Grammar and Glamour

Friday again.

I usually get some feedback on my articles. Most of it comes immediately after people read my articles and it usually come from one overly critical follower whose name I will not mention for the sake of my security. On a different note, after the article in which I talked about the health system I got what I would call atypical feedback and according to people I had grossly assassinated the Queen's language. My grammar was bad, if we have to be simple.

That was probably not the first time I had messed up my grammar, but I guess people noticed that because it was too obvious and not worth the digninty of Richie Online. I am sure that few people were put off by the error and they found it hard to complete the article.

I have been on the receiving end of poor grammar, and knowing what that feels like made me feel a bit bad about the thing. To me, poor articulation of ideas be it in an articles speech, sermon or lecture can affect the listening and acquisition of the message.

Of late, the quality of both spoken and written English in the country has been dwindling. It is not strange to find an online news publication, a minister, a tertiary student, a preacher and any other person messing up their subject-verb agreement. People might think it doesn't matter (note; its not "it don't matter"), giving the excuse that the audience still gets the message; a thing I don't entirely agree with for a reason I cannot manage to explain.

When we have a problem we are trying to sort out via Richie Online, traditionally we always find someone to blame before finding a solution. For our "English problems", however, this has been a tough task, but I think we still managed to find someone to blame. At least.

To be fair, I don't think we can blame a person for this. Rather we should look at the systems in place. I am told that in the past people used to be fluent in the Queen's language at as early as primary school level. Something, somehow, has happened and we have diluted our education system to an extent that the intellectual ends mixing his tenses up. Should we blame it on democracy or free primary education? I am sure you have your own answer to that and I will keep mine to myself.

My worry on this whole thing is that if there is nothing done, we will soon have no people who will be able to communicate ideas effectively through writing and speaking. I am sure it will be a bit easier for the one who writes as the computers we have might be able to suggest corrections. On the other hand, I don't think computer correction has what it takes to make a good writer.

This post probably has no learning point for the typical Richie Online reader. Anthu mumatha chingerezi ndi chichewa chomwe inu. The point was just to make you aware of what you have already observed. If some of you end up in a position where you can do something about this (and I don't mean being the Minister of Education), you need to do something about it.

Taking science courses in university should not be an excuse for poor communication in any language. We can still go back to the basics and look up some few things about language. For those of us with children, it wouldn't hurt to send them to a school that is a bit more expensive than free if it is what it takes to make them fluent communicators. They need that.

Lastly, I think some of these basic things need to be communicated. Somehow we make errors on things we are not supposed to err on. Subject verb agreement. It's "I do", he or she "does" and they "do". Next time I find some Richie Online reader saying "he don't" in a restaurant like some dudes who were boasting with English this day, some unspecified action will be taken.

Ndangonenapo.

Nice weekend.

The Malawian Dream

Friday again.

There has been a lot of talk about the economic hardships in the country and some have attributed it to the leadership we have or lack of thereof. While I might agree with that to some extent, I choose to believe that the main problem we have is that we do not have some sort of blueprint we can run on as a country. The end result is that the only vision we have as a country is the ruling party's bid for another mandate in power. Everything just revolves around that.

We might have had some visionary leaders in the past but somehow we were not able to adopt their visionary thought process and make it one for the country. The result is that when they in one way or the other left the hot seat we went back to square one and continued with business as usual; messing up our country in the course of it.

Dr Joyce Banda assembled a team of professionals at some point and if my memory serves me right the team was there to develop some long term goals for the country. The whole quest was lost along with the People's Party's defeat in the 2014 tripartite election and I am not sure if any other leader will think of resurrecting the plan.

That being said, I must say there are a lot of young people who would like to see things getting better in the country. Many would telll you something in relation to their field of expertise but what Malawi needs for starters is to sort out the basics before we can think of "actual development".

Our country has for long been dubbed as an agro based economy. I personally find that to he a lie. While agriculture might be a large contributor to our gross domestic product, I feel like the contribution is too small compared to the potential this country has in the same. Above that, we have greatly failed in subsistence farming as evidenced by the lack of food security in the country. 

There we are then. If we want to draft the Malawian Dream, this is where we should start from. Make sure that all the land and water have been used to their full capacity to feed every Malawian stomach all year round. After that we can begin to think of boosting production to gain control of the food market on the world stage. Only then will we be able to realise that the bans on smoking and quotas on tobacco are not something that we should be worried about when it comes to our economy.

Health of the people of this country is also another thing that we need to seriously think of when we think of the long term dream of the country. The interesting thing is that the health status is both an indicator and a contributing factor to the economy of the country. For a healthier nation, we do not need to have the fanciest hospitals or medical equipment. What we need is the strengthening of the health system we have to make sure that the basic needs. What we need is a health system that can be able to provide essential medicines and food for in patients before we move to having the state of the art health facilities, lack of which has rendered potentially curable diseases death sentences in the country.

I believe that having a healthier and food secure nation would be a great leap in as far as development is concerned. Sorting that out would mean that we will have a lot of resources, human, financial or otherwise allocated actual development of the country. Having sorted that, we could turn to other ways of boosting our economy through other areas like tourism, entrepreneurship and infrastructure development.

In my view, chronology is an important element to development. First things need to be sorted first. Everyone who claims to be a patriotic Malawian also needs to take a part in developing the nation.

I look forward to seeing this nation develop. I have a dream of a nation in which every citizen and the government will realize the need for developing the nation and rise above personal needs and gratification; all in a bid toove this nation from where it is to where it is supposed to be.

Are you up to the task?

Valentine's Day Supplement

Friday again.

Today is the 12th of February which means that two days from be will be Valentine's Day. Some fancy day for those who are in love and would like to show it to one another but above all show it to the world that they are into each other.

I am sure some overzealous friend of yours will post on some social network the origins of the day and explain to you why you have to put on red on the day. In that regard, I will not bother with searching on Google about the story of Valentine and his love or things in those lines. Those who are curious will go on and do that.

What I have here is some sort of reflection on the day lovers have dedicated to themselves (or did someone do it for them?) Last time I did a similar thing people accused me of being a hater of the day. Probably because I was single. The good lady will make this article a bit better, or so I hope.

So, this day, I am told, people do celebrate love. It is the sort of day when a lot of gifts exchange hands and gift shops are emptied of the teddy bears or whatever romantic things are present. The sort of day people do not limit themselves when it comes to intimacy. All these are pleasant but taking a look at the youth of today, I question whether some of these things are done out of good will.

At some point I wrote something about the rampant breakups that are out here among the youth. We have so many relationships coming to premature ends and so many meaningless ones which are nosediving into breakups in the midst of our sight, and yet all of the people in these relationships will knowingly or unknowingly be celebrating Valentine's day in a showy manner. Bad? You answer that.

Then comes the cost of the day. So many will try to stretch themselves and try to make the day for their loved one by doing things they have never done before and the never can on a normal day. While it is nice to sort of do the new thing, eat at a new joint, buy the new thing lime never before, it is important to realise our abilities and to spend within our means. Anyamata anzanga, mukundimva? Of course I haven't said you should do nothing.

Making the day special for the loved one shouldn't leave us with an empty pocket to an extent of failing to to buy credit for the very relationship we were trying to spice by overspending.

Other important point on Valentine's day is that this should be a day of stock taking for people in love. Sometimes it is good to look in retrospect and see the highs and lows of our relationships and see how we can maintain or reshape them for the better. Him who has ears, let him hear and interpret that. And of course apply it.

Little word to my single friends. There is no reason to panic or wish the day away. Someone said that just as people without AIDS commemorate World AIDS Day, people without lovers can also celebrate Valentine's day. Good idea, but let us learn to accept realities. It is not good to fall into desperation and let someone abuse our wallets or bodies for the sake of commemorating someday which unlike my birthday is not even a public holiday (my birthday is a public holiday, in case you didn't know). No more explanations.

To something a bit more serious, I think it is high time young people in love got to understand the true and deeper meaning of love. In the Good Book called the Bible, there is a lot of comparison of God's love on people with the love between a man and a woman. The book of the Prophet Hosea, the Song of Songs, Paul's epistles; all of them compare God's infallible love to the love between a man and a woman.

This should tell us about what we should be inferring when we utter the word love unto someone. It is better to hold our peace other than to lie to someone that we love them, when we are just there for our selfish reasons and for our own gain. Something to think about.

Summary.

We have a day to celebrate love. Let us do it with meaning and reflect on the true meaning of the word love. Above that, let us do it with no regrets. May this day not just be the day to show off what we are not within our relationships and families.

By the way, this is not a day to celebrate love for siblings as some will cheat you. If you don't have a girlfriend, a sister will not be a proper substitute so spare yourself the shame and don't upload your sisters.

Happy Valentine's Day from Richie Online.