Acres and acres of screen space flickers at me and taunts me to populate it with words. Not a patchwork of words, mind you. The screen is daring me to fill it with words strung together to convey to you exactly what’s missing in my life at the moment.
There the problem lies. Tell me, where and how do I find the verbs, adjectives and adverbs to make you feel what I feel? Being no poet, I’m at a total loss for suitably descriptive words. All I can say is that presently my life is in the jaws of an emptiness that’s a prototype …no, that has some connotations of a work still in progress.
Let’s see … ok, let’s say this void is the template on which emptiness in a person’s life is calibrated; the criterion against which loneliness is measured. The …will you help me out here people?
<Sigh>…I give up. After all, my failure to adequately describe the gnawing longing in my heart doesn’t mask the fact that she has me hooked. What’s that cliché? Hook line and sinker, right? It isn’t just a fleeting feeling either. The fact is she’s had me hooked for more years than I care to remember.
Yes, I’m completely taken by her despite the major flaw she has. No, it isn’t a physical flaw. There’s no noticeable chink in her appearance. It’s her character that I’ve problems with. You see, just a few days after coming to visit me she disappears only to reappear a month later. She’s never offered an explanation. And as the years have gone by, I suppose I’ve become used to not expecting any. I’ve grown to accept that I can’t tame let alone completely own her.
Banish her out of my life! Are you certifiably out of your mind? I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t love her but then my very existence depends on her, you see. She may not be my raison d’être but she's probably the reason I'm still alive. Am I making sense?
So life grinds on. Once every month, she sends me a note. Oh, don’t even bother begging because I’m not going to reveal their juicy contents. Suffice it to say that a few days after her note, she appears and everything reverts to normal.
Boy, when she’s around life is good and fun. We go out shopping. We go out visiting places of interest. We go dining and wining. We go out either on our own or with friends. We have friends visit us. Once in a while we even throw parties. Our fisted palms open up resulting in smiling relatives and grateful street beggars.
But without fail as suddenly as she appears she vanishes without even a word. Sure, I can feel it when she’s about to go. First the shopping and the outings phase into a dribble before completely drying out.
Perhaps she doesn’t like my lifestyle. You see, when she’s around, I hardly give her some quality home time. We’re either out some place or we’ve friends over at my place. Or maybe she hates my philanthropic nature. But what can I do when I’ve relatives who think I’m a charity organisation.
They’re really funny people, my relatives. They visit without notice and dictate when to leave, irrespective of the day of the month. When they’re ready to leave, they not only expect to be given the return fares. No way! The fares for the trips here are borrowed and the lenders expect their monies back immediately they see my heavily laden relatives arrive back in the village. And I hope you know by now that even when I give them the return trip fare, my relatives can’t leave if I don’t give them money for their wish lists that include soap, sugar, salt, cooking oil, fertiliser and school fees for some young cousins of mine whose faces I can’t even remember having met
I don’t know why she disappears. I really don’t. All I know is you can swear by the regularity of her monthly visits and her an unannounced departures just a few days later
Talking of which, late last month she came. Besides other things she helped me shop for curtains and other furniture items to replace the ones my landlady is planning to take away. We even stocked up the fridge and the pantry. But I suppose the shopping was so tasking she refused to go out with me even once. In fact, she disappeared soon afterward.
And now I’m like a drug addict in the grip of severe withdrawal symptoms. To be frank the days can’t fast forward quickly enough. I’m longing for her next note. Each of her notes always whets my insatiable appetite for her, you know. Just getting that note into my hands, even before I open and read it, would assure me that she would fulfill her monthly visit. It would also give me an indication of how long her stay is likely to be. I can then plan accordingly.
Oh, I forgot to let you in on a secret. For whatever reason she insists I call her monthly missives Salary Slips. She’s crazy, if you ask me. She even has a name for her arrival days, imagine. She calls them pay days.
Monthly Salary, wherever you’re now, I hope you know I miss you so much. Life is dull without you. Being not very good with words, it’s hard for me to explain how unbearably hard life becomes when you go away. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for the few days you spend with me but I would prefer that you never had to go away.
My Monthly Salary, I don't enjoy your absences. Not at all. I'm human so even though I don't have a roving eye, I'm still prone to temptation. Just the other day I almost dated Small Business. Luckily for you, she said I lacked a quality she referred to as capital.
Years back, so many rains ago, this is the day that I, having outgrown the confines of a young woman’s womb, squeezed my way into the world and proclaimed my emergence with a nice little howl. A howl that was music to the woman who had painfully just evicted me. A howl that soothed her pain and brought smiles to the audience of hospital staff around her.
At least that’s how I imagine the moment of my emergence into the world. Remember there were no video cameras then to record that historic event. Of course, there were still cameras. So a visual record should’ve been possible. But back then cameras were huge beasts requiring strong shouldered men to lug them around.
And there lay the problem. Unless a man was a member of the hospital staff, he was persona non grata in a labour ward. I understand to this day bold “No Men Beyond This Point” signs still serve to chaperone men out of the majority of labour wards in Malawi.
So the only record of my grand entrance into the world was as a statistic in the hospital record books. And, of course, my arrival is forever etched in the memories of the woman who had lovingly given me refuge for nine months.
For nine months I had happily lived in a wonderful world, all on my own. I really enjoyed that solitary confinement! Hidden from disapproving adult scowls, I could do whatever took my fancy. I could suck my thumb, swim, somersault and just for the kick of it, do a few playful bicycle kicks to draw the attention of the landlady who was giving me shelter.
For nine months I didn’t have to scream to have nourishment or suffer inefficient waste management. What a fabulous nine months. Nine months. Mmm? Wait! Wait! Wait! Do you see what I see?
You don’t, do you? Well, let me tell you.
When you count nine months backwards from September you get to January, right?
Now picture a young couple tethered in the shackles of temporary poverty fathered by Christmas and New Year celebrations. Paint incessant rains onto this already dreary January landscape and it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine a generally bored and miserable couple. Except when night fell. Then they would find solace in each other’s company. The young man would retrieve his guitar and strum some intricate tunes while his beloved wife’s lead vocals serenaded some of the tyranny out of that cruel January.
And here is a couple in the privacy of their home, soft love tunes in the air. What do you think would follow? Honestly, I don’t know. Anyway, let’s spare ourselves the details, shall we. Suffice it to say that one of their nocturnal acts of song and naughtiness spawned one joyous bundle of statistic now known as Dannie Grant Phiri.
Thank you mum. Thank you dad. The pair of you is proof that it really takes two to tango. By the way, I love you both so much I forgave your melodious January mischievous shenanigans the day I came into this world.
18th September. What a blessed day! January. What a blessed month!
It was very quiet as was usually the case at that time of a weekday morning. What with everyone trying to catch up with their e-mails and leftover work from the day before. Then out of the blues someone shattered our morning routine by shrieking: “Who has dropped this thing in the corridor!”
We all rushed and crowded around the woman who had raised the alarm. We jostled and craned our necks in order to see what all the hullabaloo was about. There really was something on the corridor floor.
No, it wasn’t a string of beads. Neither was it a packet of rubber. You and your lewd mind! On the floor lay a tiny beaded pillow. Someone had dropped a chithumwa, a tiny parcel of charms. Some smart pants promptly dubbed it a flash disk humana. Not an entirely surprising moniker in this age of miniaturised electronics.
Someone was at that particular time feeling the “nakedness” of being without their trusty totem. That much wasn’t in doubt. But who? There had been no visitors that morning, official or otherwise. So there was no question that the flash disk belonged to one of us. Yet we all kept pushing each other for a better view. I think each one of us wanted to be seen to be trying to satisfy their curiosity.
Questions were thrown around at nobody in particular but no answers were forthcoming. With our curiosity (genuine or feigned) not yet satiated, we milled around until someone gathered the courage to go and burn it.
Even though we couldn’t establish its ownership, the motive for acquiring the flash disk could easily be deduced. Our organisation was at the time undergoing a rightsizing exercise. One has to have protective armour against pink slips, you know.
Why waist time daily striving to put in an honest day’s work when we can as well use charms to protect our jobs and get promotions? Why should our employers expect us to go to our offices on time? Don’t they realise that we take longer than necessary in bathrooms so as to “wash properly” according to instructions issued to us by medicine men. Never mind that the said medicine men are living museums of poverty.
If things aren’t going very well on the work front, perhaps because some nosy auditors have discovered that we’ve been helping ourselves to too many pay days each calendar month, we rush to our villages to go and bid proper farewells, or as we say in our local lingua, kukasanzika. We return from the villages with our bodies laden with tattoos against any eventuality, including potential court cases.
When our marriages hover over jutting rocks, we don’t seek counselling. Why should we when we can consult witchdoctors who can prescribe concoctions with impossible ingredients? An ant’s heart is but one example. Whatever their ingredients, these potions are formulated to spark romance back into our marriages and steer well clear of divorce courts.
Instead of us sleeping to recoup our energies in readiness for the following day’s work, we jig about at crossroads in the dead of night, in our birthday suits no less, chanting nonsense to the four winds. Who needs gym membership to achieve fitness?
My fellow Malawians, let’s wake up. I know every culture in the world has been bequeathed its own beliefs and superstitions. But it’s the proportion of the Malawi population holding such deep-seated beliefs that’s alarming. For our own good its time we disabused ourselves of our entrenched belief in sorcery.
Otherwise our low life expectancy will remain low. You see, besides the obvious reasons attributable to poverty, our low life expectancy results from the fact that we go to hospitals only after the prescriptions from sing’angas have failed. What’s more, in some of our villages old people are “assisted” to die because longevity is equated to guruness in witchcraft.
There’s almost no natural death in Malawian villages. Of course, that woman didn’t die of ovarian cancer, you dim wit! She died because “…our daughter was doing very well at work. In fact she was a mzungu. She was going to get promoted so her colleagues implanted something into her stomach.”
In Malawi accidents don’t happen because of bad roads, drunk driving and other factors. No way! They happen because one or more of the people involved get bewitched. The high number of accidents at some spots on our road network can be easily explained. Witches have established sacrificial grounds at a number of spots along our roads.
Instead of wasting time working on plans to boost our businesses towards their IPOs, we spend resources on charms and lotions administered by medicine men who are themselves infested by abject poverty. Without charms, our earnings get spirited away through a technology called chitaka. As every Malawian knows, the chemistry of Malawian business economics is the direct opposite of osmosis. Money flows from a business without talismans to the one equipped with them. As simple as that.
Would our football be entertaining without what some fools think are farcical pre-match rituals. Our tattooed players have to clamber over stadium fences. They have to get off their buses and cross bridges on foot. They have to do all this is to neutralise their opponents’ spells. Football coaches are a total waste of money, if you didn’t know. Our teams’ losses can be easily explained: their opponents had more potent juju. Or some members of the losing teams didn’t follow all the instructions prescribed by the witchdoctors.
Even basketball can’t be played without consultation. A story is told of a basketball team that went to a sing’anga to proof itself against defeat. The team was assured that it would triumph 2-1 as long as all its members faithfully subjected themselves to all the rituals that had been prescribed!
How I wish we could purge the Malawi nation of such beliefs. Sadly, they won’t go away in a hurry because local media houses are doing all they can to preserve and ratchet up our fears of the unknown. Our newspapers and radios are full of bizarre stories. One day the headlines scream about trade in human body parts, the next it’s about crown jewels that have been locked into impotency because of missing passwords. One day the buzz is about a woman who has been made to deliver a stone, the other it’s about a witchdoctor who has brought back a man from the dead. And on yet another it’s a foreigner who’s been spirited away on Mount Mulanje.
We’re inundated with stories of magic planes that plummet onto yards and roofs armed with herbal anti-aircraft missiles, HAMs for short. In fact, some of you may recall Malawi’s biggest air disaster. A few years back a nocturnal plane was reported to have been plucked out of the sky in Ntcheu killing all three hundred sorcerers on board. Of course, we never questioned why there was no national mourning despite the demise of such a large number of Malawians.
That isn’t all. When we go to our homes in the evenings, we relax by watching Nollyhood fares that are usually witchcraft themed. Our children watch with us. They marvel at the wizardly. And what they see on TV they believe.
On Sundays we go to churches where our pastors’ sermons revolve around the children who were being taught witchcraft but whose parents had decided to seek spiritual help. The sermons over, we go into nonsensical recitals, “speaking in tongues” in churchspeak, to exorcise the evil spirits out of these young innocents. The kids’ redemption attained, we break out in song and dance. While dancing we’ve to tightly clutch onto our flash disks in our pockets, purses and on our bodies lest they embarrass us by dropping onto the floor. Don’t be naïve, you think deaconship is just bestowed.
My fellow Malawians let’s be serious. Is this the culture we want to pass on to our children? Be honest now, what pestilence would plague Malawi were we to cleanse ourselves of this unhealthy belief in sorcery? What would happen to you if you didn’t indulge in those rituals you do every night? Would you be fired if you didn’t have those tattoos? Would your marriage crumble if you didn’t use those potions or apply those lotions? Would people not elect you if you didn’t have those amulets?
If there’s any trait that parents would rather not pass onto their children, it’s bedwetting, occasional or otherwise. Hey, you former bedwetter, come on out of the closet and back me up here, will you? OK, I give up. I should’ve known better.
Be that as it may, if it were all left to me, I would rather children turn their beds into Jacuzzis night after night than have their generation blighted by a strong belief in witchcraft.
By the way, if you’re a witch don’t bother casting spells on me. I can assure you they won’t work. You see, I’m armed to the teeth against them by a very healthy dose of scepticism. In fact, I’ve a fair idea of what I'll probably die of. Lung cancer is one possibility. Zijazi is another. Do I really need to spell it out that I mean those illness that are related to something else that is itself not a disease but a mere decrease of something in our body?
Incidentally, given a choice, I would want to expire the same way Sani Abacha. But only one would do for me, not two as was the case with the late Nigerian Military dictator. Phew ... two of them! That was an overdose of happiness, if you ask me.
This talk of bangida has put me in the mood to attempt to die happily. Let me put off this cigarette right away. There are more important matters at hand.
Where were we, honey bun? Mmm …mmm …
Witches please don’t bother visiting me right now because I’m too busy trying to die a happy man.
During Ngwazi I’s reign in Malawi…er, excuse me, let me rephrase that. During the very long reign of the original Ngwazi, rumour—whispered very carefully in case it accidentally wafted into a wrong but eager ear—had it that when Kapichila Banda was about to read his speech at an international meeting, he enthusiastically raised his arms and bellowed: “Kwa-a-cha! Kwa-a-cha! Kamuzu! Kamuzu!”
However, there was no response from the audience. But then there couldn’t have been considering the venue of the meeting.
Manila, Philippines.
Force of habit? Perhaps, but then again he may have been totally ignorant of the fact that the original Ngwazi’s sphere of influence didn’t extend beyond Malawi’s borders. Not very surprising, sorry to say, given that the IQs of some of his ministers were, to be polite, so-so. Otherwise, we would be hard pressed to explain why Katola Phiri, then minister of Agriculture, used to stamp “Approved” and with flourish append his signature onto thick documents almost as soon as they got into his in-tray.
The documents would be marked, in big bold letters: “FYI’.
Now do you remember the parliamentary sessions in those days? Ministers and members of parliament would try to outdo each other in praising Ngwazi I. They would spend months in parliament competing in concocting the best praise, the best vote of thanks.
Fast forward to his clone’s tenure. We see similar competition in cowering before Ngwazi II. Instead of parliament being a forum for conducting meaningful debate, it's once again a platform for the members with frothing mouths to outshine each other as they praise the president to the high heavens. In their eyes, the man is practically infallible. His achievements are being blown into mythical proportions.
That is not to say I see Twitter being inundated with “Chala m’mwamba” tweets from our tech savvy ministers any time soon. However, who would bet against the “Raise your finger” phrase (some suspicions of obscenity there, don’t you think?) slipping into ministerial speeches delivered during openings of the mostly pointless international workshops held at our lakeside resorts? After all, it’s a phrase that’s been etched onto their brains because it keeps being repeated and repeated like a broken record.
And while the current crop of ministers may have above average intelligence, they’re really not much different from Ngwazi I’s cabinets. All our present ministers are struck by an irresistible urge to praise anything to do with the reincarnated Ngwazi. But their tongues are forever numbed into silence whenever criticism is called for.
Incidentally, I love averages. You know that at a recent golf open, the average age of the players was higher than normal because Tom Watson was playing. I also know that whenever some of you hurry into Kaya Lounge to take advantage of Happy Hour, the ages of the clientele shoot up exponentially.
That’s the law of averages for you. But I’m by no means intimating that one or two of the new ministers have IQs that are weighing down the ministerial average.
In any case, that isn’t the point. The fact of the matter is that almost everything that were the hallmarks of Kamuzu’s era are being photocopied, retouched and fed to Malawians. Thus, while I don’t expect to live to the day when political and traditional leaders again kneel, roll and grovel before the new Ngwazi, we may soon be listening to male ministers and MPs spending their time in parliament belting out, in deep baritones, a photocopied and remixed version of “Inu Ndinu Ayani?” It might go something like this:
Female ministers and MPs : Inu ndinu ayani, ayani nanga?
Male ministers and MPs : Ife ndife amai-i!
Female ministers and MPs : Mwangoona?
Male ministers and MPs : Tangoona nyumba ya Ngwazi Yamangidwa Ku Ndata a!
You don’t believe me? Just take a listen to the so-called parliamentary debates. Switch back to the Independence Day celebrations. Do you remember that traditional dancers from all the districts were singing about one man and one man only? Have you already forgotten that most of the relics were recycled and remixed?
With the way things are going, it wouldn’t surprise me were we to dust off and photocopy the most hated relic of the original Ngwazi’s rule, vis-à-vis the life presidency. Already there are rumours doing the rounds that a task force has been formed to work on the modalities of extending Malawian presidential terms to seven years.
But please, do be careful. Sure, you can continue hoping from one Happy Hour joint on a Monday to a different one on a Tuesday, and yet another on a Wednesday, and so on till you see the week out without ever buying a beer at its normal price. However, keep clear of any political rumours. At the very least be careful into which ear you repeat them.
I understand not all the women you see at drinking joints go there to merchandise their bodies. Granted some women go to these joints to enjoy their drinks. But a few frequent drinking joints with the sole purpose of catching any anti-photocopywhispers doing the rounds.
As for me, I don’t want to be caught with my pants down, or rather with non-blue blood. Who doesn’t want to be a royal? Consequently, I’ve started practicing singing “Zonse Zimene” whenever I shower. The only problem is that since I practice only in the shower, it may be a while before I can confidently sing to an audience comprising a bevy of inebriated female undercover agents intent on whisking me away to go and “explain” rumours I may have been heard passing on.
Showering is nowhere on my priority list at the moment. In fact, I mostly keep the same distance from the shower as one former president I know used to when avoiding libraries.
From the look on your face, I can see you’ve never heard the story. Let me tell you.
The original Ngwazi had a morning routine whenever he was at his Sanjika Palace. He would wake up, do his ablutions then go into the library to take in some intellectual nourishment until mid-morning when he would go for his breakfast.
It was a totally different story when our immediate past president assumed office. Throughout his tenure he gave the palace library a very wide berth. Instead each morning, once he had roused himself from his presidential slumber and done his bathroom rituals, he would dash into the TV lounge, dive for the remote and settle into his favourite couch. He just had to have his morning shot of sports before breakfast.
But you and me know that Skysports is not Jack Mapanje. Or Plato, for that matter.
By the way, do you think the lightweight mental equipment of our immediate past president adversely affects the average IQ of our presidents past and present? I’m curious. But let’s leave that for another day. Instead, let’s go back to what I was talking about: my showers, or rather the lack thereof.
The fact is it’s so bloody cold I can’t sweat even if I wanted to. So why bother to shower daily! After all, with Escom’s power supply as erratic as it is, one can’t guarantee finding warm water in the shower. The mere thought of a cold shower gives me e shivers. It’s like I’m being water-boarded, you know.
A friend and I were facebooking when he said he was off to watch Barcelona. I thought I had an idea what he meant but I couldn’t resist asking him whether he planned to watch them in practice. Otherwise how was he going to watch Barcelona without watching United at the same time.
Incidentally, I need not have asked. As Jose Mourihno would say, I too saw only Barcelona. Where was Machester United, the pre-match favourite? I know the Mancunians were there somewhere on the pitch. It’s just that I couldn’t see them except in the first ten minutes. Those first ten minutes gave me false hopes that I could make it in football punditry. Hopes that were to be rudely punctured as the night wore on.
In those first ten minutes Barcelona couldn’t get out of their half as Christiano Ronaldo and company launched one attack after another. Then came the sucker punch. Out of the blue and totally against the run of play, a dazed Barcelona somehow negotiated its way out of the siege, the ball homed onto Andrés Iniesta’s boots who ventured forward before threading a pass to Samuel Eto’o who in turn charmed his way past Nemanja Vidic, brushed off the attentions of Michael Carrick before nursing a shot past the despairing arms of Van de Saar.
Exit Manchester United. Enter Barcelona.
Iniesta and Xavi Hernàndez, the two puppeteers in midfield,then assumed complete control. The mesmerising feet of Messi waved one magic wand after another that hypnotised the Red Devils into spectating zombies. Almost every silky pass that Barcelona wove homed onto a Barcelona foot, chest or head. All United could do was butterfly from one shadow to another. Thought the ball was here…no there…no, no, there!
So nobody was surprised when Xavi floated a tantalising ball into the box and a height challenged Messi soared into the air, hang there in defiance of the laws of physics, leaned back and with his temple plucked and nodded it into the net. Yes, the same Messi who had never before scored against an English club. What a way to break his duck.
It was game over. There was to be no repeat of 1999 when United came from behind to beat Bayern Munich in the last three minutes.
What went wrong? Had United grown lethargic because eleven days had passed since their last match? Had Alex Ferguson’s over the top praise of the midfield maestros, Iniesta and Xavi, got to his players? Had the fact that Barcelona was missing several key players and Iniesta and Henry were just returning from injury lulled United into corkiness? Was the weight of history and experience that favoured United make them complacent? Were Ferguson’s tactics wrong? Did United miss the suspended holding midfielder Darren Fletcher? What went wrong?
I don’t know. I just don’t know. All I know is that on this particular night Barcelona was just too good for United. I also know that a season that had started with United’s harbouring dreams of a quintuple, was going to close with both the FA Cup and Champions League having eluded their grasp. Their hopes of retaining the Champions League and keeping their record of never losing in a European cup final had been put to the sword.
As for me, Wednesday night made me realise that the confidence that I could make it in football punditry was misplaced. I’m therefore doing the honourable thing, unlike some people I know, and tendering my immediate resignation as a rookie football pundit.
All those who knew that Bingu would win by a gaping chasm, please raise your hand.
You see what I mean? Everyone rooted in reality knew that John Tembo would be buried by a Bingu avalanche. Except the pundits. Or so they made us believe.
Personally I'm rather skeptical that they didn’t know Tembo had no chance of flooring Bingu. I’m totally convinced they knew but were just too chicken to voice the truth. Not that I blame them.
You see, polls, no matter how scientific, are anathema to Malawian politicians. Remember the criticism that accompanied the polls that predicted that Bingu would win by more than sixty percent? Yet polls are based on facts except, of course, when conducted by a totally biased entity like TVM. So what chance does a pundit’s unscientific opinion have? Whereas a pollster can take cover behind his statistics, a pundit and his opinion are totally exposed to elements of criticisms of bias.
For a change Rome’s Stadio Olimpico will host a contest that’s really too close to call, at least on paper. The teams meeting in the Champions League tonight have locked horns on nine previous occasions producing four draws, three wins for one team and two for the other. Therefore you’ve to be either a very brave man or a fanatical supporter of one of the two teams to willingly predict tonight’s result.
Manchester United versus Barcelona. Ronaldo versus Messi. A dream final from the sound of it. Incidentally, for these teams it’ll be 1991 all over again. Of course, in this round the stakes are much higher than the Uefa Cup Winners’ Cup they were fighting for then. That night the Red Devils beat Barcelona 2-1. Will they repeat the feat?
I think so. Yes, I know I said the match is too close to call but I don’t remember saying that was my opinion, or did I? In any case, I’m no football analyst, or any other type of analyst for that matter. My reputation isn’t on line here. Thus I’ve no fear revealing that my gut feeling is that while Barcelona will have the majority of possession, Manchester United will carry the day.
Hey you, Sir Alex Ferguson is old enough to be a father to Guardiola’s father. In terms of experience, it’s no contest. Don’t they say what a young man can see standing up an old man can see sitting down? In any case, if Guardiola dares to stand up, his view will be obstructed by the many cups Ferguson has won over the years. These include three European cups that Machester United have one, which is one more than their opponents in tonight’s mouthwatering final.
Secondly, Barcelona isn’t at full strength. This is especially so at the back were three of their key players won’t be on the pitch. Rafael Marquez is injured while Eric Abidal and Dani Alves are suspended. Their midfield too might be a bit iffy without Andres Iniesta who has been out injured. Should he play tonight, he might be a mere passenger. So too Thierry Henry who when fully fit has been one third of a deadly trio. As for the other two assasins,Eto’o has been out of sorts recently and Lionel Messi has hitherto not scored against an English side.
Even more ominous for Barcelona is that Manchester United has won all the three finals they’ve played. Barcelona has played in four and ended up losers in two of them.
So to call a spade a spade, Ronaldo will end up with the winners’ medal with Messi as his bridesmaid, if you see what I mean. But my crystal ball is a bit murky so I can’t predict the scores.
Not very good news to a Liverpool supporter like me. But hey, the truth no matter how painful, is the truth.
Malawian analysts agree that DPP wipers did an excellent job cleansing parliament of its opposition majority. They go on to explain that stifled as it was by UDF hands, the MCP black rooster couldn’t swallow the DPP corn. Starved to near death, it wasn’t difficult to pluck it off its perch as the biggest party in Malawi’s parliament.
How can they say that? How could they!
The unflavoured truth is that Loveness Gondwe and her NARC party won the election hands down. After all, I know for a fact that I wisely voted for her. So did millions of other Malawians who heeded the omnipresent advice voiced by Malawian papers, NGOs and clergy to vote wisely.
So when it became clear that she was being robbed of victory, Malawians assured her en masse —in person, via phone calls, text messages, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook and so on— that contrary to official results, all three million of us had voted for her. She isn’t normally a gullible woman, Loveness. However, this time she knew we were telling the truth.
Seeing our disappointment, she had no choice but to go on Zodiak radio to reveal DPP’s rigging modus operandi. And were we shocked at its evil genius.You see, almost all ballots given to potential Loveness Gondwe voters were pre-ticked in temporarily invisible ink. What is more, they had to vote using pens with ink that biodegraded into nothingness within one hour. As the millions of ticks for Loveness disappeared from these ballots, the previously invisible ones for Bingu would emerge.
How could her supporters be singled out, you're itching to know. No problem at all. There was no need to single them out because almost every Malawian voter had planned to vote for Loveness Gondwe! Only MCP’s John Tembo came close in terms of support.
Poor JZU. Poor Baba Tembo.
But then John Tembo should’ve known that even gods were against him when the wind blew already cast presidential ballots all over Mitundu. As if that weren’t ominous enough, Olympic records tumbled at Lilongwe City Centre polling station as high-heeled women and suited men darted to safety when a swarm of bees descended on them.
As every well meaning Malawians except DPP supporters know, those bees weren’t attracted by the perfumes worn by the voters. No way! They were genetically engineered in the labs in Mulanje with the sole purpose of chasing away people who had planned to vote for Baba Tembo.
Who doesn’t know that the ballots that blew away at Mitundu added to those that weren’t cast by scurrying voters at City Centre were enough for Baba Tembo to come a very close second to Loveness Gondwe? Unless, of course, you’re a Zodiak radio presenter. These guys stumbled when announcing a number of district summaries. In Blantyre City South, for example, they said 8,081 people had cast their vote for JZU but a few minutes later went on to give 2,540 as the interim as his total for the whole of Blantyre!
One would’ve thought that even in Malawi Microsoft Excel is a well known tool even to radio presenters.
I know Baba Tembo’s knows that his retirement date has been postponed by at least five years. I’m also sure he would be the first to admit that other wounds were self-inflicted. For instance, he should never have let a Makiyolobasi anywhere near an MCP ticket. It isn’t as if he was unaware of the existence of the opposition bashing Makiyolabasi parody on the government controlled airwaves. Letting Makiyolobasi run had near fatal results. Justice Anastasia Msosa, the chairperson of the electoral body, almost died of laughter when she tried to read the number of votes that Makiyolabasi had garnered in his constituency. Thankfully, she recovered. But do you think she took any of your votes seriously after that?
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. After I had voted wisely, I visited a number of polling centres within Lilongwe just to get a feel of the voting numbers. The tour went well except at Chilinde Primary School. There I fell afoul of the security staff who didn’t quite like the fact that I was taking photos of a friend who was on a queue. Breach of electoral laws, I was told. They insisted that I delete all the photos I had taken. I also insisted that if that was the case they should arrest me instead. Mind you, I had seen no signs telling people not to take photos.
You would think that in this age of mobile phone cameras, it’s impossible to prevent people from taking photos at polling centres. Or airports, for that matter. As you know, at some airports taking pictures is a big NO NO. But when you get on a plane, you’ve a perfect view of the airport from your window seat.
Click! Click! I’ve taken a few such photos, if you must know. And airport security personnel have been none the wiser.
Anyway, I’ve to go now. I need to buy a better dictionary than the one I’ve now. As you may’ve heard, Nicholas Dausi is the newly minted MP for Mwanza Central. Obviously, I need to prepare to understand him when he makes his maiden speech in parliament.
If we’re to compare newspapers, The Daily Times and The Nation newspapers would be to Malawi what the Washing Post and New York Times are to the US. They’re very independent and well respected.
But unlike their American counterparts, the two Malawian papers both have Achilles’ heels. Whereas American papers endorse candidates on their front pages, Malawian ones don’t. Instead, their columnists advise voters to go and vote wisely.
On the face of it, it sounds like pretty good advice, doesn’t it? But if you think it over for a minute, you’ll realise, it’s pretty useless advice.
Let me ask you, how does a voter know which choice is a wise vote? It isn’t as if the path to a wise vote is marked with closely spaced road signs displaying big and bold direction arrows. Besides, isn’t it a given that a choice that may be deemed wise by one voter may be anathema to another?
The voters need to be nudged, pushed even, towards the said wise vote. Now who better than the media to light the paths to hidden wise choices? Otherwise, how are voters on their own expected to sift through all the candidates’ rhetoric, outright lies, stand-up comedy routines, vitriolic slander and other garbage that pass for campaign speeches just to find a wise choice?
Perhaps, I shouldn’t be too quick to condemn. After all, I know they’re afraid. Very afraid. And for a good reason. You see, they’ve seen many businesses collapse a year or so after supporting the wrong horses. In Malawi, businesses that align themselves with a candidate that happens to be on the wrong side of winning risks missing out on government contracts. Malawian politicians are very vindictive, you know.
You don’t need me to explain that in an economy like ours, any entity starved of government business finds the going very tough. Thus, until Malawi has media houses that are prepared to tough it out, we’ll continue being advised to vote wisely.
I, on the other hand, I’m not running any business so I’ve no fear whatsoever in endorsing…er… Mmm… I’ve thought better of it. My endorsement would be misinterpreted as campaigning when the campaigning period is already over. That aside, there are other factors besides business that would be at stake here.
So instead , I’ll just urge all Malawians currently resident in Malawi to go and cast their votes tomorrow. But in keeping with the culture of doling out useless voting advice, I would like to advise you to go and vote wisely!
Watching soccer in and at the various virtue stadiums that also serve as drinking joints, one is amused to find that the most vocal group of viewers is the so called aganyu. They chant and taunt to egg on opponents of their rival team, never mind that the noise generated doesn’t reach the players.
So it was when Manchester United played Tottenham Hotspurs the other weekend. Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool supporters were aganyu in the hope that the title holders would stumble. You can imagine the noise levels when Tottenham went up 2-nil. But as they say, a loser is an orphan. Immediately Man U edged ahead, aganyu went quiet and employed their mouths in more useful endeavours---drinking! What else could they do having realised that akwera yakuphwa? A bus with deflated tyres can’t take you anywhere, can it?
Anyway, things have moved on since then. By the time the Reds line up against Westbrom on Sunday, the Red Devils will have been crowned winners of the English Premier League, a fact some of us have known since January.
Of course, I won’t be celebrating . I don’t worship devils, red or otherwise. Furthermore, as a Liverpool supporter why should I celebrate when my bragging rights will have been punctured? It used to sound nice to trumpet the fact that the Reds were the most successful team in the English league having won the title on eighteen occasions. By the way, wouldn’t it have been nice for the Reds to have a 19/19, nineteen titles after nineteen years?
Anyway, there’s always the next season. I know we’ve been saying that for the past eighteen years. But didn’t a quarter century go by before Man U won another title?
Incidentally, there’s a new species of wa ganyu in Malawi. If you’re barred from running for president, why not render your support to the candidate running against your political enemy? Sure it’s demeaning to see the way flags have been mounted on campaign vehicles. Yes, it pains to see that not only is your party’s flag mounted below but it’s also just a tiny fraction of the Tambala Wakuda. But what can you do?
Even though I know, I’m telling how this ganyu will pan out. But I’m sure Muluzi is praying that John Tembo is a roadworthy vehicle with properly inflated tyres. Otherwise, he’ll be left stranded.
Well, let’s wait and see. May 19th is only a few days away, after all. But I can’t help wondering what will happen to the MCP/UDF coalition should Tembo lose.
You see, young men have no problems visiting all the popular drinking joints in town, then whistle-stopping at all their girlfriends and leaving behind beautiful smiles of satisfaction before finally proceeding home to physically remind their wives why marriage can be such bliss. Mind you, they fume whenever their attempts at playing husband result into instant headaches. Boy, they hate headaches that once in a while plague matrimonial chambers.
On the other hand if you’re a man of a certain age, the years of insatiable virility are just dim memories. Now your wife struggles to coax you to let her play with the crown jewels. More often than not such attempts are met by protest. After all, you firmly remind her, wasn’t it just five days ago that she was moaning your name in ecstacy? Doesn’t she realise that short of hiring a crane to raise the flag even to half mast, a man needs a lengthy recuperation period? It isn’t as if you’re starving her on purpose in order to revenge all the fake headaches that used to attack her at inconvenient moments. Sheesh, where is a woman’s headache when a man needs one.
Like it or not, the biological clock ticks from the day you’re born. One day you wake up and, to your horror, you discover that your vision is blurry. But after a visit to an optician you get even more shocked because now you can see you’ve been ambushed by strands of grey hair, and the mop on you head has considerably thinned. You now can see that nature has sculpted some wrinkles onto your face.
Sigh…you realise that the memory loss that frequently ambushes you is giving you not so subtle hints that senility will soon be banging at your front door. It dawns on you that you’ve developed an inexplicable intolerance for loud music even as your hearing has waned. You realise that every little thing is enough to set you off moaning, whining, grumbling and ranting. And as your wife has learnt, getting certain body parts to function has become a chore that you don’t really look forward to. Certainly not on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. The deterioration will march on, unrelenting, till the day you breath for the last time. Hence, my surprise at the endurance being shown by the two front-runners in Malawi’s presidential race. Given their age, I don’t know how they manage to wake up every day at first light, assuming they sleep at all, and take to the road for campaign stops until dusk forces them home.
How do they do it?
Mind you, the majority of our roads aren’t tarred. They are dusty bumpy affairs. And even those that are tarred are so potholed they bother and exhaust even athletes in their prime, let alone octogenarians that are currently masquerading as our best candidates for president.
Is this punishing Malawi’s Next Leader road show really necessary? I’m not so sure. One thing I do know, however, is that it won’t influence who my friends will vote for. Their minds are already made up, who to vote for already etched in stone, and nothing will shift them from their entrenched positions. Malawians tend to have very fixed opinions. Remember the man in Ntchisi, appreciating the fact that the incumbent president had given the district its first tarmac road remarked, “Koma Bingu’yu ndi wa bwino kwambiri…kutipatasa mseu wa tala. Ndiye nanji akatenga boma a Baba Tembo.”
So rather than futilely try to change my friends’ minds, I just listen as they extol the virtues of their preferred candidates and trumpet the evils of the rivals.
Yes, my friends agree on lots of things. I suppose that’s why they became friends in the first place. But when it comes to who to vote for, they are in no agreement at all. They are split into two camps with two thirds of them preferring one grumpy old man and the rest the other. In their sphere, the other candidates might as well not be on the ballot. My preferences also lie with one of the two grumpies. However, unlike my friends, I’m literally planning to vote for a candidate who doesn’t have a water droplet’s chance in hell of winning.
I can understand your shock but I can assure you I haven’t lost my marbles. At least I’m not yet certified. You see, it so happens that in the three presidential elections that I’ve participated in (as a voter, of course), the candidate that I’ve cast my precious vote for has, fairly or not, ended up not getting the keys to statehouse. And don’t they say we should learn from our past experience?
I’m by no means a superstitious person. In fact, I don’t even believe in witchcraft and my presence in amen corners is very rare since it’s only occasioned by a wedding or a death of someone close. Yet, I can’t shake this nagging feeling that my vote is a poisoned chalice. I can’t help but feel that whoever I vote for will have the gates of statehouse firmly closed to him. It’s the last chance salon for these two, after all.
Having said this, you think I’ll vote for my old man’s rival, right? After all, I would be helping my candidate by jinxing his rival. However, while I see the logic in that line of thinking, I’ve other what ifs playing on my mind. What if this time round I managed to be on the winning side? How would I live with myself knowing I had voted into office someone I didn’t much like? I don’t want to tempt fate. That’s why I’ve conceived the ingenious solution of casting my vote for someone whose likelihood of losing is a hundred percent. I’ll thus have no post election guilt should my preferred old man, God forbid, end up being floored by his rival.
So I’ll vote for either Stanley Masauli or Loveness Gondwe. And being a liberal soul who firmly believes in the equality of races, tribes and genders, I’ve no qualms whose presidential fantasies I help to shatter. But who between them? OK, in the interest of fairness let me just toss a coin. If it’s heads, my vote will go to Stanley. Otherwise, Loveness, I’m yours.
So here goes.
Oops! I’m really sorry, Loveness. It turned out tails so I’ll have to tick the box against your name. I was as fair as I could. In any case, if I were you, I would realise that I’ve been done a big big favour. Now that you know I’ll vote for you, you can immediately stop wasting any more of your resources and time on fruitless campaign schedules and just wait for the inevitable announcement that you didn’t win.
Wait, wait... I’ve just had a brainwave. My vote for Loveness will also serve as a barometer of fairness in this year’s election. If my voting centre doesn’t report any vote for Loveness, not even one, the election wouldn’t have been free and fair, would it? Where would my vote have gone?
By the way, in a poll involving the majority of my friends, Bingu is ahead with 66 percent of the vote. No, there is no margin of error in this poll. And no, I’ve no intention of extrapolating these results onto the national stage. The sample size is too small. I’m discerning in the choice of my friends, you know.
But that doesn't mean I don't know who's going to win. I'm just not telling.
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