On the Two Sides of Money

 It is another Friday and as per tradition Richie Online has provided us all with something to read. In the chaos of last week’s Friday, we at Richie Online could not find anyone to put together a piece. We apologize.

For this post, out first stop will be the social media. Malawi has some popular social media characters whose posts in the form of text, videos and pictures are widely shared by many. One of such is the Pemphero Mphande guy; from whose Facebook page I wrote a Clinical Psychology thesis on this blog a couple of weeks ago. Then there is the social network I failed to adapt to, Twitter. On that social network there is something called Twitter Malawi. It is not a formal community like a Facebook group but within Twitter Malawi there are some elite members whose voice sounds louder than others. Those who are members can relate to this.

There is one interesting member of Twitter Malawi whose video posts have crossed Twitter borders and made it to WhatsApp. Usually it is the TikTok videos that have that tendency, but these ones have been deemed funny enough and sharable. By the time they get to this point in the article, the members of Twitter Malawi on the Richie Online readership list will have figured out that I am talking about a guy who calls himself Macheza.

In one video, Macheza begins with putting emphasis on how most of us have only one problem. He spends so much time putting that emphasis on how we complain about many other things when what we have is basically one problem. On he goes to say that the fact of the matter is that all our problems can be summarized and bundled into one. The problem? Lack of money. Ndalama tilibe. So what will we do with this knowledge? Today we qualify this statement and talk about how most of out problems can be rolled into the one big umbrella issue of not having money.

A friend of mine who graduated from Mzuzu University once told me of a field trip they had to some remote parts of Northern Malawi; which is also called Nyika Republic by some of use who are very divisive. I cannot recall the exact details of the visit and what they were on about but if my memory serves me right, it was something to do with the environment. The students had to go into villages and ask the locals the challenges that they were encountering in one on one interviews and focused group discussions. Do you want to guess the answer that came out the most? Go for it. You were wrong if your answer was not “ukavu”. Poverty. One would wonder as to what level of poverty one would have to be in for them to give poverty as an answer to an unrelated question.

Most of you who have the slightest knowledge of football know Cristiano Ronaldo who outside of the football pitch is known for his money and looks. I will talk about the latter because in earlier pictures Ronaldo did not look as handsome. As he progressed in his career in professional football, the money started kicking in and with it the looks. The same could be said about Malawi’s men of the collar and in particular the charismatic televangelists and Pentecostal preachers who combine ministry and business. One can easily see the physical transformation that follows the fattening of the bank account and I think it would not be a far-fetched assertion if we were to say that there no ugly people in this world. All we have are broke people whose looks are in the phase of awaiting financial transformation.

Then there is the issue of attitude. Lack of money is associated with a certain attitude and I learnt about this in a very funny way. Some of you may not know this but at some point early this year I was “a bit jobless”. Having squandered my money on “tiyeni” escapades and not had a paycheck for that month, life was challenging and making ends meet was a challenge. At some point, however, I found myself in need of a cab and I called my usual cab driver. When he showed up, we did business as usual save for the unusual diversion and quick stop that I made. While I understood that this taxi was a distance based one, I found myself waiting for my usual change from the usual amount. When the cab guy tried to reason, I found myself giving him some “attitudes” only for him to hit me with a curveball that flattened my mood and had me reflecting. “Tikudziwa maluziwa avuta ndipo munthu akakhala mmaluzi amangokwiya zilizonse. Muchira.” He understood that I was broke and that broke people have negative attitudes. And you know what? I think he had a good point. If you are honest enough, I think you can relate to that too.

Have you noticed that when you do not have money you think that people who have it are evil? If you are in denial, let me remind you of that friend who went to service his car (isanaonongeketu) when you had nothing in your pocket. How about that uncle of yours who paid for DSTV Premium subscription when you had no pocket money. Extreme examples? They may be but they are classics. In most cases, we find ourselves thinking negative of other people for living life to their standards just because we are not able to live up to ours. I am just not sure if other people are supposed to stop eating meat just because we want to have enough matemba and ndalama tilibe. Or should we average out meal standards just because we are all children of Adam and Eve? Mwinatu.

Closely related to the issue of attitude is perception. Lack of money affects the way we perceive things. Some of us who have grown up in families that are not so well to do may relate to the fact that we are a generation that grew up thinking that entertainment is a waste of money. Maybe I am pushing this too far. Even some basic things were deemed unnecessarily expensive when we were growing up. Example? When you transitioned to having electricity from living in a house with none…. Did your parents allow you to cook beans using electricity? Did they allow you to cook using electricity at all? In know of neighborhoods with shared electricity bills in which the rule is to not use electricity for cooking because it is perceived as a waste of money. Reason? Ukavu. People have no money. Paid TV? Internet? Unnecessary luxuries. Mpaka DSTV Premium? 40 GB internet bundle? Waste of money. That is what lack of money does to you. Now think of that friend who drives that German car that is so expensive to service and has a high fuel consumption. It is that lack of money that is giving you that perception.

Worth noting is the fact that lack of money does not just affect us at individual level. This issue also extends to societal and family level. Let me give an example of the TNM Super League. Many of you may not follow it but if I were to ask you to mention 5 players for a prize or at gun point you could give me 7 names. On the other hand, out players are not so well to do as compared to their counterparts within the sub-Saharan African region to an extent that a player who emigrates to the neighboring Mozambique is regarded as one that has changed his fortunes. The football governing body created a mockery of our players by taking photos of them withdrawing 40K monthly Covid-19 relief funds from the ATMs for the social media. While I am not undermining the effort, I am wondering what a player in the South African division would think of such an amount but that is the situation at home because ndalama tilibe. One friend once asked on whether it was possible to monetize football in our country through a Facebook post. I did not have the bundle (read as money) for replying to his post but if you know Victor Nyirenda tell him that it is impossible because tilibe ndalama.

You know the Malawi netball team. I am talking of the team that has been representing us on the world stage by being a top 5 or 10 team globally. While the few lucky ones from the team have landed opportunities that have seen them play overseas, the ones playing in the local league are a typical case of kutchuka ulere because we do not have money. Our sports industry is not as good because of the general poverty in our country and so is the music industry and the rest of the entertainment industry. Most of our athletes and artists do not have admirable lifestyles because of their earnings despite the fame.

It wouldn’t be me, Dr Richard Kamwezi, if I were to write this whole thing without dragging Covid-19 into it. Pepani. On Friday the country got its first consignment of the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19. Yesterday we saw the VIPs of this country including el-presidente and his second in command getting their jabs on the first day of the rollout. In other countries, people have reached a point of getting the second dose while others are already evaluating the effects of rolling out the vaccination campaigns. Do you know why it took so long for our country of 19 million people to get the first 400 000 doses of the vaccine? Ndalama tilibe. We were waiting for the donors to sort us out and usually that takes time. Our friends in South Africa have a bit of money and they preordered the vaccine just like some of you have preordered the Flaws album by Phyzix. Our whole Covid-19 response was botched because money kept disappearing into pockets of people who were trying to sort out their own need and want for money. School children have been at home because their teachers boycotted work looking for risk allowances. Again, that is money. I would have talked about how these things inflate the wage bill and how our dependence on donors keeps our wage bill capped, but I would rather leave that to my economist friend, Fred Maguru. Nkhani ndiyoti kusowa kwa ndalama kept our children out of school for some time.

What then, shall we do? We need to find money. From the insights shared, we can all agree with Macheza that our issues as people and a nation can easily be summed into the lack of money. Lack of money is the reason some of us will not go on that fun trip we badly want this weekend and the reason our church is in a dilapidated state. Lack of money is the reason I will have to go to the office for me to get access to the internet for posting this and it is the reason that some people will ask for a PDF copy of the article when I send the link. Who am I to blame them? Tonse tilibe ndalama. I digressed. This part is about solutions. Or at least it is supposed to be.

We need to work hard, gentlemen and ladies. Let us get promoted in those workplaces and get that pay rise. If you can spare some money, start that business, and get that extra source of income. Venture into farming if your schedule allows you to and go on to start taking orders. It all starts small and multiple sources are better than one. Team up with those good family members and start a big business. Ndalama zikufunika because we cannot afford taking out our brokenness induced anger on innocent children. And support a brother’s hustle too. If he is at work, do not call his salary a bribe just because you are running a successful business and do not mock her for posting the taking orders thing just because you have a stable salary.

Can we all get working and get that money? We need to normalize having a Victoria Falls holiday and sending our children to “proper schools”. Maybe when you all have enough money you will start paying for these articles and we can have some Richie Online merchandise out. For now, tilibe ndalama.

By now, you either feel insulted or inspired. Zanu!

Happy weekend, friends.