From the Virtual Graduation

 

It is yet another Friday and since I have committed to ensuring that articles appear here every Friday, I have brought another piece. You might want to sit on the edge of the seat for this one because I am about to step on toes.

Two days ago, the Chancellor of the University of Malawi travelled to Zomba for what was a virtual graduation ceremony for the recent grandaunts from the constituent colleges of the university. Virtual graduation. I have seen a lot of things in the 27.99 years I have lived on earth but this was something I never imagined I would see. All in all, it happened and we all have the bat that was eaten in China to thank for that. The COVID-19 pandemic ensured that people made the decision to have the graduation virtually.

When the plan to have the graduation virtually was announced, there was a loud outcry from the graduants. Some started to protest online demanding that the sanctity of education be restored by revoking the plan to host the graduation virtually. College of Medicine humans started preaching to the choir on how they needed to recite some oaths and how that could not be done virtually. Eventually, the medical graduates did get their chance to don their graduation gowns, take pictures and say the oath.

I have always recognized the high regard that graduations have among graduants and their friends and families. I may have mentioned the fact that my graduation was not something that got me as excited as opening the student portal and finding that I had passed the infamous “finals”; the final examination in the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree program. That day got me excited to an extent that I danced to Skeffa Chimoto’s Sekerera song on camera. I also went a bit overboard with the drinks at the Weekend Club in Mangochi where we held the DJ hostage and asked him to repeatedly play the Free Up Black People song by Busy Signal to which we sang along until I lost my voice. I could say a lot about that day but I do not have so much of fond memories of my graduation ceremony. Given the choice, I would have opted not to go but I later realized how much it meant for my family on the day it happened. I took pictures with everyone including the family of my good friend Edmond who took the afternoon off to come and say congratulations.

Realizing the importance of documenting memories, the university authorities allowed for the graduants to get gowns for photo shoots prior to the graduation. This ensured that people had the time to take all the high definition pictures they could take with their families and friends. Perhaps this process was a bit more orderly as opposed to one in which you have to be looking for photographers outside the Great Hall or where the photographer you booked struggles to find you on site. On graduation day, the social media was full of nice high definition pictures of graduates and screen recordings of their names being called out by someone in Zomba in the virtual graduation. Beautiful scenes. I will not talk about how some people were allowed to attend the ceremony in person. I love peace, contrary to what I wrote in the opening.

The posting of pictures and reactions to the pictures attracted a lot of thoughts that have formed the ideas behind this article. I will discuss a couple of those. Three to be exact and no, I will not talk about the comparison of gowns.

When the young graduates started posting their nice pictures clad in nice suits and dresses with unusual dimensions, the posts triggered memories of people who graduated years back. I too got to remember the feeling I had, shaking the hands of whoever was the Vice Chancellor of the university after Professor Mac Mallewa had called my name. Others took it further and pulled out their own graduation pictures taken using analogue cameras in 1960. I am not so sure as to what the motive was but since some of us are programmed to think in the negative, we thought of it as a move to steal the spotlight from the young graduates. I am pretty sure some may not have gone down their archives for this reason, but that for sure is what a lot of people thought as evidences by some social media posts. I must confess that I was one of those judgmental souls who posted rude updates on the topic but in hindsight I am wondering as to whether that was necessary. I am leaning towards the negative. On the other hand, I am wondering whether posting old graduation pictures was necessary. Again, I am putting these thoughts out here because I realize that people have the right to post whatever they want on social media. I think we are all entitled to our own opinions on the matter. As for me, I made a choice to not post my graduation pictures and I have recently made a choice to mind my own business whenever people post theirs on any day.

Then there was one unique reaction on Facebook from one gentleman who is called Uncle Lai. Some of you may be asking if I am talking of the musician of the “Ndidzakupatsa romance yabwino” and “makwatirakwaira” fame. That is not the one. This one is someone who answers to the name Laiton Maziya on Facebook and he was once popular on a group called Stress Free Malawi. In response to the posts of graduation pictures, he talked of how some people have never posted a picture of a graduate from their circle. According to him, there are some people who always post pictures of buyers and friends they call “mami wachabe”. This was more of a call to the upgrade of friend circles and we at Richie Online agree with the general message. We will not comment on the tone that was used because it might be a little demeaning. What we want you to get from what the man is that you need to have friends whose achievements you can be proud of and celebrate; online or not. Again, I am posting this on the background of my knowledge of the freedom we have to post or not post as we please.

Now I will get to the part of the article that will may get me beaten, but I am finding it hard to let this slide. Despite what I will call normal ones, there were some interesting captions on the pictures of the ladies who were graduating on the day. In the small circle of people whose updates I see, it was not uncommon for me to see a caption that someone had been certified to be “a degree hotter” or a “beauty with brains”. This may not have made me think too much back then, but since this is 2021 and everyone is super sensitive to everything, those captions triggered some thoughts.

In December 2020, I was out for some drinks with a couple of friends when I met one friend who happens to be a clinical specialist. I had a conversation with her and my friends who were a couple of tables away had been wondering as to who this lady was. When I told them she was a specialist in response to the “who dat” question, one of my friends who failed to control the loudness of his voice talked of how sexy that was of her. My senior and her friends heard that and one of the friends was triggered which forced my friend to explain that he was only giving a compliment. He later apologized.

Back to the captions. Memories of how my friend went into trouble over complimenting someone in a somewhat unusual way made me wonder how appropriate some of the captions I saw were. If we say someone is a PhD hotter, are we making a sexually leaned reference? How appropriate would that be if I said it about an acquaintance, workmate or my sister? Should people be saying that about themselves or other people? If yes, where are the limits? Now you have to understand that that I am only asking these questions because my brain tends to misfire a lot, but my thinking is biased towards the fact that these questions may be relevant for many people.

Beauty with brains. Again, this might be a normal statement for a lot of people but since I am the Richie of Richie Online, I will interrogate it a bit. Maybe not a bit. A lot. What does beauty with brains mean? I will start with the brains bit. How are we defining brains in this case? If this statement makes the assumption that graduating means having brains, how accurate or sweeping is it? Is it in any sense suggesting that beautiful humans do not and are not supposed to have brains? Again, I should mention that my brain has wiring issues. You should know that normal people do not think like me, by now. If you have answers to these questions, however, you are free to provide them in any way you like.

I will sign off before I step on more toes. I wish you a lovely long weekend and if any of you is going for the movie in Lilongwe or the Piksy show on Sunday, enjoy. For some reason, another article will reach you tomorrow. It is not very useful but I think it will be interesting.

Okay. Bye.

 

The Malawian Court of Public Opinion

 It is yet another Friday and once again we are treated with an article. I must say that putting this piece has been something that I have had to force myself to do as I am forcing a headache. I am not saying that to buy your sympathy, though. I am just hoping that this whole headache thing will not be reflected in the subsequent paragraphs.

There have been two issues that have dominated social media conversations this week. Well. Maybe three of four but I will talk about two of them. You probably wouldn’t expect me to talk about Dr Laz and Made See in one article, but I am the Richie of Richie Online and I can combine any two things in any sort of proportions without being questioned. Sounding cocky? That’s the headache.

A week ago Malawian music websites uploaded what they called a leaked version of a Made See track titled Complaining. The track won the hearts of many who showered praise on the young artists for his talent and for doing what were praised as lyrically mature songs than the likes of Charisma and Tsar Leo. Some of the people in the Richie Online community posted screenshots of the song playing. One good friend of mine changed his Facebook Profile picture to the official artwork of the supposedly leaked song. The masses were in full support of the young artist and looking at the overwhelming support he got after releasing, one would wonder if it was the same people who had been stoning Made See for being an uncultured brat. I know that some of you do not follow Malawian urban music so I will put this in context.

Made See, real name Medson Kapeni  is a 16 year old artist who happened to have been “signed” by Namadingo’s (Ine za Dr Namadingo sindipanga nawo because I am not from the University of South Africa) Namartists label. In a deal that was sponsored by FDH Bank, Made See was to get school fees and money for recording an album. In what we have learnt as the conditions of the deal, the kiddo was supposed to unlock the music money by proving himself on the academic turf. Somehow, it seems like things did not end well in class and the young artist did not access the money for recording his album. The reaction? In what was an informal video interview gone viral, Made See was seen complaining about how Namartists did not fulfil their end of the bargain. Young man went on to say how Namadingo used to film him while talking about the package Made See was getting; while failing to give him even a K200 note.

Before we continue, I should say here that this article is not about what happened but rather how people reacted to it.

I will continue.

When the video went viral, the masses descended on Made See calling him an ungrateful kid. Prophets of doom went on to say that the kid had no future in music because of his lack of character. The negative noise was too much and that prompted Made See to apologize in another interview. That did not do much to quench the anger of the people who still castigated Made See and labelled him a misguided young man. Now that is the only thing I agreed with from the whole array of negative reactions. Being young, Made See did not know how best to react to the situation and how much to say in the clips. In the midst of the condemnation rose another group of people that faulted Namadingo’s record label for prioritizing school when what Made See needed was support in music. Like I said, we are not talking about that happened so I will let us debate this in a virtual pub talk  at 10 pm. What I saw in the whole situation was a reflection of Malawi’s music industry in which artists and managers hardly have carefully drafted contracts explaining who gets what. Made See and Namartists contradicted each other on the presence of a signed contract. Again, chat for another time. For now we are talking about how the very people who had castigated Made See were won over and even started calling for fundraisers after listening to what I think was a purposefully leaked song. I will park this for now.

The following Sunday, our leader was on the podium to address the nation following the release of the K6.2 billion audit report. The visibly angry pastor turned president spat fire and told us how he had unleashed law enforcement agencies on those who had looted public coffers. The highlight of the day? He fired a senior cabinet minister for an irregularity in the expenditure of COVID-19 funds at the Ministry of Labor (or something of that sort). Following the speech, the president received a lot of praise from the impressed masses. The interesting bit? Those were the same people who had expressed regret for voting for regime change when the report of the K6.2 billion had come out. These were the same people who had talked the President down for not having the cajones to control the looting.

As I mentioned, I am not here to write about what happened but rather about how people reacted to it but I will talk more about what happened in an attempt to make you understand why I was not impressed with el presidente’s rhetoric like the normal Malawian. As you remember, the audit was commissioned after the president, in his attempt to be transparent presented an expenditure report that was full of cooked round figures before ordering an immediate release of another sum of K17 billion for the same COVID-19. Then there was the track record of giving speeches with little or no accompanying action. That was on him, but you know what else is interesting? Instructing the Police to arrest people. Now that is nice but here in Malawi we hardly get any convictions and people to return the money. Being the difficult to please person I am, I decided that I will be impressed when more big kahunas in the OPC and law enforcement were brought to book on this one. For now, I will sit back and refuse to be impressed by the mubweza rhetoric. That’s just me. But we are not talking about me here. We are talking about your reaction and how you were impressed a couple of days after making t shirts with a message of how Chakwera needed to go for mismanaging your 6.2 bita.

There we are with Made See and Dr Chakwera; two people who were hated for things that went viral in the social media and instantly won the hearts of the people back with the sounds they made days later. One fell out with the masses because of a video clip and another because of an audit report. One won us back because of a song and another used his oratory prowess to have the country rally behind him. Has anything changed about the two? Probably not. If no intervention is done on Made See, we may see a potentially career-killing incident that is not unlike the one we witnessed recently with the Namartists scandal. I would like to believe that it will be all action and few words from the president and the government in general but if not, we will continue to move in the same lazy circles in which we get mad at the president on one day and he gets to quench our anger with another Sean Kampondeni masterpiece.

Allow me to sign out by expressing something about the court of public opinion. When something big happens in the country, people react. In the olden days, we would be mad and express our issues in our offices, ku bawo and everywhere else but the social media age has given us cyber tools through which we can express our issues. With the digital age, a new profession of social commentary has arisen and there are people whose Facebook posts are quoted by the Malawian version of tabloids. It has come to the place where some people really do not know how to feel about something before they cross check with Onjezani Kenani or Henry Kachaje’s reaction. People are unable to form an opinion independent of the social media. The result? Opinions waver and you will find people who had their guns pointed at a 16-year old switching lanes after the release of a poorly produced song in which l’s were mixed up with r’s in pronunciations. Reason? Someone hyped it all up. We have people who will switch from running the president down to praising him because how others have reacted to his speech. That is the Malawian court of public opinion for you: some unstable combining of nyusensi basi. One day they will be for you and the other day they will be against you.

The year is still young and I cannot wait to see how we will react to the scandals that 2021 has for us. I will let you relate this article with what happened with issues surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine and the contentious issue of teachers’ risk allowances.

Now that you have read this, you can start calling me a Made See hater and a DPP sympathizer.

 

 

Chinga

 

That Bottle

 

It is another Friday and once again there is a piece on this blog. Let’s get to it.

In the spirit of walking down the memory lane in what the social media calls a Throwback Thursday, I posted several pictures as WhatsApp status updates; four to be exact. The first three were pretty normal as they showed me at the famous Game Haven, at a dinner and at Sunbird Ku Chawe. If my stature and complexion did not give away the fact that these were old pictures, the dates in the captions did. The last picture, however did not have such. In fact, it was a recent picture of me which was taken at the local bar. In the picture, I am seen clutching a bottle of Carlsberg Special in my armpits while texting on my phone. The gullibility of the people in my WhatsApp contact list meant that this picture got the most comments which I thought of responding to on this platform.

One would wonder as to why I would want to waste two pages of Richie Online space responding to comments about a K600 bottle of booze. I have a good reason. That bottle is just a representative of the many bottles of beers, ciders, gins, vodkas, whiskeys and local brews that yours truly has consumed. There are stories to that; some of which some of you may have heard. Before I respond to the comments on the bottle, I would like to share with you about my alcohol career and why the guy who finished the College of Medicine sober ended up being the chidakwa some of you may have met; and why I am making attempts to have a dry year and possibly quit alcohol.

When you listen to people talk about their drinking stories, a wide variety of reasons for drinking come up. Many would cite peer pressure and others would go on to cite cultural reasons. I would not point a finger on anyone for pushing me to the bottle. I joined the drinking community due to what is one of the commonest reasons for turning to the bottle; drowning sorrows. Without going into details of what happened, I turned to the bottle in the month of November in the year 2016. At the time, I was working for World Vision in what was a nationwide evaluation of their programs. That meant travelling around the country and being away from home and with no one watching, sliding into the bottle was easier than staying away from it in that stressful moment. Later I would come back to Blantyre to start my work at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, a point at which I moved out of my parents’ house and started living on my own in Chitawira.

In the first few months, things were controlled. In most cases, I would be drinking in my lonesome while having roasted meat and enjoying movies at home. Later I was introduced to clubbing and that led to a change in a lot of things. In some days, being out having fun meant coming back as late (or is it early?) as 4 am from a drinking spree. More money was spent on drinks and it was party after party. My circle of friends began to grow and it was all games and fun. Those were the very interesting days.

I have a lot of friends who have come to me to ask as to what people find in alcoholic drinks which are unbearably bitter. I find it hard to explain to someone who has never partaken in alkanol-laced drinks but I will attempt. The first is the calming effect that alcohol has. There are those times that your brain tends to be working in overdrive because of stress or overworking and sometimes you just need one or two to keep you calm. Here is a classic. Sometimes you tend to have an issue whose solving may need to postpone to avoid acting out of emotions. Does that sound familiar? That is where the alcohol comes in for many. Having three or four before sleeping in that case proves to be a bit more useful than not so people tend to have some to help them with their sleep before they can wake up sober and tackle the problem with fresh ideas. The problem with this is that stress drinking usually never ends well and people tend to get overboard with the drinking.

The other reason for which people like to drink is the social aspect of alcohol. You cannot have a party with tea, yoghurt or orange squash. I mean. If you want to hang out for 20 minutes, it may work but for sustained chats and things along those lines, only alcohol has the ability to keep things going when it comes to drinks. Drinking places are among the places where people make the most friends. Just a month ago, a friend I made at a drinking place helped me trace my wallet which I lost in a Sienta to Lunzu and beyond that I have made a lot of influential friends, some whom I go to for advice on real life issues. There is a catch to it, though. While you may get to make a lot of whirlwind friendships, not all of them can be sustained outside the fellowship of the bottle. Alcohol friends are those who do not hesitate to contribute a lot of money for booze for you to drink but will not do anything about your food situation at home. In the hype of the moment, it is difficult to notice the difference but after a lot of introspection, one tends to realize that they do not have any real friends.

In the modern day society where people are fond of showering each other praise for doing stupid things, it is easy to find friends who urge you on to go deeper into the bottle. I am talking about those people who call you a big man when you are taking a chug of a Castel bottle but look at you weird when you are dressed up and headed to church. Those ones who praise you for buying a crate of booze but resent you for carrying big plastic bags when you do grocery shopping for the month. “Castel mungati ameneyu?”, they would ask. You see what I am getting at? Alcohol may foster pseudo-friendships which are not productive in their own right.

So how was the long swim through drinks? Well. It was fun, I must say. Clubbing can be an interesting activity. Imagine people sitting around drinking and others just dancing to the music around in their hundreds. I wish there was an-alcohol free version of clubbing but as I said, it is hard to have fun around milk and Fanta Orange. Then there are the activities and places that alcohol can introduce you to; the nights of live music, trivia nights, those fundraisers that are tied to alcohol but are for a good cause and whatever you may mention. You tend to meet influential people and build good networks around alcohol at times. It just is very interesting but that is about it when it comes to the positives.

Negatives? Sit back and I will tell it all to you. Truth of the matter is that alcohol can be addictive and in most cases we tend to normalize the addiction to alcohol. In the times when working from home was just introduced, the bar tender in the local bar used to get my visit whenever a line of code I had run was not working as well as I wanted it to. Drinking became and everyday thing and I am sure that there are a lot of people who can drink every day and think that it is normal. In hindsight, I think it is not however minute the amounts may be. Then there is the positive feedback that comes with alcohol. When you have one, you want two more and when you are on the tenth bottle you just want to drink until the bar is dry. That is how I ended up drinking at a local bar without any music or whatever things people go out to look at in bars… Until 4 am. And this was not an isolated event.

People who do not drink will not understand the experience of teleporting where the last thing you remember was having fun at a club and the next thing is you waking up in bed; either at a friend’s or at your own place. Alcohol blackouts can do that to you. Money lost? You tend to have a lot of disinhibition when drinking and you can easily spend more than you would have loved when sober. And then there is the issue of losing things. In my 4 years or so of drinking, I can count about 4 phones lost at drinking joints with three of those being stolen and one being broken beyond repair. Zosaukitsa.

A lot of people expressed their displeasure with my drinking habit and tried to get me to stop. I did not because in my view I had no reason to. Drinking, to me was fun and therapeutic. The fourth of January, however had me rethink that position. Having been drinking from the 31^st of December to the night of the 3^rd of January, I woke up with a bad hangover that made me skip work on the very first day of the year. Hangovers have a way of bringing guilt and making people vow that they will never touch a bottle again and I thought I was in that exact situation. In the height of emotions, I vowed to stay sober for the rest of January although I was not sure that I would manage. I told the bartender at the bar I frequent about my decision and he laughed me off, citing that I could not manage to stay away for such a long time. When February came, it was almost Lenten season and I decided to continue with the dry run which has continued to date.

Friends have asked me as to what has sustained me and led me to three months without a drink when I could hardly last 18 hours between drinks. Do I have good answers? I doubt. On the other hand, I will try to attempt to answer the question. I think all you need is a good combination of factors for you to get to the point where you can put the bottle down and live alcohol free. For me, it was a combination of the guilt that came from all the drinks in the festive season, the implications of alcohol and how it brought me a toxic set of friends, the desire to be more productive, not having enough money and the need to experience a different life. Once you have those and a strong resolve, even complete quitting can be effortless. I can also not shake off this suspicion that someone might just be praying for me strongly and pushing all the bottles out of my way. Who knows? And maybe the second wave of Covid-19 played its role too. We cannot rule that out.

For a guy who has been drinking heavily for a little over four years, staying away from the bottle comes with its own challenges. For most people who drink, friendships and conversations are centered on alcohol and once you take that out people turn out to be friendless. Sober life has been comparatively lonely. In the cases where you still want to hang out with people you used to drink with, the insults for not drinking can become unbearable to an extent that you just have to let some people go. Then there is the thing of not having the option of therapy in stressful situations. One               thing I am struggling to train myself with is to do without alcohol whenever difficult situations come and now that they have heard that I have broken up with my bae, the bottle they have been penning each other through a global email to pay me a visit. Stress drinking can be hard to resist but I hope I will survive this.

About that bottle I had in the photo. Some were asking if the picture was from the day I posted. The answer is no. I have been clean for almost 3 and a half months now. Other asked if it was a hint that I am getting back to the drinking business and the answer to that is another big, fat NO. The idea is to stay off drinks for as long as manageable because I have realized that I cannot trust myself around drinks. Interestingly enough, four friends of mine seem to be on a sober train too. How encouraging.

There you have it then. That is the story of that bottle you saw in that picture, how it got there and how we do not want it there anymore. The tough battle of trying to stay away from drinks continues and with time I have come to realize what St Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo meant when he said abstinence is better than perfect moderation. I failed to moderate my alcohol consumption miserably so if you have not started drinking, I recommend that you do not try it.

From the deepest chambers of my heart, I remain the Sober Richie.

Love and Money

 

It is yet another Friday and once again we find ourselves on this weekly routine. Having missed last Friday, I did manage to get a piece together on a Sunday to which you, dear readers gave a good response. The discussions that followed that article have shed more light of the issues surrounding the education system and I do hope that one of these days I can get one of the teachers from the readership to comment on the issues while I sit back and read what people in the profession think.

It has been some time since I added any article to the Richie Online love curriculum. The closest thing I remember to a piece in that article is the “he won’t marry you” article. That stuff got me in trouble with my girlfriend. Having looked at the content of the article (you should read it if you have not), I made it a point that the link would not get anywhere near her friends. Surprisingly, a day after I had posted it I got a text which read, “I will come to clean and cook for you; even though you won’t marry me”. I was caught unaware. Today I am writing again and I hopefully will not get in trouble with anyone.

If you have been paying attention to the social media, there has been some sort of low-key debate on the issue of love and money. In one clip of a nikah (Muslim wedding), the Sheikh was preaching to the man to make sure that he provides for his wife all the time. In what probably was the reason the bride was smiling from ear to ear, the Sheikh went on to somehow support the saying that the husband’s money is for both while the wife’s is hers alone. The clip went viral and was shared equally by both genders but the difference was in the captions. While ladies captioned it with words of agreement, male humans chose to post it with no caption. How you interpret and use that information is completely up to you.

A couple of weeks ago, one Pemphero Mphande happened to be launching his What You See at Sunrise book. Having made a star-studded line-up of speakers, I found it hard to restrain myself from parting with a K10000 sum which is what the man thought was worth a regular ticket. Apart from launching the book however, Pemphero was also launching a dating site. Here is a little background for those of you who did not read my article on the reflections from the month of love. In February, the month famous or infamous for having Valentine’s Day in it, Pemphero took an initiative to be providing counselling people with love issues and to connect lonely hearts. Having been overwhelmed with the efforts, he thought that it might be too much for him to be individually doing the job. The man turned to technology and decided to seek the services of Freelance Web Solutions who designed the 265dates website. The site is up and running now and one thing I found interesting was the level of detail they ask the participants to put in. Level of education (understandably so), work status (ok?), who you stay with (no comment) and whether you have a car! I am pretty sure in the algorithm for finding matches one can filter out the ones that do not have a car if they desire to. Perhaps they might as well add something about whether one has a stable income.

Let us talk about the car issue. In the modern day, a car has become a necessity as opposed to the luxury it may have been back in the days. I have this weird belief that ladies prefer to have a spouse with a car while gentlemen do not and before you stone me, you should let me explain. For a modern day young lady, having a boyfriend with a car would mean that she will wear the heels right at home as opposed to carrying them in her handbag and wearing them on the entrance to COMESA Hall while for a guy having a girlfriend with a car would mean that she can pop up anytime unannounced when he is up to some fishy business. And then there is the insecurity. In what others have thought of as materialism, then, some young ladies have developed this tendency of writing off male members of the society who still scratch their heads with fingernails and not car keys. That is perhaps the reason why Freelance Web Solutions decided to add in that information on whether one has a car for people to have an idea of who they are getting involved with. I will get back to this.

You may have seen pictures of some charismatic preacher in a white jacket. For some reason, several videos of this particular pastor have been going around and in three of them which I have seen, he is heard encouraging young people to get married. In one clip, he bashed young ladies for being materialistic and looking for men with cars when their own parents cannot afford one. So there we are, then. On one hand we have one Pemphero Mphande who has made asset-declaration part of the profiling on a dating site and on the other we have a pastor who is saying we should not look at material things when picking a spouse. Who should we listen to?

There is a relatively olden saying in Chichewa that says chikondi si ndalama; love is not money. That is to say that our decisions of who to take as our life partner should not be influenced by material possessions. For years, our mothers and grandmothers lived by this but the iPhone generation is in a different situation altogether. Our mothers realized that love does not pay the bills and are advising their wards to pick guys who are well off. Let me digress. In his comedy piece titled Tambourine, one Chris Rock mentioned how friends and family ask for different things about a spouse once you tell them you have found love. To a guy, the question is about what she looks like. To a lady, it is about what he does for a living. The reasoning is simple. As the good Sheikh mentioned, men are supposed to be providers and women need to go into relationships that guarantee security. The question, however is about to what extent this has to be done.

In a replica of what happened in our nursery days when the girl who fancied you could leave you for the guy with a pencil sharpener or better food on the break, ladies have left guys who are just well off to those who are living the life. Some of these guys happen to be those who are just starting off in life and have very good trajectories in life. As such, they may not be able to finance some of the demands of the modern day life of a girl who would like to look trendy in this social media age. Sometimes, people just do not have enough owing to the peanuts we get in these offices and the difficulty of maintaining a profitable business. And then there is the issue of supporting extended families.

On the flip side, some men are just stingy and are not able to provide anything for their ladies. In such relationships, the male human would always ask about when the lady would come visit his house (read as boys quarter) with no arrangements to go and have some quality outdoor time. Money for a hairdo? Airtime? Nope. Requests for those are met with constant litanies of excuses.

Now that we know that we have materialistic ladies and broke and stingy guys… will anybody be able to find and sustain love? The answer is YES and here is why. I am just positive that everyone will begin to run in their lane so that they find what they need and what they can manage when it comes to a love partner. If you are a guy, go for the lady you can afford and if you are a lady who wants a guy with a car, go find him where you have parked yours. We have solved it. But wait a minute. In life it may not be that simple and that is where I invite everyone to use a bit of reason in adapting the principal of getting the partner we can afford and manage to be with.

In what will be my final agreement with the Sheikh for this article, I will say that men indeed have to be providers and it is imperative that one has a good source of income before inviting a lady in their life. I am not just talking about marriage here. Relationships have their own expenses too. Even if a lady is working, once in a while they just want to feel that they have a guy who can take care of them for assurances while on the way to marriage. That means that you have to chip in on that salon money, buy her a velvet dress or take her out to KFC for dunked wings or ice cream. The problem with modern-day guys is that when we get dumped for being broke, we do not draw lessons from the ordeal. Instead of going to look for money, we go to look for another girl. Now this is something that needs to change.

Ladies! While it is important to find a guy who can sustain you, it is important to be realistic. Not every guy you will meet will be rich there and then. Some of these guys you are seeing not having cars, money or things of the sort just need some time. They have plans and visions that will see them go further in their careers and money and sometimes all you need to do is to be patient, run with the vision and support your partner as you get there together. I should however caution here that not every broke and stingy guy is worth this loyalty.

On the other hand, it is important to note that a car is not everything. When you date a guy with a car, mobility becomes easy but that does not mean that you get the car. Someone pointed out how when you get into an accident an ambulance sent by the medical scheme will come and pick the guy up and the insurance guys will come pick up the car leaving you alone on the scene. While this may be an exaggeration, it reflects on what happens when something wrong happens in relationships which are driven by material things; you get to be left with little to show for it. At the end of the day, it is all about the balance.

While this may not fit as much, I will talk about the unique situation in which ladies find themselves entangled with members of the male species who are in it for the money. We have ladies who are paying their men’s bills and that in itself is not wrong. Life circumstances may demand that once in a while but it is important to not fall into traps where your hard-earned money will get to be used by your boyfriend to finance a skrr skrrr lifestyle or another relationship. Protect your money, young lady. 

There we are, then with love and money. We may have labelled our ladies as gold diggers and our men as stingy broke men, but there is a compromise. Ladies, you will see what to do with the information I provided and gents, let’s pick the ladies we can afford.

When I discussed the idea of this article, they gave me a message for the ladies. The men are saying that you should not be asking them for K3000 for your village bank every Friday because they were not there when you were making the decision to join. They were also angry with this whole situation because they never get to see the proceeds of the village bank. Do not kill the messenger.

Written on the request of one Patrick Ken Kalonde. If there is anyone you have to blame for this, then it is Patrick. 

On MSCE 2020: A Comment on Comments

 

Is it sacred ground? Is it too soon? Is it not Richie Online material? In all honesty, I should not be talking about this and more so today but having not written an article on Friday, however, I feel like I should comment on the comments on the Malawi School Certificate of Education results. Why does it have such a bold name, by the way?

Earlier this week, the Malawi National Examinations Board released results of the MSCE examinations. The most contentious issue was that the percentage of those who passed was just a little over 41, leading people to making memes that the pass rate did not even beat the alcohol percentage of Malawi Gin. That was a funny meme for a not so funny situation. So much has been said about this pass rate and I was wondering if I could add a voice to this now that people are blaming the students, the DPP and even innocent Bluetooth speakers made by kids of the same age or younger in southern China.

Covid-19. That is where we will start this. There is a lot of talk on how the pandemic may have led to the poor performance of students in the examination. I would like to think that the pandemic may have a lot to do with the low pass rate. The fact that schools were closed in the months prior to the time that the pandemic knocked on our door may have quenched the momentum that students had in their preparation for the examinations. By the time they were getting back to class, they may have lost their rhythm and may not have been on track. Despite the mechanism of how this may have happened, we know that the pandemic had a hand in this. You impregnated a lot of these “form form” girls, anyway. Some of you chewed their fees while they were on Covid holiday and for some it was the loss of jobs or revenue that may have disturbed their children’s education and preparation for examinations. So there we have it then. Covid-19 ruined things for us.

Covid-19 was not alone when it was pulling down the pass rate for MSCE 2020. Some of these students brought it upon themselves. In saying this, I would like to agree with those who are saying that the modern-day crop of students is too busy with extracurricular activities to an extent that their academics are neglected. It may not be all, but most of them are in this boat. Students of the later day have a lot of distractions. Whereas some of us only had the ZTE Airtel phone with no one to call or text, the modern day student will have a Handy or Itel smartphone that is loaded with social media applications, memes and skrrr skrrr music. In a world where people struggle to keep up with work because of the social media, you cannot expect anyone to do well in school while they have half their brain thinking of how best to approach that girl or to evade (read as “chop the money of”) that predatory sugar daddy. Then there is alcohol, fashion and those poorly taken high definition photos. I will not even talk about those. The point is just that students who are for some reason not disciplined enough to resist modern day shenanigans are just too busy to put in the effort that the jealous MSCE requires.

But wait a minute. We may want to hold on before we crucify 15-year-old kids for not being serious. Are these children not supposed to have parents and teachers who should be guiding them? Do not answer that for now because I would like to bring your attention to something that is a little more interesting. Some of you may know the conditions for the award of the Malawi School Certificate. The condition is that one should obtain a pass in six subjects including English Language with at least one credit or distinction OR obtain a pass in five subjects, including English Language with at least three credits/distinctions. Here is one for you who keep rubbing it in our face that English is not a measure of intelligence; I will deal with you later but for now just know that English is important. Back to our issue. According to my certificate which I am looking at as I write, a pass is a grade of 7 and 8; a credit is 3 to 6 and distinctions are 1 and 2. You are familiar with this grading system. To put things into context, when we say that we had a 41 percent pass rate, what it means is that about 60 percent of the candidates failed to get either a 7 or 8 in 6 subjects including English language, according to the first condition. Or rather, they failed to fulfil the second condition of five subjects including either three credits or distinctions. While you are trying to wrap your head around this, think of how there are many on that list of people who have barely managed to fulfil this condition and will have a certificate that will never open the doors of tertiary education. When you think about the failure to meet such conditions and the fact that 6 out of 10 candidates failed to do so, we need to ask ourselves as to whether the issue rests with the candidates themselves or something bigger. I will go with something bigger.

Educationists may correct me here, but I have heard that the grading system is standardized and tailored to the performance of the candidates in that particular year. While I am not for the dilution of standards to accommodate people who do not fulfill the requirements, I find myself finding it hard to shake the suspicion that the grading system may have been set to punish the candidates for the 2020 examinations. In the run up to the examinations, there were hurdles along the way due to incidents of leaking. Prior to administration of some exams, some mainstream media outlets published papers that were yet to be administered as evidence of leaking. That led to suspensions of part of the examinations and some of the papers had to be retaken in what was almost a replica of the 2007 situation with the same examinations. You get my point? The Malawi National Examinations Board had a hand in this because if you are old enough to remember what happened with the results in 2007, then you will agree with me that we need to give “Johnny skrr skrrr” a bit of break when pointing the blaming finger. There were other forces at play.

When the 41 percent figure was announced, others jumped out and flashed the scrapped Junior Certificate as the cause to this disaster. Honestly, I do not have a strong opinion on that and I am yet to have one but I understand the sentiments. When you look at people’s junior certificates along with their Malawi School certificates, you can see a noticeable direct correlation. In other schools where the junior certificates were used as a screening tool, some students would not be allowed to continue to Form 3 for either failing the exam entirely or failing to perform to a certain standard. This ensured that only the students who were somewhat ready for the MSCE challenge were allowed to sit for the exam. Not every Jim and Jane could wave a Primary School Leaving Certificate and throw their hat in the MSCE ring. The results were that the general performance was good, but having not compared the general picture before and after the scrapping of the junior certificate examinations, I am wondering if the scrapping has anything to do with these particular results. My point is just that the examinations were not taken off with this crop and if indeed the effect was there, we could have seen this disaster in previous years. No strong opinions here, but I think we are pushing the JCE issue too far. With regards to these results, at least.

I am reliably told that there are some schools in which all the students who sat for the examinations failed. I am no educationist but something tells me that there might be something wrong with the way students are taught. Here is a little story. A couple of years after I had graduated from St Patrick’s Secondary School, I found myself reading the university selection list. In that year only 5 students from the school had made it to the University of Malawi in contrast to our year in which about 30 of us from a class of 80 managed to make it to UNIMA. Out of confusion, anger and disappointment, I found myself wondering as to what the issue might have been. When I asked a teacher in a visit to the school’s staff room, she gave me students’ answer sheets to review their compositions. Her point was that the students were not working as hard as some of us who had gone before them but in a separate chat with fellow alumni, some pointed out that the issue may have been the teachers who were failing their duty of instilling the discipline and virtues required for excellence. I thought that both had a point. Resources? Story for another day.

In my time as a student, I never saw any teacher walking around school premised in shorts and slippers. They all were decently dressed and even when they were out on sports or weekend duty, one would always distinguish between a teacher and a student. Now you see that teachers have a laid back attitude towards their work outside the classroom and I would like to believe that the same is reflected in the classroom environment. When we see teachers failing to express themselves in English, the language in which they are supposed to teach Biology to your child in preparation for the important examinations, then we have a serious issue. While not particular to this exam, the quality of teaching has something to do with the failure rate too.

Reaching this far, I think we can agree that we have the students, MANEB and Covid-19 to blame for this disaster. So what do we do? If you have a ward who is sitting for the MSCE this year or next year, you may want to go old school on them and take that phone away from them. Well. Not completely. Just take away that iPhone 8 and give them a small phone for making phone calls. If possible, it should not be able to send text messages. It is all they need because they do not need anything smarter. Then you need to enforce discipline and the necessary virtues that enabled you to get the certificate you have; otherwise they will be in the group of those who fail to meet the conditions for the award of the school certificate. MSCE candidates need to be taught as to what they are going into and the implications their grade has on their future.

I am not so sure as to what we should do to the examinations board. A lot of you provided your unsolicited suggestions to the President when you responded to the leaking of the Agriculture paper on social media. I am pretty sure that the President read your Facebook post or tweet and considered it. He kind of just didn’t do something about it, but we all know that this is out of our hands. Covid-19? Well. Schools are open and we hope that skrr skrr teachers are doing the good job of emulating the techniques used by veterans in educating our children. I also hope that no one will close the schools for Covid-19 reasons. 

Education may not be about examinations, but what we have at our hands are exam results that have shown us the big gaps in our education system.

May this be the last time such happens! Vilekeke!