Relationship Politics

Yeah! It is the second Friday of the year and we have gone back to the casual stuff on this one.

Some of you might be wondering where this is whole thing of relationship politics is coming from.  A couple of days ago I happened to be chatting with my secondary school buddy at my place and somehow I ended up telling him how I had run out of supplies especially foodstuffs in my house to an extent that I had nothing to eat that afternoon; and I consequently needed to do some emergency shopping of sorts. Being the guy he is, he suggested that I get a girlfriend who can be getting such things done for me. Things like making sure that I have enough food and cleaning materials were a girlfriend’s job, in his view. This suggestion led to a chain reaction and we went into a conversation of how impossible it seemingly is to get into relationships considering the complicated politics of starting (and possibly maintaining) a love relationship.

Apart from this personal ordeal, the one other thing that has fueled the urge to write this article is a meme I saw a couple of months ago. This was some mockery of girls who claim to have found serious spouses. This particular meme dismissed those who made the “serious boyfriend” claims by saying that it was them (the girls) who were serious and that it was more likely that the boys in question were “not taking part” in the seriousness. This and other personal experiences and observations got me thinking about the disparities in the commitment of spouses in relation to the conception of relationships and the evolution of relationships.

In the olden times, tradition was that a relationship would start when and only when a gentleman asked a lady out. Over the years, there has been a lot of talk about some sort of spontaneous relationships which start automatically when people of the opposite ends click to a good level. It is not a far-fetched idea and I know a couple of couples who went through that route. Over the years, however, this has turned out to be a grossly abused concept. Within my circle, I have seen some “relationships” in which one of the lovebirds was claiming to be in relationship with the other while the other person was telling otherwise.

Such things come due to misinterpretations of events between people and possibly due to differences in commitment. I have the belief that with some people getting overly westernized at a faster rate than others there is a high likelihood of differences in the perception of a good friendship and an eruption of romantic words between people who are otherwise just friends. While some might think it is just a benign exchange, some minds race faster and are likely to interpret it as an automatic relationship.

The digital age has shrunk the world and with the coming of modern technologies and new ways of communication, people are getting closer. This closeness, coupled with a rampant flirting spirit and the whole idea of how people can get lost in the drama of the evolution of relationship conception brings in differences in commitment. One person might have nose-dived into the relationship looking for marriage and whatever else serious people look for in a relationship. The other person, on the other hand might just be in for the company or the fun or probably the sex. Photo shoots. This might just be the other reason why we get breakups in what we otherwise thought were stable and serious relationships. Perhaps the only thing that sustains such relationships is the constant two-way traffic of goodies which has a difference in the perceived longevity in between the partners.

The chain reaction in our conversation about relationships got us talking about breakups and heart breaks and their possible effects. Hot topic, if you think about it. I am not sure as to why people look at it that way but for a long time people have thought of the female species as the only people that get committed to a relationship to an extent of getting hurt whenever it ends. Men have been thought of as these heartless creatures whose relationships thrive on their spouses’ commitment thus making them immune to such things as heart breaks. The later day has seen more men get lost in relationships, breaking of which leads into serious heart breaks and their interesting sequelae. If you are to think of it, unexpected breakups have thrown some people out of dating game and they have left some people paranoid about relationships and the drama surrounding them.

There is a common trend among people who have had bad endings of relationship and this is the trend of resignation. From where I stand, there are two ways of looking at such because while these claims of giving up on love and everything may be legit for a few (God help them), they are used as a ploy to buy sympathy from potential suitors among others. This makes it difficult to interpret such claims because some use them in the hard-to-get game in the same way you would use a racket in the game of squash or tennis. This one is very hard to figure out. My advice? When someone tells you that their alcohol or their TV or PC is their new bae after their breakup, believe them. It saves everyone a lot of trouble.

Away from the aftermaths of heartbreaks, the transitions of people from one relationship to another has been halted by the Bro Code and related codes. For those of you who do not know the Bro Code, it is this set of rules governing the lives of brothers and one of its signature rules is that no one is allowed to date a bro’s ex-girlfriend.

Common sense had this rule extended to the female side too. The funny thing is that with this ever-shrinking Whatsapp and Instagram world (which ironically also has a very high breakup rate) every new person one meets is turning out to be a “bro’s ex”. It is probably why people came up with a move to strike this rule off the Code and to move on to the new era where there was no impediment against dating a friend’s former spouse. I am in doubts as to whether this will get to be a generally accepted norm among people considering what is involved in the day to day running of modern day relationships. Only time will tell, but I have a feeling that most people will stick with common sense and the Bro Code on this one.

There is this other thing about one sided relationships. While this might be a more intra-relationship issue, I am tempted to talk about it now because I feel like some people push too hard to win over the people they care about. People are spending a lot of money and time on “lost causes” with the hope of getting the lovers of their lives. I will not repeat the discussion in the article about the reciprocation of loving and liking but one thing I would like to point out is that no person should be condemned to giving too much for such a thing as a relationship. I believe that these are things that should follow some sort of natural process of mutual interest. Ladies! Shall we stop using sex as a way of winning someone over, please? Guys! There are better uses of a fat wallet. You can ask me if you don’t know them.

I might have said a lot here but I do not mean to scare those that are on the road to a new relationship from an old one. This is just a perspective of one overly analytical guy on the issue of modern day relationships. I have the belief that we can still start and enjoy relationships in the modern age. On the other hand, I feel like there is a need to balance up traditional and modern day philosophies on the conception and day to day running of relationships. In as much as such things as automatic relationships do exist, I think there is a need for periodic pauses in which two people can sit down and clearly figure out where they are and map out what’s next for their relationships. The decision as to whether one can date a friend’s ex or not should be left to the discretions of those involved (and the levels of their imaginations) and if possible let us leave those that are still picking up pieces of their broken hearts to finish the exercise in peace. If you want to be working hard to win over someone’s heart, we will let that be your problem but we at Richie Online advocate for the easier way out; mutual interest.

I know some of you will dismiss this piece of wisdom with the judgemental “look who is talking” shout.

Zanu izo!

Happy Weekends.

Population Watch

Happy New Year, dear reader. I guess it is not too late to wish you the best of luck in 2018. May you have enough money to get your bundles in this year (because we will not be copying and pasting articles to people who do not have internet bundles for reading).

The first Friday of the year has us kick-starting the year with something serious. Let’s get to it.

On the first day of December, 2017 I shared an article from the Venomous Hope. The article was shared some time around 1900 hours and I must have gave some funny accompanying statement to the link. I probably said that I was reporting live from my work place. I happened to be sharing the link from Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital where I was running up and down the Delivery Suite (Labor Ward) in the Gogo Chatinkha Maternity Wing.

There is some interesting history surrounding the events that led to the construction of the maternity wing by the Father and Founder of the nation, Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Kamunkhwala Banda. It is said that the then President sanctioned the building of the unit after he had seen women lying on the floor in the maternity unit on his tour of the Queen’s hospital. This was a very unusual thing because in those days people used to try to perfect everything to give a good impression to the Life President but Dr John CHiphangwi, the Gynecologist who was in charge of the unit then defied the advice that was given by his fellows to “hide” the patients that were on the “floor beds” to create the impression that they had enough bed space and the conditions were good. He opted to leave things as they were to give the true image to the Ngwazi and clearly that paid off. Today the unit boasts of a Labour Ward with its own operating theatre for Obstetric and Gynecological procedures along with an antenatal and postnatal ward. In other words, we have a unit where our mothers can check in whenever they have problems in pregnancy, when they want to deliver and after delivery. I happen to have started work in the unit on the first of December in 2017 and the month or so that I have been there have shown me that there is a need for another Ngwazi to come and do a walk-about.

I could share a lot of technical details when it comes to the politics of who gets to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital’s maternity wing. That, on the other hand, would be grossly unnecessary. One thing that I need to share, however is that it is a busy place with a high turn-over because Blantyre has no District Hospital or  any other referral center for advanced reproductive health care and other forms of health care. This entails that every referral from both rural and urban Blantyre ends up in the GCMW and years after Kamuzu solved his Mbumba’s problems, we have gotten back to the same problem of having people on the floor in the maternity unit of what is considered to be the biggest hospital in the country. Sad, right?

I like to think of what has happened here as some sort of vicious cycle that we all ought to have on our minds. We have a maternity unit that is out there fueling our procreation and our increasing numbers are overwhelming the very thing that is there to help safe procreation. In the end, what we have is a situation in which people are receiving sub-optimal care because there is so much pressure on the resources that we currently have.

I am not in the habit of pulling research papers and epidemiological statistics for my articles and I can not tell you about the average fertility for a Malawian woman. Those are not details that I have on my fingertips but what I know is that we are seeing a very huge child bearing window in the country as we have people from the age of 13 years to as old as 42 (someone told me that he saw a 53 year old with a pregnancy related problem) showing up in the delivery suite. It is also an undisputed fact that there are a lot of women showing up for post-abortion care in the same unit.

Away from the hospital, there has been some sort of sudden improvement in the power supply by our electricity companies.
For a good half of last year, however, we experienced a lot of power outages and at some point our leader came to the podium and pointed out that the problems came about because there haven’t been much of efforts to expand our power generation. What that tells me is that there probably was a time when the power generated by our station was enough for the people who could afford it. We could possibly say the same about some other resources like land, housing and transportation network which are now succumbing to the pressure of the exponential increase in our population.

Looking at the projections and the trends in the population, I cannot help to wonder as to what the situation will be like when some of us wake up someday and decide to have six children. We should be worried not only about what we are going to feed and clothe them but rather whether the country will have enough to sustain their livelihoods and the livelihoods of their offspring.

I have a feeling that I am addressing the wrong audience. A lot of you are probably the sort of people who will get confident that they have what it takes to bear and raise a child whenever they have an account that has a stable seven figure amount. Not unlike me, perhaps. The reason I am telling you this, however, is that I believe that we all have a role and the capacity to bring down this accelerated and uncontrolled growth of population before it brings the nation to its knees. We need to realize that while we have a number of fingers pointing to the government for the poor living conditions, some more fingers should be pointing to us for multiplying beyond our sustenance capacity.

I am not sure of how you will do it, but I do hope that this reflection will help you think of at least one way in which you can influence people in your circle in a bit to slow the population surge. Bakili Muluzi once told us to slow down, and I am here echoing the very same message. Sitikuti musakhale ndi ana, but we need to think about their future before we bring them into this world… and probably help others do the same.