new government leads us into the fight against the virus. By the time the new government gets in, the precedent has been set. People are so used to crowded rallies at Masintha ground and they no longer feel the need to protect themselves. No one is dying, after all, we console ourselves. Some die but we continue with our laid-back attitude towards the pandemic.

As 2020 comes to an end we hear of new developments. Now these are both positive and negative. On one hand, there is a vaccine that has been developed. On the other, there is a new strain of the virus which has more teeth than the old one. We sit back again and continue to gather at Zodetsa to eat meat with zero regard to social distancing or any other preventive measures.

It is now 2021. The numbers of cases are rising. Every single day you hear people talking about losing a loved one or someone they know to Covid-19. The statistics that people were casually posting have now turned into names of actual people with friends and family. Though not newsworthy we keep seeing articles of so-called high-profile people in our local councils, churches and villages dying of the disease. Everybody begins to see the realities of the pandemic, but the reaction remains diverse.

How am I doing so far? Did I miss anything?

Present day: Tuesday, January 12^th 2K21.

A normal morning turns into a sad one for the nation when we learn that we have lost two cabinet ministers to Covid-19. The stay safe message gets amplified all over the social media and some express their shock at the death of the cabinet ministers. Other lash out and point out that these are not the first people to lose their lives to the novel coronavirus. A Presidential address is called and we are ordered to fly the national flag at half mast (somehow this reminds me of one Jimmy Hoffa; read about him) in the two-day mourning period for (and I quote) the “ministers and other people who we have lost to the virus”. A state of national disaster is declared. The president goes on to indicate his intention to meet the presidential task force on Covid-19 and to direct relevant ministries to review their Covid-19 prevention guidelines. He then rightly reminds all of us to not relax with the preventive measures and encourages us that no matter what happens, we will prevail.

After the reaction of the masses to the recent deaths and the government’s reaction to the deaths of the ministers, there are many who are wondering whether the government was waiting for the big people to die to come up with decisive action. I have been wondering whether we all needed to see someone we know die before we could realize that wearing a mask and physical distancing is important. With the 1985 story I shared, I cannot help but wonder whether we needed a Kiki Camarena to die for us to realize how serious a pandemic this is.

I will start with the government because if I am to weigh the entity with which I have more issues between the public and the government machinery, then I would side with the government on this one. As we know, the world is a global village. When we heard of a raging virus, many knew that it was just a matter of when and not a matter of whether it was going to come. Our preparedness was very scanty if any and the decisions that have been made over time have been erratic. Lockdown today, campaign rally tomorrow. One might blame the transition but to be honest there has not been much of a difference in the handling of the pandemic if you compare the governments. It is a little disappointing to learn that the president is going to meet the presidential (whaaaat!) task force to map out the way forward after what I may call a “trigger”. Forgive my emotions but I was of the idea that these things were supposed to be regular and whenever necessary we were supposed to have adjustments to the measured in response to the situation. Again, you will forgive. I am a utopian thinker who is at the time overcome with emotion.

And now I should deal with you, dear reader. We may blame the government machinery all we want but, in all honesty, the public is the driver of the pandemic. When we got so absorbed with regime change and decided to be congregating at Masintha for DPP and Tonse rallies, we clapped for our leaders when they said we do not have the virus in our midst. When we heard of deaths, we said the government was faking the deaths for its own benefit. Now we have turned on the politicians who we sided with then and we are calling them bad. The hypocrisy in this is top notch and hard to entertain. But ok.

We have seen that the second wave of the virus continues to rage on, but we have continued to live our lives normally. Church here. Walking unprotected in the market. Borrowing a mask to get into a bank. All sorts of things are happening. Some have risen to the top of covidiocy and decided not to acknowledge the existence or seriousness of Covid-19. To them, malaria has a bigger body count than Covid-19 so all this talk about Covid-19 is useless. If you are of this view, let me give you a little lecture about something called a health system. Such a system consists infrastructure, personnel, resources and policies among other things. With Covid-19, the thing you should be worried is not just your death or the death of your loved one. You should also worry about the capacity of the health system to handle the pandemic. If we get many people infected, some will have severe illnesses that may require admission. Health workers will get infected and need to be isolating to an extent that there will be no one to attend to that malaria patient that you are worried about. There will hardly be people to attend to other medical and surgical emergencies. I could on and on but before you propagate stupid arguments, you might want to think about this.

People who study pandemics have highlighted that our way out of this is a vaccine and otherwise the coronavirus will be here to stay. According to them, if there is no effective vaccine, the virus will continue to infect people. Some will die while the others will be building immunity and the cycle will continue. There are some people called antivaxxers; people who refuse to receive vaccines. The popular narrative out here is that this vaccine is related to the biblical 666 and that there is some sort of microchip which is a satanic tag in the vaccine. I will not give my theological perspective here, but I would like to say that this could never be wrong. I was disheartened to see a clip of some area in Malawi where school was disturbed because someone alerted the pupils that there were people who had come to give them the Covid-19 vaccine. If I remember well, the Secretary for Health mentioned that we may get the first batch some time in June and it would be for health workers and other essential personnel. I am not sure as to where people got this information that the vaccine was in from but somehow, they disturbed school proceedings. Now this is unfortunate because we are already seeing resistance to the vaccine, but more so because people are acting on misinformation. How would someone cause a commotion over a vaccine when we do not have a single vial of the same?

I could go on typing this but one thing that I have learnt from the President, the Minister of Information and one friend who works in a mental health facility is that we need to accept the situation we are in with positivity. At this point, there will be so much information flying in all directions. We will keep seeing people we know, and love die, and people will be posting about the friends and family they have lost. We need not to panic. Our way out of this is prevention and positivity. If we panic, we may end up suffering other things other than Covid-19 itself. If we can and if we need to, we must stay away from negative publicity and we must not propagate negative news on Covid-19. Not everyone may be strong enough to handle it. Also, avoid spreading misinformation.

Many will be suffering from Covid-19 but will not tell you as I learnt last week. Random checks on several friends revealed that I had 6 friends in isolation. Check on your friends and family and encourage them to practice preventive measures. For those who are sick, encourage them and if you are people of faith, invoke divine intervention while you are at it. Remember, though, that prayer is not a substitute for preventive measures. It is no time to panic, but at the end of the day, it is also not the time to be laid back about preventive measures. We need a balance.

Covid-19 is among us and it is real. We have been singing the songs about the preventive measures and it is imperative that we practice them. When we do not have information, it is good to contact reliable sources and it is our duty to prevent the spread of misinformation. Whenever we have symptoms, it is good to get testes as this is not just about us but also about protecting others. We do not want to overwhelm our already ailing system by flooding it with Covid-19 cases. Prevention should be a natural thing. You do not need to have a death in the family for you to start taking this seriously; you do not need a Kiki Camarena.

I am looking forward to the nest presidential address and to the new guidelines from the relevant ministries. While I may not have an opinion on what to do with schools and I am hopeful that people come up with the best decision, I would like to propose that we shut it with the sports activities. I mean. TNM Super League? We can do better than that.

And you know what? The virus stays in the host. If the host moves, the virus moves. If a person without the virus leaves a safe haven and moves to the place where a host is, you know what will happen. Ad the Director of the World Health Organization said, we need to treat decisions of where we go and not as matters of life and death; because they are.

Stay safe, everyone.

 

 

 

How 2021 will be our year

 

It is only the 8^th of January but we are already on the second Friday of the year. That entails that we should be having the second Richie Online article of the year and luckily the team at the HQ has committed to giving you 52 articles on all Fridays and other mid-week specials. How cool is that?

This, I must say is one fast-paced year for the world at large and Malawi in particular. We have seen the USA exhibiting some banana republic properties with people rioting and disturbing congressional proceedings at the US Capitol. Dr Dre is in ICU and people have thrown shade at the Weekend for his plastic surgery which he apparently did for a video shoot. Back home, we have seen a rise in the cases of Covid-19 and in the midst of that others have been getting backlashes for going to put artificial turfs on their bald heads. We did not anticipate all this but here we are. So much for the first 8 days of the year. 

I must say that it was a bit of a struggle to settle on something to write for the day. On the other hand, I thought that it would be better for me to start the day with writing the article which seems to be the simplest task for the day. After this, I can go on to the tougher ones like seeing patients (save that I don’t do this anymore), coding and writing things that bring bread to the table. In this new year, we need to normalize planning our tasks for the day and strategizing on how best to complete them. It may sound nerdy, but it is the good way to live. How are those resolutions going, by the way? I did say that 2021 was going to be our year, right? Well. I realized that I forgot to add one statement to that. 2021 is going to be our year if we work hard, work smart and play it safe. Let me explain.

While I wrote an article full of weak arguments and optimism, I have realized that this is not the sort of year that will work out on its own. If 2020 required hard work, then I think 2021 will require us to work harder because the conditions are pretty much similar if not worse. I could say the same with smart work because the things that were troubling us last year are the same. Well. Pretty much. You know where I am going with this, don’t you? Some of you do. Last year we had trouble with Covid-19. At least some of us did. When the Kung-flu, as the outgoing leader of the free world calls it, came, businesses were disrupted and offices were closed. That was bad for many people save for a group of people called civil servants, some of whom continued to get paid for 5 months of no work. Not that I hate them for it, but there are some who lost jobs due to the Chinese virus. Again, that is what Donald Trump calls it. This year we have been hit by the second wave of the virus, which we are told has new proteins that make it stronger than the Kung-flu. Let’s call it the UK virus. If you have seen the new statistics, one can almost say that Joe Gwaladi spoke too soon when he dropped the line “koronavairasi wabwera ndi phuma” (the coronavirus has come in a rush) in his Mikozi Studio performance (you should be watching these things, by the way). The new strain is the one that is in a rush and thriving in its face is going to require everyone to work hard and smart. If you have not drafted a plan for the year, now is the time to break out the pen and pad; but wait! Don’t rush it. Give it much of a thought before finally coming with the complete plan. And be flexible about it anyway, because this year will be unpredictable.

Rather related to the points on working hard and working smart is the point of playing it safe. I am again talking about the virus. Well. At least primarily. With the new virus in circulation, I think we have no option but to stay safe by using the basic preventive measures for Covid-19. The fact that we had a low mortality and that the numbers of new cases were steadily dropping made us all complacent with the preventive measures. In the face of the rising numbers of cases (which are most likely infected with the new strain); however, we must be a bit more cautious in our dealings. It is time to get that mask back on and continue to wash them hands. If possible, we must avoid unnecessary gatherings in a bid to protect ourselves and those around us.

I have heard a few narratives about the coronavirus pandemic that have made me worried that what may ruin things for this country is that we have another outbreak which has led to the increase in the number of covidiots. According to the Urban Dictionary (which is a useful tool), a covidiot is a person who for some reason ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety. In the western context, it also referred to people who were hoarding goods. I was watching a clip of a local political rally where one influential politician went on the podium to declare that the gaffment was cooking up figures and there was no Covid-19 in Malawi. According to her (it was sadly a woman and I know women as smart people), the regime then was pushing up the numbers to block the election. Some of you said that while the infections were indeed there, we were going to sort out our government before we begin dealing with the disease. Luckily, that didn’t turn out to be too bad for you but we cannot continue with the habit of blue-ticking the Rona. This whole thing of saying malaria kills more people than Covid-19 or Covid-20 or whatever we should call this new one is not wise. Malaria may kill more people, but at the end of the day it is not like people are not doing anything about it. We are. With the evolution of the virus, we may not know what will happen should we get infected now or later. The virus may have unforeseen long-term health effects and may tend to be more fatal. And who told you that it is about you, anyway? You may contain it well and be asymptomatic only to transmit it to a loved one with a somehow weak immune system. Let us prevent the virus whenever we can. It is a social responsibility because sickness, whether our own or for a loved one is very costly.

I did mention that the conditions for 2021 are the same or worse, right? I could have mentioned other things related to Covid-19 but I would rather switch my attention to politicians and governing systems. I can feel someone begin to hate me for this one, but someone has to say these things. When we opted for regime change, we thought of instant changes but from the way things are going, I do not think that 1 million jobs will be created within the 1-year timeline. Not with the authorities bringing people from retirement when there are youths who are capable; and NO! Do not give me that experience hibber jabber. Clearing the rubble? Well. We will see about that but I can see that the rubble is still there from where I am standing. I am standing in Naperi, by the way. To cut a long story short, we may be dealing with different faces and regalia, but I am pretty sure that we are dealing with the same breed of politicians. For some, it may mean that conditions will be better depending on affiliation but for non-partisan humans and others from the opposite camps, things will either be the same or worse. That, dear reader is why you must work harder or smarter in 2021.

I will lay the pen off with the tiyeni virus. I am pretty sure that most of my dear readers know about this tiyeni thing which was all over social media. Those of us who have done this, tiyeni (let us go). If you look at most of those posts, the issues were useless. If 2021 is to be your year, you need to change your tiyeni habits. If you cannot quit tiyeni, altogether, then make sure that that the things you do tiyeni about are worth the going. Tiyeni for 2021 should be about career opportunities, reading positive books, discussing business ideas, health and fitness and all those good things. If your tiyenis will still be about fashion, photo shoots, booze, ku Jazz or band ya ku Scallas, then I am afraid you may have a nice year but not a good year. Anyway, these fun places will be closed so you have no option but to redirect your tiyeni energy to something a little more useful, if you are still on this thing.

So… What was all this yammering about? All I was saying is that while I talked about 2021 being our year, you will need to work for it. To work for it, you need a plan, good health and you need to redirect your energy towards positive things. You are allowed to do a stupid thing or two but it should not be a habit. That is what I was on about. And by the way… Can we stop typing convid or corvid? I think this disease has been around for long enough for us to be messing up the spelling. And maybe this whole thing of misspelling it is the reason the virus is mutating. We had the Chinese Covid-19, and now we have the UK Convid-19. If we continue with this madness then we may get some Ugandan Corvid-19. Just stop it. Ok? You will make it tough for the people who make vaccines.

Komanso kumabweza ngongole. Ah! Ah!

Happy Friday!

 

Why 2021 will be our year

 with Richie

It is a Friday and it is not just any other. It is the first Friday and first day of the year. A Happy New Year to you, Dear Reader. It is going to be a very good year for Richie Online readers from the way we see it here at the Richie Online Editorial Office in Naperi, Blantyre.

Over the years, new years days have been punctuated by statements of optimism. If I am not mistaken, back in 2019 people had this slogan that said “tikapanda kuiphula tidyera pamoto pomwepo”. That literally translates to “if we do not get it served we will eat from the cooking pot”. This may be difficult to get for non-Chichewa speakers but the idea was that if things were not going to work, we were still going to force them until we at the end of the year could say that the year was better than the previous. Last year people came up with the “tikapanda kutola chikwama tikasoketsa chathu”; “if we do not stumble upon a bag (of money, presumably), we are going to have our own made”. Here is the common factor; both “kutola chikwama” and “kuiphula” symbolize and entail prosperity. Long story short, these were statements of determination with people declaring that whatever was going to happen, they were going to make it in the coming year.

This year is no different. You may not have heard the new slogan, but it goes like “zikapanda kutiyendera tiziyendera ifeyo”. If luck does not visit us, we are going to visit it. Bold one, right? One comedian cum poet who I will not mention for the fear of being killed accused us of being unrepentant and coming up with slogan after slogan when such sayings do not change our fortunes year after year. A friend of mine who is also an avid reader of these pieces of random thoughts and alternative wisdom once threatened to block everyone who was going to be posting declarations that 2021 will be our year. Well. I am here to say exactly what you are opposing, Dave. 2021 will be our year and here is why.

The first reason for which I am optimistic about 2020 is that 2020 has been so full of bitter lessons which have equipped us with the wisdom we need in 2021. We have learnt how best to handle a pandemic despite being a resource-limited country. The public, private and corporate sectors adapted and despite the economy taking a hit, we did not die. We learnt some lessons on how to manage even when things are not ideal and I think we will utilize those come this year. And we will be fine.

Here is the other reason. We seem to have gotten slightly better at making resolutions and seeing them through over the years. I have seen what coaches and motivational speakers are posting over the festive season through WhatsApp status update reposts and I can see that people are getting appropriate guidance. Along with that has come a strong will to succeed. I am pretty sure we will do better this time around. I am just that positive.

And then there are those toxic friends which we cut as we broke into the new day and year. We all know that those ones were the ones that were delaying our arrival into the promised land and the fact that we have let them go means that our journey to the land of milk and honey will be accelerated. We are going to build those houses after getting rid of those drunkards and we are going to get that new face green Mazda Demio after blocking those good for nothing gossipers. We have unloaded the extra baggage so we can run faster towards our goals. Eetu.

Here is the other thing that is making me confident that 2021 is going to be our year. I for some reason feel like that we are going to be better at returning each other’s money and property if need be. We all know the concept of debt. Whenever we are short of cash we ask friends to give us something some money so that we can buy some consumables or invest in something. This money is supposed to be returned as soon as the borrower is comfortable financially but last year we saw a rise in the number of complaints from people whose monies were not returned when they were collected as debts. This was so much so that people came up with a saying that the world has become so tough that you have to work for your money twice; first at your hustle and second when claiming it from a person who owes you. This year, though, we are not going to have trouble with people who owe us money. Know why? People magically learnt how to repay loans the moment the year changed from 2020 to 2021. Well. Here is the other more convincing reason. We are not going to have issues with people who owe us money because we are not lending out money in 2021. The interesting thing is that while we used to say we do not have money in a bid to run away from helping a brother or sister in 2020, in 2021 we are going to be telling them in their faces that we have money but do not want to help them for the fear of losing money and a friend. Ndati tilemeratu.

Here is one for my Malawian friends. His year we are going to do well because the Tonse Gaffment will come through on its promises. I kid you not when I say that 1 million jobs are coming, and these are for the youth. Come the end of the year, we are going to have District Geographical Information Officers in every corner of the world and if we are going that far then we are assured that if that is the case 1.5 million jobs are coming. The other promises of eating three times a day, clearing the rubble and all sorts of things will come too. I am sure el presidente will renounce his chancellorship of public universities and will not be making monotonous public appointments. I could go on yammering about this for day but I just want you to refer to the Tonse manifesto. Yes. That is what they are going to do and my optimistic self thinks that they will be done implementing their manifesto come September. Malawi will be transformed beyond recognition. Isn’t that a good thing, Dave?

And here is the last curveball. Generally 2020 was a bad year for most and I doubt things could get any worse. There some who have always said that after 100 years things go south.  In 1820 there was a cholera pandemic and in 1920 there was the Spanish flu so it was inevitable that 2020 was going to be a drama queen and would bring its own pandemic. There we were with Covid-19. And to give credit to TB Joshua (just like I did in the last article which most of you did not read), the doom in 2020 was predicted. As far as I know, no prophet has predicted a pandemic in 2021 so we should be fine. If you want to ask me what I mean by “no prophet” ask me on WhatsApp after reading the article. But here is the other thing. You all said that 2020 has been a bad year but some said it was good. In fact, they said that you should not project the badness of your year onto them. I mean… I somehow managed to uncover the identity of the Venomous Hope who I have learnt now has a newborn baby. Congratulations to him. Ndapezanso chibwenzi this year and that is not too bad. One of my contributors, the Daydreamer, got engaged on Monday and another, Alexious Kamangila got married in 2020. We said 2020 was bad but it was good for most. You see where I am going with this? You don’t. But 2021 is going to be a great year. You hear that, Dave?

There is this thing that some clever people came up with. They are saying that 2021 sounds like “2020 won” and 2022 sounds like “2020 too”. I will raise a middle finder to that because I know 2021 will be our year. Zikapanda kutiyendera, tiziyendera. If luck is not going to visit us, we are going to visit it.

Some of you may dismiss my arguments as weak. I know that they are weak. And I want you to know, that I know. But here is the whole point. You cannot deny people the right to hope for a good year. If we envision a good year ahead, let us be and sod off with your negativity.

2021 is going to be our year, whether you want it or not. 

Happy New Year, Dear Reader.

Can you all welcome Barefoot Bob to the line of Richie Online readers? I will talk about him some time in the course of the year; our year, 2021.