Deborah's Column: This World Around Me

Grown up fears

2012-01-31T02:09:00.000-08:00

Everyone has their fair share of fears but there are some fears which seem to strike people as they get older. By older I mean from that age when people have more or less completed their schooling and have settled or are settling down into an independent life. Not that these fears do not attack younger people but such fears seem to be more pronounced in older people especially those that are married or are thinking of getting married.

What type of fears I’m I talking about? Here are a few examples:

The fear of losing a job: The fear of losing a job is one which seems to haunt many people around this age group. And it is understandable that people should fear loss of employment because a job loss means a loss of income. If you have no alternative source of income, a job loss means that you can’t afford to buy food, pay bills and look after your dependents. You might hate your job but the last thing that you would want is to lose that job.

The fear of losing a job without a house: Losing a job is fearful enough but losing a job when you don’t have a house of your own is even worse. The idea of owning a home gives people a sense of security and many people believe that a person with a roof over his head can be beat down, no matter how hard the times are, and wait for them to get better. As we say, uzitakataka koma uli pa nyumba yako. And it is little wonder that people look at you as a stupid person if you get fired and you don’t have a home. Comments like zaka zonse zija pa ntchito osamanga nyumba and bwana ngati amene uja anali asanayike kachisakasa penapake just prove how important people consider a home to be.

Getting on the wrong side of important/big people: They might go against your principles but many people are still afraid to get on their wrong side of “big” or important people. “Big” people have the power to squeeze everything out of you and people are afraid to step on their toes.

Being seen less of a man/woman: Society has indoctrinated in us how a “real” man or a “real” woman should behave. To meet these societal expectations both men and women fear to be seen as being less of their gender. Thus, people have gender-related fears such as the fear of the inability to conceive or to impregnate, fears associated with failure to attract a member of the opposite sex and fears of failing to raise a family as a man or a woman should.

Death: Perhaps there is no other fear that beats the fear of death. The idea of death, whether of your own or your loved one, remains a dreaded thing. People will do everything in their power to avoid this inevitable end of life. Perhaps what makes death so fearful is the fear of the unknown – nobody really seems to know what happens after death and it seems very few people are willing to test death and find out.

Fear of sorcery: Whoever said that witchcraft does not exist because it cannot be scientifically proven has probably not analysed how much people are afraid of it. Just look around you and you will see how the fear of sorcery is a driving force in people’s lives – paranoid parents who are trying to protect their children from being taught witchcraft, suspicious husbands who think their wives are feeding them mankhwala, men and women in top positions who look at any suspicious thing that lands on their desks as an attempt to bewitch them, snakes - which happen to chance by your home – are considered to have been sent by someone who wishes you ill.
Talk of grown up fears!

Shocking but not surprising

2012-01-28T01:52:00.000-08:00

The talk this week has been about some men who have been stripping women naked for wearing trousers or mini-skirts in the country’s major cities. The news first came as a shock to me but then in hindsight I really was not surprised that something like this has happened. Ever since I became aware that our society is categorised according to gender and that I belong to the gender known as female, I also came to the realization that my gender is a victim of ridicule in public spaces. Of course it was only later in my life that I came to fully understand that men use this ridiculing in public spaces to put women in a subordinate position and gain a sense of power for themselves.

I recall as a young girl growing up in the early 90s, shortly before pairs of trousers became commonplace, boys would hurl insults at us as we (girls) walked the streets to and fro school. The insults were almost always targeting our femininity. Even in the streets of our own neighbourhoods (and for me my neighbourhood was the upmarket suburb of Chimaliro in Mzuzu) we were not always safe from these insults. Boys sitting on zipilala would whistle suggestively as we passed by and take turns to throw mean comments at us.

It was around this time that I was becoming aware of my own sexuality as a woman that democracy came to Malawi after the 30 year rule of the autocratic Banda government. With the onset of a democratic regime, everyone was guaranteed freedom of dress by the Constitution and the Banda regime ban, which restricted women from wearing trousers and short skirts, was lifted. I and most of my girlfriends at the time greeted the news of freedom of dress with excitement. But as we grappled to understand the meaning of this newly found freedom, men had already made up their minds to have the upper hand in deciding what freedom of dress meant, and this was again manifested in the public space.

With the coming of freedom of dress (and other freedoms), men saw this as a threat to their hold on power. Freedoms meant a liberated female and a liberated female meant men losing their monopoly on power. Men had to make sure that this would not happen and one way of doing this was to keep the woman in trousers in check by ridiculing and harassing her. Markets, public transportation, streets – the usual places which men use to subordinate women became even more dangerous for the woman in trousers and other fashions that had come with democracy.

The harassment happened so often that it became common place to see men jeering at women in trousers on the streets. Such patterns of abuse came to be seen as an unavoidable part of city life and were not recognized as a problem by governments and the society at large. In fact the country’s history, religious and patriarchal affiliations helped to sanction such harassment along. Didn’t for thirty years Banda tell us that it is wrong for women to wear short skirts or trousers? Don’t our pastors tell us that it is a sin for women to dress in such clothes? Don’t our teachers remind us all the time that a girl who dresses like a man or in short dresses has no future?

We came to accept such harassment as normal and in some cases even felt that women deserved it. Indeed we laughed or looked the other way when men on the street picked on a woman for her dressing. Sometimes we picked up our mobile devices and updated our Facebook statuses: “mavendor” amuooza wina, mwanyanya azimayi. Little did we know we were sitting on a time bomb waiting to explode.

The question is why has the bomb exploded now? Men have indeed always harassed women in trousers but not at the extent of a few days ago. I think this is the first time that men have stripped so many women naked at such a large scale. I don’t claim to have an answer to this question and neither do I think that such a phenomenon can be explained by a single factor.

I can only guess that it has to do with systems failures: our systems (government, family, church, police, media) are failing us that no one is intervening in the lives of the people. A weakened security system (for example police’s recent failure to contain vendor clashes) can give people the impetus to commit crime knowing they will get away with it. Mass unemployment can also mean that there are more men idling in the streets who now have the opportunity to harass the so-called weaker sex.

What should be done? Mindset change is what is needed so that both men and women look at each other as equal human beings regardless of who is wearing the pants. Of course mindest change cannot be achieved in a day, it takes years if not generations. In the meantime we should ensure that women are protected in public spaces and security is beefed up in areas such as markets. So far as a country we have concentrated on protecting women in private space (as witnessed by the domestic violence bill) but we have neglected the public space. Right now I believe we do not have a framework that can protect women harassed in public space (apart from rape). Zodiak Online reported that 15 men who were arrested in connected with stripping the women have been charged with “robbery with violence, malicious damage among other charges.” This is a clear sign that we do not have the right frameworks in place for dealing with such issues.

Nothing is a turn off than a man in a bad suit

2012-01-28T01:48:00.000-08:00

The Malawian white collar worker loves his suit. Come the July cold or the October scorching heat – nothing will stop him from having his suit on. Numerous weddings and Sunday church services offer him more occasions to put his suit on. From one button suits, two button suits, three button suits, double-breasted suits, pinstriped suits, checkered suits, suits with vented jackets – the white collar worker has a whole range of suits to choose from and boy does he make his choices.

Why the fuss with men’s suits? Often, women are put on the spot for their fashion sense. Different people will analyse how women look in particular dress but for some reason men are usually exempt from such analyses. Maybe it has to do with beliefs such as mphongo izioneka or mwamuna azinunkha, which at times make people believe that it does not matter if a man looks good or not. But men should not be fooled by such beliefs because the truth of the matter is that it does matter how a man looks. And this is where the type of suit that a man chooses to wear comes in.

Good or bad, suits have their way of being conspicuous. A man in a good and well fitting suit will stand out in the crowd and will look like a million bucks. On the other hand, a man in a bad and ill-fitting suit will also stand out but for all the wrong reasons. Bad and ill-fitting suits have this thing about them which makes the wearer look as if he is trying so hard to look good but is failing. To be honest, a suit is unlike a pair of trousers or shorts which you might just put on to hide your nakedness. A suit is a status symbol. When one puts on a suit (regardless of the occasion) it speaks volumes of the wearer’s attempts to look good. But if the suit one chooses to wear is a bad suit, it destroys the wearer’s efforts at looking good and ends up being comical.

I am aware that good suits come with a big price and not everyone can afford to buy a good suit(s). This is where I would suggest that if you cannot afford a good suit then don’t wear one. Wear a trouser and a shirt and you will be good to go. A bad shirt or a bad trouser is not as conspicuous as a bad suit. People will hardly notice you in a bad shirt but they will surely notice you in a bad suit.

Alternatively, invest in one or two good suits which you can wear only on special occasions like that very important job interview. There is no point in having ten bad suits because they won’t make you look good anyway. Instead of wasting money on a collection of bad suits, spend the money on a good suit that really looks good on you.

Size matters. It is important that men get their suit sizes right. Suits that are several sizes too big make you look older than you are and as if you have been swallowed by the suit. It doesn’t matter if the suit you are wearing is a designer suit but if it does not fit it won’t look good. You definitely don’t want to look as if the fly of your suit trousers is coming straight out of MC Hammer’s You Can’t Touch This video or to have all your shoulders swallowed by the over-sized shoulder pads of your jacket.

Get your suit right and you will get it right.

Impossible relatives

2012-01-28T01:46:00.000-08:00

Consider this as a sequel to my last week’s article in which I gave a few tips on how one can successfully stay at a relation’s house. While in that article I concentrated on the person who is accommodated in the house of a relative(s), this time around I want to focus on the host – the one who is keeping a relative in his/her house.

In our culture it is usually inevitable that at one point or another you’ll find yourself keeping a relative(s) in your home. The relations I am talking about here are not the one week visiting guests but the type who come and stay with you for long periods of time. These relations might come to stay with you because they are pursuing education or employment opportunities. Sometimes they might come to live with you because they have no one else to take of them (for example following the loss of a parent). Whatever the reasons for keeping relations at your house, it is important that you as a host treat the people you are keeping in your house with all the fairness and respect that they deserve.

I believe that the biggest secret to being a successful host of your relatives depends on the types of demands that you make on them. If you are reasonable with your demands things are more likely bound to be cordial with your relations but if you are unreasonable with your demands then you will be an impossible relative to live with. Here are the types of unreasonable demands that I am talking about:

Enslaving your relations: In as much as your relative is required to do his/her fair share of work around the house it doesn’t mean that you have found yourself a slave to do all the work for you. Don’t abuse someone else’s child by asking him to wake up at four in the morning and put on the bathwater, sweep the yard, clean the house, make breakfast, wash the baby’s nappies – and the poor boy is expected to do all this before he gets himself ready for school.

Stinginess: Last week I talked about different households having different rules regarding how food is to be consumed in the home. While I did stress that it is important that the relatives who are being kept (osungidwa) must respect the particular food rules in the house, it is also equally important that the owners of the home set reasonable food rules. As an example, I got feedback from one reader last week who complained to me that his hosts buy two types of bread – ordinary and special – and he is not allowed to partake of the special bread. Apparently the special bread is only supposed to be eaten by the man and the woman of the house. This reader continued that what usually happens is that his hosts never get to finish the special bread until it goes bad and has to be thrown away. Such types of rules, like this one set by the reader’s hosts, are the type of unreasonable food rules that I am talking about. In the first place why segregate the food? If you have taken it upon yourself to keep your relation in your house then offer him/her the same type of food that you eat. When you are making food rules in the house don’t be driven by a desire to punish those who don’t pay for the food (because this is stinginess) but rather have food rules which ensure that everyone in the household gets an equal amount of food to eat.

Kulalata: I don’t quite know of an English equivalent that fully captures the concept of kulalata. Kulalata is usually characterised by a constant rebuking and shouting at someone for no apparent reason. If you are keeping a relative it doesn’t mean that you have found someone to practice your kulalata skills on. Give your relation some space and rebuke them only when it is necessary.

Respect your relative’s privacy: Some hosts want to get all up into the business of their grown relatives. If someone is living with you it doesn’t mean that they have surrendered their privacy to you. True that as a guardian you wouldn’t want your niece who is under your care to end up with an unwanted pregnancy or for your nephew to kill himself with masacheti. But offering guidance to your relations doesn’t mean stripping them of their freedom, ransacking through their belongings and keeping them locked inside the gates.

How to live at a relative’s house

2012-01-28T01:42:00.000-08:00

They say when you are in Rome do as Romans do but this rule does not always hold true when you go and stay with your relatives. For instance, your relatives might be the untidiest people around who leave their goo swimming around in toilet bowls or leave scum all around the bathtub but this does not mean that they would be happy if you as a visitor did the same thing in their house. If you are being kept at a relative’s house it is important to exercise great judgement as to when you can apply the when you are in Rome do as Romans do rule and when not to apply it.

Here are a few pointers on how to survive in a home of a relation without stepping on your relative’s toes:

Tidiness/cleanliness: As I pointed out in the opening paragraph it does not matter if your relatives are untidy but if you are staying with them it is best that you clean up around yourself. This means keeping yourself clean, cleaning up after using the washroom and keeping your belongings neatly packed. Avoid recycling underwear and socks, keep the stinky shoes out – in short, don’t stink.

Help out: You might be coming from a background where your mother spoilt you by doing everything for you including washing your clothes. Don’t expect the same favours from your relatives even if they have full-time paid house help. It makes a great impression for you to help around with one or two household chores and not sit around all day. Help with whatever you can – wash the dishes, wash the car or sweep around the yard.

Arrival times: Don’t make the habit of coming in the wee hours of the night if you are being kept at a relation’s house. Your relative might not mind a few late nights but don’t take advantage of your relation and come in late every night. Your relation is already doing you a favour by keeping you at his/her house and you don’t want to repay him/her by disturbing his/her sleep every night.

Waking up times: If you are being kept by relatives make sure that you are not always the last person to wake up in the house. It doesn’t make a good impression that you are always the last person to wake up when everyone else is up. Study the waking up times of your relations and try to keep close to that. If your relatives wake up around 7 don’t wake up at 4 in the morning and start banging pots in the kitchen because your relatives might mind the noise. Similarly, do not sleep all the way up to 10 o’clock if your relatives wake up at 7 because then you will appear lazy.

Courtesy: It helps to be courteous when you are living with relatives. Rude relatives are many a times the cause of conflicts in households. Always answer politely, show respect and avoid mood swings. If your relatives are reasonable people they will surely return the courtesy that you show them.

Food: Different households have different rules regarding food and it is important that you respect the food rules in the house of your relatives. Some of these rules can be unspoken and some of them can be said out aloud to the household members. In whatever form that these rules come please do try to respect them. Again be sensitive to the earning potential of your relation. It doesn’t help to gobble down half a loaf of bread by yourself if a single loaf is all that the six of you were supposed to have for tea that morning.

Having said all this, remember that people are different and a successful stay at a relation’s house will ultimately be determined by your character, by the type of person that your relative is and by how close you and your relative are.

Beauty contests and discriminatory rules

2012-01-28T01:38:00.000-08:00

Last weekend online newspaper, Malawi Voice, reported that one Nancy Chavi was pulled out of the Miss Warm Heart of Africa beauty contest at the last minute for being “legally married” and having a baby. According to the report, organisers of the contest were already aware of Nancy’s status as a married woman and a mother right at the beginning of the contest. But for some reason, which was not elaborated in the report, the organisers assured Nancy that the competition was open for all and she was free to contest.

As preparations towards the contest’s grand finale progressed, Nancy proved to be the most popular contestant. She pulled in most of the votes from the participating public and it became a foregone conclusion that she would carry the day on the final night. But hours before the final show, Nancy was pulled off the show on grounds that she was legally married. One wonders that just when did the organisers realise that their rules don’t allow married women and mothers to participate in their contest? Don’t the organisers have a set of written rules which both the organisers and the contestants are supposed to be aware of?

I do not want to speculate but it would not be far fetched to conclude that the organisers wanted to use Nancy’s name to create hype for their otherwise inaugural show. Now, those who follow the country’s entertainment scene probably know that Nancy Chavi is not a new name in local modelling circles. She has the M-net Face of Africa qualifier accolade to her name and qualifying for Face of Africa might be as good as it gets for Malawian models. Did the organisers want to use Nancy’s Face of Africa fame for their own benefit? As I said, I do not want to speculate.

Nancy’s story aside, I want to make a general comment regarding motherhood/marital status rules and beauty contests. For some reason people have always made a fuss about mothers or married women participating in beauty contests but find the same to be okay for single women who have not given birth. So far I don’t know the logic behind this thinking but it seems that people are saying that wives or mothers cannot be as beautiful as single women without children. But this is just not true because anyone has the potential to be beautiful, whether they are mothers, single or wives.

Perhaps the thinking that married and unmarried women should not take part in same contests is premised on the idea that most of these contests are called Miss something. Now, we all know that the title Miss is reserved for unmarried women. However, it can be argued that Miss is simply a label that has a lot of grey areas within it. Who exactly is a Miss? As far as I see it, beauty contests define Miss as being associated with sexual innocence hence the insistence that contestants not only be single but without children as well.

But are all unmarried woman without children sexually innocent? And even if they are sexually innocent, does it imply that women with children are defiled and cannot therefore take part in beauty contests? This idea of marking women with children as defiled is an outdated idea that only served to restrict women’s choices. The way I see it, married women, mothers and single women should be allowed to take part in the same contests as long as the contestants feel they are up to the challenge. I think this is the direction that Miss Matofotofo (now known as Miss True African Beauty) is now taking by having both married and unmarried women taking part in the same show. But the Matofotofo organisers still need to drop the Miss and adopt a more neutral term that does not identify one by marital status.

A neutral term like Ms or Chiphadzuwa can be adopted for beauty contests. Thus Miss Malawi can become Chiphadzuwa cha Malawi.

Strings are always attached

2011-12-18T23:55:00.000-08:00

Traditional values are increasingly losing their grip on societies. While at some point phrases like no strings attached or friends with benefits were unheard of, such phrases need no further elaboration in today’s world. It is commonly understood that in a no strings attached relationship two people engage in a sexual relationship without being committed or obligated to one another. In other words in a “no strings attached” two consenting adults agree to have a relationship based solely on sex and nothing else. In my Chancellor College days we used to refer to such relationships as guerrilla, apparently after the notorious war tactic, guerrilla warfare.

But to what extent can two people really have a no strings attached relationship? Aren’t strings always attached even when you think they are not?

To begin with, in a no strings attached relationship no partner is obligated to the other and this lack of obligation also extends to issues of faithfulness. No partner owes the other an explanation of where s/he has been and with whom. While you might believe that this lack of obligation is what makes your relationship no strings attached, you might just be in for a rude awakening. The thing is, since your partner owes you no explanation s/he can be sleeping with other people and you might not even know it. In the end you can become part of a sexual network that you wouldn’t otherwise be in. With STIs including Aids hitting left, right and centre no strings attached relationships might not be so advisable. What of a no strings attached relationship that leaves you HIV positive – sounds like a much more entangled string to me.

It is usually believed that a no strings attached relationship offers one the opportunity to have sex without the emotional baggage that comes with committed relationships. All things going according to plan it is believed that no strings attached relationships are supposed to be without jealousies, love, romance and maintenance costs. But again there are a lot of grey areas with this theory. For starters there are no guarantees that either you or your partner will not get emotionally involved after your “sexcapades”. With one partner emotionally involved and the other not you might just end up having the emotional drama you were trying to run away from in the first place.

I said in the beginning that no strings attached relationships are increasingly becoming a part of today’s world but this does not mean they are not frowned upon especially in a conservative society like Malawi. People still shun those who are involved in these casual relationships. To avoid societal wrath those involved in no strings attached relationships usually have to be discrete about their arrangement. If news of the arrangement gets out, one risks denting one’s CV and reducing one’s chances of finding a marriage partner at a later date. If matters of CV are of little value to you then no strings attached relationships can be option. But if you care about protecting your CV then it’s not advisable to be involved in a no strings attached relationship. After all you have no guarantee that your sleeping partner will not tell other people about your “secret” arrangement. You don’t want the strings of a no strings attached relationship to haunt you later on when you finally decide to settle down with someone in future.

Are no strings attached relationships really no strings attached? I don’t think so.

Swallowing poison to avoid offence

2011-12-12T00:06:00.000-08:00

There is a Nigerian proverb that says that it is the fear of offence that makes a man swallow poison. This wise saying simply means that a person will do what they do not want in order to avoid offending the other person. This saying might come from Nigerian culture but I find that it is in many ways also applicable to the Malawian context. How many times have some of us said yes to things we didn’t want in order to save face or how many times have some of us promised to help someone only to start of thinking of ways of how to avoid keeping the promise?

The habit of swallowing poison to avoid offence usually comes from one’s inability to say no. There are many reasons why people find it hard to say no to others. It might be because you always feel inclined to help others and find it hard to turn others down, or it might be that you do not want to be disrespectful to the other person by refusing their request (especially in cases where the person doing the requesting is older than you). Whatever the reasons for your inability to say no, the habit of swallowing poison to avoid offence is inconveniencing not only to yourself but also to the person who is seeking help from you.

Every time you swallow poison to avoid offence remember that you risk the danger of giving yourself more work than you can handle. If you do not have the time to work on something it is better to be honest with yourself and with any other people who might want help from you. If on the other hand you go ahead and say yes to requests for help you’ll find that you’ll end up foregoing your own priorities or overworking yourself in order to accommodate the other person.

Worse still, if you swallow poison to avoid offence you might find yourself in the middle of things that go against your values simply because you were afraid to say no to the other person.
Not only is this habit harmful to yourself but also to the other person who seeks help from you. If a person requests something from you and you agree to it that other person will be counting on you to deliver. It therefore doesn’t help to keep someone waiting for days only to tell them at the last minute that you can’t help them after all and neither does it help to promise someone help only to do a shoddy job of it because you didn’t have the time to work on it.

It is important that people must realise that there is nothing wrong in saying no. You do not have to say yes to others because you are eager to please them, rather, you should say yes because you want to or because you believe saying yes (and meaning it) is the best solution to solving a problem at hand. If you say no to someone it does not always mean that you are disrespectful, uncaring, or selfish – it sometimes means that you simply can’t.

Having said all this, people still need to learn the right way of saying no. Honesty is usually the best policy – if you can’t help someone politely refuse and tell them why. Don’t offer very long explanations as you can end up entangling yourself – keep it brief and straight to the point. And sometimes it also helps not to respond right away if someone asks you for something. You can tell the other person that you need time to think about it but do make sure that you get back to the other person with your response in time.

Handling rejection

2011-12-05T00:34:00.000-08:00

Every now and then almost everybody faces rejection. The rejection can come about as a result of a different number of issues such as a turned down marriage proposal or a failed job application. The natural reaction when one gets rejected is to usually feel hurt. How then does one experience rejection without letting the hurt feelings destroy you? Read on:

Don’t take it too hard on yourself: When you get rejected don’t blame yourself too much. It might indeed be that the rejection came about because of your own shortcomings but this does not mean that you are like a car that is beyond repair. If two or three girls reject you don’t condemn yourself as a cursed person who will never have any luck with love. Use the rejection as an opportunity to reflect on your shortcomings and how to deal with them. Sometimes it can be that you don’t even have any shortcomings and the person you approached for a date or the job you applied for are simply not right for you. Remember not to take rejections too personally.

You are not the first person to get rejected: Take solace in the fact that you are not the only person who has been rejected. Probably as you are reading now someone somewhere is being rejected. A rejection is not the end of the world and it is important to realise that any one can go through it. This realisation will give you the strength to go beyond the rejection and move on.

Focus on the positive: The urge to focus on negative things is usually so great following a rejection. Are you going to deal with a rejection by drowning your sorrows in drink or other reckless behaviour? The more you treat rejection with negative behaviour the more it becomes difficult to accept the rejection and overcome it. Rather, it is important to focus on the positive and draw inspiration from the positive things in your life.

Don’t give up: A rejection should not be a reason enough to give up something. Try and try again and you can finally achieve something. Not everyone got a job on the first try, not everyone found love the first time they tried and not everyone got a scholarship the first time they applied for one. Remember that things don’t just happen the first time around. Even the most successful of persons had to go through rejections in their life. If people like President Sata or President Mutharika had given up on their dream of being president after their first rejections they wouldn’t be presidents now.

Learn to recognise rejections made out of spite: Sometimes people will reject you because they simply want to spite you or attack your confidence (kungofuna akubleyese

). Consider for instance a girl who dresses you down when rejecting your love proposal or the boss who laughs in your face when you ask for a pay rise. Such types of rejections are obviously meant to hurt you and are not in any way sincere. Don’t take them to heart because if you do they will make you believe that you are a loser, when you are obviously not.

Remember a rejection is not the end of the world. Look at it as an opportunity to work on your weaknesses and achieve greater things.

Planning ahead for Christmas

2011-11-28T01:11:00.000-08:00

The festive season is here once again and Christmas is just around the corner. For most people Christmas is the time to celebrate with their loved ones. Christmas celebrations come in various forms – for some a Christmas cannot be a Christmas without a bottle of Fanta and a meal of rice and chicken while for others Christmas cannot be complete without a trip to the lake. Whether you symbolise your Christmas by giving a generous donation to your church or by going on a drinking spree at all the bars within a 50km radius – one thing is clear about Christmas – it involves money.

In this day and age money has become very elusive. It doesn’t matter if you are in zero-deficit Malawi or in debt-laden Greece; money is something that needs to be handled with care. How then does one enjoy the festive season while being very careful not to overspend?

The answer to this question lies in planning ahead. Before you receive that Christmas bonus or that 13th cheque make sure you already have a plan on how you are going to use your money. People usually have a tendency to set financial resolutions at the beginning of a new year but believe you me the best time to set financial resolutions is before Christmas. I say this because Christmas spending has the potential to take away everything you worked for in a whole year in a single day. If on the other hand you plan before Christmas on how you are going to use your money you can at least try to have Christmas celebrations that are within your means.

A word to companies: Please inform your employees in good time how much they will be getting in Christmas bonuses so that the employees have time to plan on how to use the money before Christmas. It doesn’t help to surprise the employees with a 13th cheque a day before Christmas. The employees might get excited with this unexpected manna from heaven and go an unplanned shopping spree. Before they know it they would have used up their bonus and their salary too.

Now, when you are planning your Christmas budget it is important that you be honest not only with yourself but with your friends and family too. Don’t lie to yourself that you can afford a Christmas at a lakeside resort when you surely can’t. And don’t lie to your friends and family that you can go along with their plans when you can’t afford them. If on Christmas Eve your buddies want to drink at Lumbadzi and finish off with kanyenya at Mponela, are you going to join them or are you going to be honest with them and tell them you would rather stick within the city centre limits? Think about how much it will cost you to travel from the city centre to Mponela (with fuel brought from the black market). In other words have a Christmas that is within your means.

And talking of within your means, avoid competing with other shoppers during Christmas. Have your budget before you go in a shop and stick to it. Don’t be swayed by what other shoppers are buying. If one shopper has biscuits in his trolley don’t also rush out and put the same packet of biscuits in your own trolley (and you justify the action by telling yourself that ana anga nawo akadyeko biscuit) or if one shopper has a packet of cornflakes you also grab the same packet (and tell yourself ndikale ndinadyako zimenezi

).

Of course Christmas is a time to enjoy, relax and have fun but it doesn’t mean that you have to go broke in order to have a fun Christmas. There are other ways that one can have a fulfilling Christmas without overspending. For believers Christmas can be a time to reconnect with the almighty, Christmas is also a great time for a family reunion (and those family members with the means can put together resources for a family reunion meal).

Take care of that weave!

2011-11-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

When someone came up with the idea that women should attach hair extensions or weaves to their heads, I always thought it was about enhancing women’s looks. But some of the weaves on people’s heads make you wonder if weaves are indeed a beauty accessory. Here are the types of weaves that I am talking about:

The reused weave: As the name suggests, the reused weave is one that is used more than once. Sometimes it can be the same person reusing the weave and sometimes the weave passes on from one head to another. Whatever the case, a weave that is worn more than once does not make for an appealing look. To begin with the weave is already fake and by the time it gets down to the second user, it would have lost all its colour, sheen and volume. Weaves are supposed to be used once unless it is a specially made expensive reusable weave.

The dirty weave: Weaves and water are not the best of friends (especially when it comes to cheap weaves). Water has a way of making cheap weaves turn into exact replicas of floor mops. Wearers of weaves will thus try as much as possible not to come into any contact with any water so that they can maintain the look of their weave. But in trying to maintain the look of the weave, wearers of weaves deny themselves the chance to clean their heads. As a result the weave ends up as a stinky mixture of sweat, dandruff and hair oils. The dirt in your hair will eventually cause the weave to become matted and leave you with a shabby look.

The badly attached weave: I thought that the idea behind a weave is to make it look as natural as possible. But, alas, it seems some people don’t care at all if the seams in their head are showing. To make it worse not only will the seams show but the cornrow braids onto which the weave is attached are also very noticeable. Advice: get a professional stylist to attach your weave and if you can’t afford it don’t get a weave.

The I-can’t blend with your hair: The “I-can’t blend with your hair weave” is closely related to the “badly attached weave” but not quite. The “I-can’t blend with your hair weave” is not so much a problem of your stylist but of your hair. Your stylist can try his/her best to make the weave work but your hair won’t just respond. As a result you have the section where the hair is not attached to the weave not blending with the weave. You’ve probably seen an example of this especially for women who leave a section of their own hair on the side – their own hair keeps standing up while the hair extensions flow freely.

This article should not be understood as saying that women should not wear weaves. After all, the choice to wear a weave or not remains an individual one. Still, I would say that it is advisable a person should opt for a weave if she can afford to take care of it. Don’t go picking up someone’s left over weave or some cheap brand that will leave people wondering if the things on your head are supposed to be goat hair or something else. Understand the saying kutchena ndikupilira

as actually meaning good looks come with a cost.

It’s not worth fighting over him

2011-11-14T06:22:00.000-08:00

Is it worth it for two or more women to fight over a man (and by fight I mean a physical fight)? The answer to this question is a big NO, at least in my opinion.

Common sense should tell us that if fighting over a man really worked then we would have sanctioned fighting contests where the best fighter would claim the prize (the man) and live happily ever after with him. Since no such contests exist, it boggles the mind that women continue to fight each other with the hope that the winner will get to keep the man. Read on to find out why it is not worth to fight over a man who is cheating on you:

A woman should not lie to herself that she can hold down an unfaithful man by giving his other women a beating. If she is a really good fighter she might manage to scare off the other women but this does not mean that she has won the man. If he makes up his mind to cheat on you, he will do it regardless of whether you beat up his other women or not.

The thing about relationships is that they give us the illusion that we own the other person (mwamuna wanga/mkazi wanga) and nobody has the right to steal our partner away. But the truth of the matter is that people in a relationship do not own each other and it is not right to accuse the other woman of stealing away your man. Your man is obviously a grown person and he is a willing participant in his being stolen. If you are to blame someone, at least blame him.

Cat fights have a nasty way of tarnishing the reputation of women. If you are going to fight with another woman over a man, it is important to ask yourself if the fight is worth spoiling your reputation over. Obviously, its not. You do not want to be known as the crazy woman who disgraces herself by beating her competition.

There are other good men out there. If he is cheating on you, he probably is not a good man and he is not worth losing a couple of teeth over in a girl fight. Instead of fighting with your opponent why not take the bold step and walk away. Accept that the man is not your Mr Right and you are better off finding someone else.

It’s a waste of time and energy. Imagine all the energy and time that goes into shouting at the other woman and beating her up. You are better off spending your time and energy on something else more productive than on picking up a fight with this other woman.

You give the man an undeserved sense of self-worth. You might think that by fighting for a man he will love you more but the truth is he will love you less and love himself more. If you fight for a man he will believe that he has the potential to actually make women fight over him. He will believe that he can have any woman he wants and get away with cheating on any of them. After all, the women are fighting over him and why should he not get a sense of self-importance.

Facebook drama

2011-11-07T00:34:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for drama look no further than on Facebook walls because you will find it all. From angry status updates, friendships that have moved from friended to unfriended, relationship statuses that have moved from single to in a relationship, to engaged, and to married before they again engaged in reverse gear and became complicated, separated and divorced – Facebook has it all.

The thing about Facebook is that Facebook is like that untrustworthy friend that you can’t just avoid. You know that if you tell him/her your issues s/he will repeat them to everyone but for some reason you can’t just stop telling this friend your issues. Facebook is like that – once you start telling it your issues it has a way of attracting you to keep on revealing more. And the more you reveal things to it the more it spreads out your issues. This of course is not always a bad thing – consider that businesswoman who benefits from publicising her goods on Facebook or consider the number of people who benefit from fuel ali pati updates on Facebook.

However, Facebook becomes a bad thing if you make it the centre of your drama. Everyone has some drama now and then in their life but if you are the type of person who seems to be plagued by drama everyday, it would be best to avoid Facebook. Not that people don’t want to read your drama, in fact, I can bet that the more drama you have the more traffic you will attract to your Facebook page. But the reason people are reading your drama is because it offers them some kind of entertainment and makes them feel good about themselves. They look at all the drama that you have exposed of yourself on Facebook and tell themselves that they are glad that they are not you. My advice – don’t let people use you to feel good about themselves. Avoid the Facebook drama and here are a few tips on how to do just that:

Avoid using Facebook to vent out your anger: If you are angry it would be best to avoid the every five minutes status updates. It really looks cool when you first post and vent out your anger but after all the posting is done, the anger doesn’t reflect well on your personality.

Avoiding doing a romantic relationship on Facebook walls: I am not saying that people shouldn’t get hooked up on Facebook but if you do (or didn’t for that matter) it is not advisable to be acting out that relationship on Facebook. It’s nice and romantic when everything is going great between the two of you and you post all your lovey-doveys on each others walls. But relationships that are acted out on Facebook have a way of being Facebook’s business and when the times get bad Facebook will be there to capture it all. Facebook will be there as you tear each other apart and return each others snap shots (or should I say untag each others photos).

Don’t share everything: Just because it is possible to post everything on Facebook doesn’t mean that you should bare it all. Post what is necessary and if you want to share intimate details then please be double sure that you have a closed account and a restricted number of real friends.

Don’t stress about people’s updates: Don’t assume that a post on Facebook is about you. Don’t let Facebook posts get the best of you and stress you out. Don’t take Facebook personal.

Avoid living a lie on Facebook. Try and stop convincing people that you are happy, rich, in love, born again and whatever else. If you are any of these things you will not have to prove it, it will show naturally.

Lastly , don’t spend too much time on Facebook.

Does he care or is he using me?

2011-10-31T03:49:00.001-07:00

You are in a relationship and the anxieties start settling in – is he the one or is he just using me, do I have a future with this guy or will he marry someone else. These are just some of the questions that women might find themselves asking once they start doubting the seriousness of their relationship. If you are doubting the seriousness of your partner it might help to review some of the following things about the relationship:

It would help to review the way he proposed: Traditionally (at least in the Malawian society) it is believed that a woman can gauge a man’s interest in her by the perseverance he shows during the time he is proposing. If he easily gives up the first few times you turn him down then that is taken as a sign that he was not very serious about you and vice versa. While relationships have today evolved and people may not have the time or energy to play hard to get games, this little rule has not become totally irrelevant. The way he asks you out still remains a determining factor in as far as assessing a man’s seriousness is concerned. Thus, if you are having any anxieties about your relationship, it might be helpful to review how the whole relationship started. This is not to say that all relationships that start automatically are doomed to fail but if you are worried about your relationship, it wouldn’t hurt to review how it all started.

He is too busy for you: If your man cannot find time to be with you chances might be that he is not really into you. If he keeps on giving you excuses or staying for days without calling you or contacting you in some way, it might be that you are not in his heart. If he is serious about you he will try to keep in touch.

He doesn’t want to be seen in public with you: If he tells you that the two of you should keep the romance a secret, pause and hit the panic button. It might be that he is married or in another relationship and doesn’t want to get caught. If a man is serious about you he will try to show you off to his friends or to his sisters, if he has any. If ever since your relationship started he has never introduced you to anyone as alamu anu ndiamenewa, it might just be that he is simply using you.

He does not offer to spend anything on you: Times have again changed and men are no longer under any obligation to spend on women. But as they say, old habits die hard, and the society still expects a man to be generous towards the woman he cares about. Thus, if a man really cares for you he will offer to spend one or two kwachas on you and it will be up to you to draw a line on how much he can spend on you. If on the other hand he has never offered to pay for anything, not even a bottle of Fanta chances are that he does not really care about you, that is, if he is not just downright mean.

He seems to only care for sex: Chances are a man doesn’t really like you if all he wants from you is sex. If he is really into you he will spend time with you doing other things other than sex. If he really cares he will respect any reasonable boundaries that you might set around sex.

How to drive on Malawian roads

2011-10-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

When drivers’ licences are sold to anyone with money and when driving schools are being run by instructors who got their own licences through the backdoor, you might as well forget the official highway code. Read on to learn about road etiquette on Malawian roads.

Zebra crossing: Look at it as a decoration on the road. Don’t slow down when you approach one. If pedestrians are crossing, reluctantly slow down and if you have it in you stick your head outside the window and remind them that they don’t pay road tax.

The “you don’t pay road tax” doesn’t only come in handy for pedestrians. It also works for cyclists, yes those unfortunate road users who seem to be blamed by most motorists for all road mishaps. Stick your callous head outside the window and tell them that they can’t have the right of way because they don’t pay road tax.

Traffic lights: Read the meaning of the lights according to what suits you and not according to what they actually mean. When the light turns red don’t stop but step on the accelerator and try to pass through. When the light turns amber place your hand on the horn in readiness to honk at the person in front of you to get a move on. The minute the light turns green start honking as if your very life depended on it. When the light turns green it also helps that you comment to your passengers that the driver in front of you must be a woman and that is why you are being delayed.

Speed limits: Don’t observe them and drive as you see fit. Only observe the speed limit when oncoming drivers blink their lights at you as a sign that speed trappers are ahead of you.
Seat belts: Just as with speed limits, only use the seat belt to protect yourself from traffic policemen and not for your own safety. Once you are clear of traffic police feel free to take the safety belt off.

Drink and drive: whoever said don’t drink and drive should take a drive on Malawian roads on a Friday night and count the number of drunk drivers. Not only will the drivers be drunk, they might even be drinking and driving, literally. Unless someone warns you that traffic police with breathalysers are patrolling the streets, please feel free to drink and drive, literally or otherwise.

Minibus drivers are kings on the roads and this has become an accepted rule. If you read a sticker on the back of a minibus that says “Don’t drive too close to me”, I would advise you to neglect that warning at your own peril. Minibuses stop anywhere at anytime. Talk of them cutting in through traffic queues. Talk of them chasing each other on the highways to be the first to reach the passengers. Minibuses literally own the roads.

When it’s the rainy season please remember to splash rain water on the pedestrians especially when the pedestrian is in a nice white nurse’s uniform. Don’t stop to apologise.

Crazy as it might sound but don’t stop when you hit someone on the road. Even the police will tell you not to stop when you hit a pedestrian on the road unless you want the mob to declare justice on you right then and there. Talk of giving hit and run drivers some free leverage.

Office romances

2011-10-17T00:31:00.000-07:00

Office relationships or romances are not among the most recommended of relationships. Not only do they set the tongues of co-workers wagging, office romances also have the potential to turn scandalous for the simplest of reasons. But whatever negative consequences office relationships might have, there are always people who are willing to give an office romance a try. In fact some people have had very successful office relationships that have led to a long term commitment. Of course as I have already mentioned, it is not easy to pull off a successful office romance. At best most people will manage to pull off an office romance that puts a dent in either their professional CV or in their romantic CV. At worst people will manage an office relationship that puts a dent in both their professional and romantic CV.

How then does one have an office relationship and still manage to keep both the professional and romantic CVs intact?

Committed/married people are off limits: If you want to have an office relationship please make sure that the person you are after is not in a relationship with somebody else. Affairs in general are nasty business but they are even nastier when they happen in an office setting. Affairs in the office are a sure recipe for putting a dent in both your romantic and professional CVs. Imagine if your wife or boyfriend finds out that you are having an affair at the office and the boyfriend/wife decides to come and make a public spectacle of your lover in front of your co-workers. Your bosses will surely not like this turn of events and will consider you as an unprofessional employee. As for your other colleagues, you can be assured that they will spread the story to all who care to listen, modifying and spicing it up to suit their listeners and denting your romantic CV in the process.

Public Displays of Affection (PDA) are not for the office: If you are a couple working in the same office please keep the displays of affection for some place else and not the office. Not only is it unprofessional to be intimate in front of your colleagues but you also never know who you can offend with PDA. The office is made up of people of different backgrounds and while some people might not mind if you touch each other suggestively at the office, some people will be scandalised by such behaviour. It is therefore best to avoid PDA. And while we are still on the subject of affection please don’t go all the way at the office. Office walls have a funny way of seeing everything that goes on and while the two of you might feel safe locked up in the toilet or locked up in an office after hours remember that office walls see and hear things.

Avoid dating your juniors/seniors: Don’t date colleagues who have an influence over your career progression or whose career progression depends on you. There is no simpler way to get the “bottom power” label than by having relationships with your seniors. As for the senior employees, there is no better way to bring a company down than by dating your juniors. A boss who dates his/her junior employees demotivates the other employees who might feel that the boss’s partner gets favours when this might not even be the case. If possible date colleagues who are on the same level as you or try scouting outside your department and find someone who has no influence over what goes on in your department.

Don’t use office equipment to send each other romantic and sleazy messages/pictures: Remember that office equipment does not belong to you, it belongs to the office and any one of your colleagues can have access to it. And so don’t save naked pictures of your partner on the office computer. Naked pictures of anyone are embarrassing enough already but naked pictures of someone who is known to everyone at the office are even more embarrassing. And the sleazy emails – avoid these too because you never know who can intercept your emails on the office network and re-route them to the inboxes of all your colleagues.

Don’t let an office relationship affect your work performance: If you are having an office romance please make sure that it does not interfere with your work. No extended lunch breaks with your partner, lovers’ tiffs should not find their way to the office, don’t spend office hours chatting with your partner. In short make sure that an office relationship should not give your bosses a reason to fire you.

When all is said and done remember that love happens and sometimes it doesn’t matter if the love is triggered at the office or at the market. But if you decide to go for office love, remember to play it safe because not only can an office romance cost you your career, it can also cost your reputation. In these hard economic times it would not be recommendable to be both unemployable and “undateable”.

Why

2011-10-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

It is true that actions speak louder than words, but words that are spoken over and over again can become as loud as actions. This is why you should take it seriously when the word “why” keeps cropping up in your relationship. “Why” might simply be a three letter word but it can tell a lot about the state of your relationship. Here is why you should pay attention to the whys in your relationship:

Are you asking too many whys about your partner? If you are, chances are your relationship is not working. Not that I am saying you should not question your relationship at all, but if you are wondering about your relationship more than you are enjoying it then that is a sign that something is wrong somewhere.

Do you most of the times find yourself asking questions like why s/he doesn't seem to listen to you, why s/he doesn't remember your special days like your birthday, why s/he doesn't get along with your family and friends, why you don't trust him/her, why s/he is never nice to you, why you don't do stuff together, why does s/he love me, why do I love him/her, why did s/he marry me, why did I marry him/her, why does s/he look at me like that, why does s/he appreciate me ... and the list of “whys” goes on.

Of course it is perfectly normal that once in a while people will experience some level of doubt and question their relationships. After all, uncertainty is part of life and it would be naïve to suggest that a couple survive a relationship without any amount of doubt. Sometimes it even becomes important that a person should question certain aspects of a relationship in order to support and grow the relationship. However, the whys in a relationship become a danger sign when they become a constant part of the relationship. If you are always questioning why your partner does or does not do certain things then that is a clear sign that things are not ticking between the two of you. The two of you probably exist on different wavelengths and are not meeting each others expectations.

Too many whys also expose your own insecurities in a relationship. If for instance you are always questioning why your partner loves you or why s/he spoils you, this might indicate that you do not find yourself worth of being loved or spoilt. This is a sign that you underrate yourself in the relationship and cannot understand why your partner is nice to you.

Too many whys can also help you to see that you are making excuses for your partner. You ask why because you do not understand why your partner does the things s/he does. You need why to validate the actions of your partner. For instance instead of walking out of an abusive relationship you keep on asking why s/he hits you and keep on making excuses on behalf of your partner.

Whys should exist in a relationship but they should exist in moderation. Don’t let the whys take over your relationship. Ask why when it is necessary but when you always ask why about your partner then that is an indication that you do not trust him/her or you do not trust yourself.

Not everyone in the crowd cares

2011-10-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Social gatherings hold a vital role in Malawian society. It is generally believed that a person’s goodness can be measured by the number of people who attend his/her social gatherings; be it weddings, funerals, bridal showers and the like. As such, people usually take it for granted that a large crowd at a social gathering is a clear indication that the owner of the social gathering lives well with people (amakhala bwino ndi anthu).

While it is true that the number of people at someone’s funeral or wedding might speak volumes about the person’s good character, it is not always true that people will attend your social gatherings because they like you. Don’t be fooled that because thousands upon thousands of people attended your wedding or your chinkhoswe then you are a likeable fellow. Here is why some people could have made themselves available at your events:

People don’t always come for you: Don’t lie to yourself that every person you see attending your wedding has come for you because the truth might be that they don’t even know you. People will come to your wedding or your bridal shower not because you live well with people but because of who your parents or your uncles and aunts are. If your parents and uncles live well with people, people will come to your social gatherings regardless of your character. If your parents are rich and famous you can count on it that people will grace your occasions.

Bad reputation: Not everyone who comes to your social gatherings comes there because they love or appreciate the work that you do in society. For instance, some people will come to your funeral because they heard how you used to terrorise others when you were alive and they just want to confirm for themselves that you are really dead. Some people will come to your wedding not because they adore your character, but because they heard what a player you are and they want to see for themselves who has agreed to marry you.

Unemployment: Sometimes people will come to your social gatherings because they have nothing else better to do with their time. They would rather come to your wedding or funeral and have some sense of purpose. After all, there is usually some free food and drinks guaranteed at such gatherings.
Rich and famous: If you are rich and famous people will come to your bridal showers, weddings and funerals even if you are the most heartless of persons. You can count on the people whom you exploit to come to your funeral, you can count on the media publicising your wedding to all. And it’s funny how the poor will sympathise with the rich even when the success of the rich person is built on the poverty of the poor.

Campaigners: As I said at the beginning of this article, we are a society that places great value on the size of the crowd at one’s events. As such, some people will do almost anything to ensure that they will be able to have the socially approved numbers at their social events. Such people will attend every funeral, wedding, send-off party and whatever else in a bid to woo people who will in turn grace their own “big days”. Attending people’s social events ceases to be a matter of offering supporting and celebrating with the people they care about. It now becomes a form of security seeking or campaigning to ensure that someone will attend their own “big days”.

Thus, when you sit on a love chair and look at the mammoth crowd before you or when you your loved one lies in the coffin and you see the hundreds of people that have come to bury him/her, don’t be blinded and take it for granted that they have come because you are a good person. Are you really a good person, ask yourself.

What does the primary source say?

2011-09-26T04:42:00.000-07:00

There is nothing that best describes “primary source” like the Chichewa slang adaptation of leading actor, mwini filimu. According to my understanding of Chichewa slang, mwini filimu, is used not only to denote the “owner” of a story (mwini nkhani) but also to connote any person who is in control of a particular situation. In this article I am not necessarily concerned with the latter understanding of mwini filimu. Rather, I use the expression mwini filimu in a slightly altered sense to simultaneously capture the idea of mwini filimu as the owner of a story and as a primary source.

As a primary source, mwini filimu is the original account and offers a person a first hand and inside view. Of course surrounding the primary source are secondary sources who comment on and have their own opinions on the primary source. The secondary sources interpret and analyse the primary source and usually the secondary sources will include their own biases in the interpretation of the primary source.

It is interesting that more often than not human beings will form their judgement of someone not based on the primary source but on secondary sources. Let me illustrate my point: Boy A meets Girl B (Girl B is the primary source in this case). Boy A interacts with Girl B and doesn’t like her. He forms his own opinions of Girl B. Later Boy A comes into contact with the Crowd C (the secondary sources). The Crowd C feed Boy A with their own opinions of Girl B. Boy A instantly forgets his own opinions of Girl B and makes his final judgement of Girl B based on the opinions of Crowd C.

In another scenario: Boy A keeps on hearing various stories from secondary sources about Girl B. He has never met Girl B before. Without even making an attempt to personally interact with Girl B (the primary source), Boy A writes off Girl B based on hearsay.

While the opinion of secondary sources can be helpful in ascertaining the character of someone, it is important that in the final analysis your own opinions should prevail in determining someone’s character. I am not saying that people should totally disregard secondary sources in their assessment of someone but secondary sources should only be used to aid one along in trying to understand the primary source further. Question what the secondary sources say about the primary source and test this against your personal understanding of the primary source.

Remember that the primary source is the owner of the story. To understand the inside story you must interact with its owner. Assess the inside story for yourself and make your own opinions of it. Listen to what the secondary sources say but do not act like a tree which always sways in the direction of the wind but never in its own direction.

To conclude let me draw a parallel from the movie industry, the industry from which the expression mwini filimu is adapted. Mwini filimu, as a movie’s protagonist, carries with him/her the plot. The viewer’s concentration usually centres on mwini filimu and the viewer comes to understand the actions of mwini filimu. The supporting actors (understood as the secondary sources in this case) only aid the plot along. The viewer’s final judgement of the movie is usually based on the actions of mwini filimu.

While in the world of movies, mwini filimu has a big influence on the viewer, the same is not always true in real life. In real life it seems the supporting actors or the secondary sources have a big influence in determining people’s opinions of someone.

At it again

2011-09-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

As September 21 draws closer, I once again find myself abandoning my usual topics of urban lifestyle and relationships and being drawn towards the impending anti-government vigils. I usually avoid political topics for the simple reason that they are adequately covered elsewhere in our local papers. However, I am forced to write on the anti-government protests for a second time because I strongly feel that there has been little or no media effort to interrogate the interests of the drivers of the protests, the NGOs. More importantly, there has been no effort to interrogate the primary tool on which the NGOs are basing the protests – the petition.

It is no secret that President Bingu wa Mutharika’s popularity has hit an all time low. The outcome of the recent Rumphi Central by-election, which saw an almost defunct Aford carrying the day, only helped to confirm what we already knew. With Mutharika’s popularity ratings plunging faster than ripe mangoes from a tree, it should come as no surprise that NGO leaders were able to turn Mutharika’s unpopularity to their own favour. The NGOs saw a situation, rose up to it and quickly claimed total authority over it.

As self-declared spokespersons of Malawians, the NGO leaders hastily drafted a petition, which they said was representative of the wishes of Malawians. To date the NGOs have not come out to clearly explain what processes were involved in writing the petition nor have they told us which Malawians they consulted in writing this petition. It is clear that the NGOs don’t care what the majority of Malawians think of their petition. The fact that they chose to mainly circulate the petition through the internet, which remains inaccessible to the majority of Malawians, shows that they cared little for the opinion of the people. The fact that the petition is in English, with no attempts made up to date to translate it into local languages, only shows that the target of the NGOs was a specific class of Malawians.

It is funny that up to now the issue of signatures has not come up. A petition supposedly representing the wishes of Malawians was delivered to government authorities but it is not known if anyone (apart from the organisers) signed this petition. Why did the NGOs not even bother to collect signatures of the people for something historic as planned “nation wide” demonstrations? Maybe the NGOs have become like the politicians they so much criticise. Like the politicians, they now believe that they know best what Malawians want and they have given themselves the authority to speak on behalf of everyone.

And talking of “nation wide” demonstrations, a Nkhotakota-based peace corp volunteer, Mary Emmanuel, commented on her blog about the July 20 demonstrations: “When you hear that something is happening ‘nation wide’ people usually envision mass panic, something absolutely every person is participating in. When they say ‘nation wide’ in Malawi, they mean it was happening in the three biggest cities, Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu, which happen to be located in the South, central, and North parts of the country, and thus it is nation wide.” Of course Mary forgot to add that the demonstrations also took place in Karonga and Zomba. Nevertheless the gist of Mary’s message remains unscathed – 5 districts out of 28 is as nationwide as it gets for NGOs and the media who reported it thus.

In my article, soon after the 20th July demonstrations, I argued on this very page that the NGO petition was written as if Malawi is not a classed society and as if the country’s problems are manifested at all levels of society in the same way. I argued that the petition universalised experiences of the middle class Malawian and that low class Malawians were simply used to demonstrate for the cause of the middle class. I still stand by my statement that the petition is not designed to release Malawi’s poorest poor from the poverty trap (a trap they have been in long before the existence of shortages of fuel and forex and zero-deficit budgets).

It is on this kind of petition that the NGOs continue to hold the country at ransom. They have demanded that they will not accept anything else besides what is contained in the petition, failure of which they will go back to the streets. The NGOs know very well what going into the streets means – an arrogant president, trigger-happy policemen, genuine marchers, looters, criminals all bundled up in one space. The chaos that results always leads to loss of lives. Unfortunately those that die are soon forgotten, if they are at all identified. One journalist observed, it is the politicians and the NGO leaders who will be photographed laying wreaths on the graves of the dead and newspapers will portray the politicians and the NGO leaders as the true heroes.

I hope no one will misunderstand this article as to mean that NGOs should not speak. NGOs should speak at all times (in fact we need a more vibrant civil society than ever) but NGOs should not become the politicians we despise. We do not need NGOs that turn themselves into demi-gods. We need civil society organisations which are responsible, which consult the people, which are realistic in their demands, and which are accountable to the people when they take on national causes (the current NGO leaders have not declared to the people where they are getting funds to organise the protests. The people need to know this information since the money is sourced using the people’s name).

A revolution shall come to Malawi but I doubt that this revolution will come from an office of an NGO. A revolution shall come and it will come from the people themselves.

When parents behave like the international community

2011-09-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

Some parents are like the international community (understood as governments of rich industrialized countries and their related “global” organisations) and are quick to interfere in the relationships of their grown children.

Like the international community, which wants development and democracy defined on its terms, such parents will only allow their grown children to have a relationship that is based on their terms.

Like the international community, which believes that it knows what is best for a poor country than the poor country itself, such parents also believe that they know best who will make a suitable partner for their son or daughter.

Like the international community, which is quick to impose sanctions on “disobedient” poor countries, such parents are quick to impose sanctions on children who go against their wishes.
And how such parents play the role of the international community so well! They will groom the child to copy the parents’ actions and to see the world only from the view of the parents. For a while the grooming works and the child plays mom’s and dad’s copycat. If dad says don’t date outside our tribe or outside our class the child will for a while believe that dad only has the child’s best interests at heart. But like the international community, dad never foresees that the child will one day stop imitating the parents.

And hitherto the Lomwe boy who has been kept away from Tumbuka girls decides to get himself a Tumbuka girlfriend or the CCAP’s reverend daughter who has all along dated boys in the church choir decides to marry a Rastafarian. Of course dad and mom will not like this turn of events and sanctions will be imposed on the obstinate child. Like with sanctions of the international community, the sanctions will come in phases and increase in severity until the prodigal child comes to his/her senses and carries out the wishes of mom and dad. But like with most sanctions, they usually never work and dad and mom are then left with one of two choices – disown the child or let the child have his/her way.

Where the latter option is chosen, don’t trust such parents to really let the child have his/her way. From time to time such parents will interfere in marital affairs in the child’s home. Watch out for such parents especially during times of marital crisis. They will come in the name of humanitarian intervention but instead of playing a mediatory role, they will join in the marital fight and start taking sides.

Of course they are older, and people who are watching events unfold in the child’s home will understand the parents’ intervention as a matter of necessity, in the same manner that people understand the intervention of rich countries in poor countries to be a matter of necessity.
If for some reason the child’s marriage is going strong and there are no marital fights in sight, the parents will find some other ways of exerting their influence on the marriage. Such parents will have a hold on the son-in-law or the daughter-in-law by offering him/her assistance, be it in cash or in kind. Not that all help rendered by parents-in-law to children-in-law is meant to entrap the children-in-law, but such parents will offer their assistance in a way that forces the child-in-law to be indebted to them.

Having said all this, your parents are your parents and they will always be your parents but the international community is not the parent of any nation.

Office gossip

2011-09-04T23:09:00.000-07:00

Office gossip is inevitable and it would be naïve to suggest that it can be eliminated. While it cannot be eliminated, it is important that individual employees must learn to distinguish between harmful gossip and the easy-going chatter that co-workers engage in from time to time.

It is important that when someone shares with you a piece of gossip you should first question that person’s motives for telling you the information. Similarly, when you have a piece of information regarding your co-worker ask yourself why you would want to publicise that information. Is it because you are jealous of your co-worker, is it because you want to spite him/her, or is it because you wish him/her well. If your motives for publicising the information are ill-intended then it would be best to keep that information to yourself.

Below is a list of the type of “office gossipers” you’d best avoid:

Carriers: Beware of carriers because they will infect you without displaying any symptoms of infection themselves. In plain words, carriers tell the tales but it is the listeners who get implicated in the end (the latter is what in Chichewa we call kukusalira). Carriers will move from office to office spreading one rumour after another but never do they themselves ever seem to get in trouble for gossiping. Carriers are clever and everyone seems to love them because they have a tale to tell about everyone to everyone. But never do people recognise that they are the source of infection.

Coup plotters: Coup plotters should be avoided at all costs. Their motive is to overthrow a legitimate employee from his/her position and take that position for themselves. Thus, coup plotters will spread rumours about the person whose seat they are eying. You can easily identify this type of gossip because a coup plotter will usually only gossip about the person who they want to overthrow. Gossip of coup plotters will be so denigrating towards their target that you cannot miss it. It is the intention of coup plotters to amass as many supporters as they can on their side and to leave their target without cover. If coup plotters notice that there is someone sympathising with their target, they will try to win that someone over to their side by feeding him/her more gossip. And if they fail to win that someone over to their side, coup plotters are left with no choice but to eliminate the obstacle together with the target.

Double dealers: Like their name suggests, double dealers deal on both sides. One moment they will be gossiping with you about a co-worker and the next moment they will go to the co-worker and turn the tables on you. You might never know that someone is a double-dealer unless something slips out that implicates the double dealer.

Fishers: Fishers are the type of gossipers who are fishing for information. Sometimes they are ignorant and want you to provide them with information and sometimes they are aware of a situation and want to find out how many people know about it. Fishers are very good at speculating and they will approach you with numerous speculations to see how you respond. If you recognise fishers for what they are, you will keep your mouth shut but if you take their bait, they will fish all the information out of you.

The boss’ eyes

: These are the type of gossipers who feed the boss with information. Their motive is usually to gain favours from the boss. Watch out for co-workers who like to have private conversations with the boss for no apparent reason. By their nature the boss’ eyes are bootlickers and every time the boss is around they want to appear as angels. Be careful what you say in front of the boss’s eyes because you never know when it might end up at the high office.

Changing predominantly consuming lifestyles

2011-08-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

The Subject: Middle class educated Malawian.
Status: Employed
Source of Income: Salary
Savings: None
Debts: Several
Lifestyle: children in private school. Drives. Has a DSTV connection. Lives in a rented house. Goes out several times in a week and has little regard for money spent on recreation. The children wear T-shirts of their favourite cartoon character; mom has a string of debts with wamasuit, wansapato, wamahandbag and wamatop; and dad is finally trying to be the yoh that he couldn't be. Apart from the official partner at home, s/he also has a spare wheel tucked somewhere that also needs financial upkeep. Lives on hand to mouth.

Do you fit the description? Are you living a life that you can barely afford? You realise that your lifestyle is a problem but you cannot break away from it? Every new year's you write resolutions on how you'll change your lifestyle but you always forget them one week into the new year? When debts are up to your neck you always swear to yourself that you'll refocus your priorities, but once the debts are reduced to your waist you forget the oath that you made to yourself?

You are now trapped in a world where your status is defined by dress, consumption and recreation habits. In your world, the more you consume the more you climb up the social ladder. It is never easy to break away from such a world but this doesn't mean that it can't be done. With determination and a good plan you can do it.

When you decide to change your lifestyle from being a predominantly consuming to a predominantly saving one, you first of all need to realise that you are a consumer and accept that you have to deal with this. Once you come to terms with this moment of self-realisation you need to make a list of all the unnecessary things that are draining your resources. Do you really need to maintain several cell phones when you can get by with one, do you really need that extra girlfriend/boyfriend who adds nothing to your life but only helps you to consume more, do you need to go drinking every other day of the week (and at upmarket places at that), do you really need to buy your kid a T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it when a plain T-shirt of the same quality costs two times less than the Mickey Mouse one.

When you have a list of your bad consumer habits, you need to reorganise your finances and set your priorities. Come up with a zero-deficit budget that factors in savings. Look at ways of how you can grow your finances to achieve your bigger goals (for example owning a home). If you cannot manage to come up with the budget and plan yourself, ask help from someone you can trust and someone who is good with financial matters. Don't go to a fellow consumer and ask them for help, its a bad idea. The thing about consumers is that they tend to hang around fellow consumers. They tell themselves that they are discussing ways of making money and yet they end up consuming even more when they are having these money-making discussions.

Once you have your budget and your plans you need to start executing them and this is the most difficult part. You need to have the determination to go on and there will be several hurdles in your path. Some hurdles will be beyond your control (unforeseen things like death and serious illnesses within the family) while some things you will be able to control. For instance gossip is one thing that you can control. Once you decide to change your lifestyle there will be talk and a lot of it. You will definitely come a few steps down the social ladder and people will comment that akuyendatu pansi pano

and make some other such mean remarks. It would help you to ignore such comments because it is only you who knows the truth behind what is going on. And the thing about gossip is its like fashion. Don't worry too much about it. It comes and goes. For a while people will talk that you are now eating beans but soon enough you'll go out of fashion and people will find somebody else's consumer habits to talk about.

So don't stress too much about it and give yourself the lifestyle change while you can still afford it. You don't want to wait until 50 before you can do this.

Of degrees and titles abuse

2011-08-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

Memorise a couple of bible verses. Find a church. Preach in English(it also helps to adopt a funny sounding American accent while you are at it) and have someone translate for you into vernacular as you preach along. Don't reveal the university where you earned your theology doctorate and call yourself reverend doctor apostle. If the doctor title is too much for you to pull off, you can simply prefix “apostle” before your name – after all the word “apostle” means messenger (from the Greek word, apostolos) and anyone can claim that God appeared to them in their dreams and sent them forth to be God's messenger. Or if you want to add a little drama, make a few public general statements and call them prophecies. In no time call yourself prophet whoever.

Become president of a country. Bulldoze one of the universities to confer on you and your wife honorary degrees. If you can pull it off have a foreign university confer on you the title of professor. Back home convince some chiefs to give you a revered traditional title. Train all of your MPs into perfect parrots and make sure that they all address you as His Excellency the President Ngwazi Professor Doctor. For you honorary titles are synonymous with earned titles.

Maybe you really earned your professorship the right way. You have a proven academic record at accredited universities. A simple google search indeed shows that you've had a successful academic career. But reduce your whole being to your academic title. Stop caring about the contextual use of the title of professor and make it your name. Have a whole country call you professor, the media simply refer to you as professor and everyone immediately knows that they are talking about you. Attempt to run for President and have your campaign team tell people that your academic titles will make you an automatic performer.

For some reason you were unemployable. You have questionable credentials but you run for MP and insist that you are a Dr or a professor. Not even once do you mention the university you attended and neither do you disclose your field of expertise. The people believe you and give you a parliamentary seat. Go to parliament and sit on your bottom through out your entire five-year term. Never for once say a single word in Parliament. And while you are sitting on your bottom doing nothing add the title of honourable to your list of titles. Do nothing honourable during your tenure and once out of office insist that people still call you an honourable because once an honourable always honourable.

Earn a proper academic title. Proudly call yourself a doctor of law who was trained at one of the best universities in the world but forget that academic titles are nurtured by one's continued intellectual pursuits. Forget to refresh your brain with knowledge to the point that you misread clean air laws as anti-farting laws.

Earn a title, genuine or dubious. Insist that everybody calls you by your proper titles. Get angry if someone omits to mention your title even if you are a total stranger to the person addressing you. Act as if you have the titles Dr or Honourable stamped on your forehead for all to see.

Earn a BA or an MA at any university. Print the letters BA on your business card and even make the letters part of your email signature. Get a job. Contribute nothing at your place of employment but bask in the glory of your degree. Have a condescending attitude and believe that everyone who doesn't have a degree is ignorant.

Think twice before judging Malawians

2011-08-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

Peace-loving, friendly, docile, god-fearing, loyal, envious are some of the adjectives used to describe Malawians. But to what extent do such stereotypes hold true for the nation of Malawi?

They don't read. Do they not? Maybe they don't read as much as they should but its not right to outright dismiss Malawians as book haters. If it was true that Malawians don't read I would probably have stopped this page a long time ago because there could have been no one reading it. If it was true that Malawians don't read, Malawians could not have been writing because it is almost impossible to write publishable material if you don't read what others write (as an example, a Malawian, Stanley O. Kenani has just published his collection of short stories). And so before you conclude that Malawians don't read remember that they are some who do.

They are unoriginal. They are said to copy their neighbour's business, to copy Zambian music and to copy everything else that catches their fancy. Yes, there are a lot of copycats out there but there are also some original people among the copy cats. Izeki ndi Jakobo, Wambali Mkandawire and many others stand out for their originality.

Amalawi samachedwa kuyiwala (Malawians easily forget). AMalawi sachedwa kuyiwala is usually used to justify Malawi's bad choice of leaders. It is said because Malawians easily forget, they put Bingu in power and yet Bingu had supped with notorious Bakili. It is said because Malawians easily forget, Malawians still hold JZU in high esteem and yet JZU's past has MCP atrocities written all over it. But to what extent is it true that Malawians have a short term memory? Have Malawians never shown to remember things? For people who are said to have a short term memory isn't it surprising that recently Chancellor College lecturers recalled the MCP past when spies resurfaced in the classroom under the Bingu regime?

To say that Malawi is a God-fearing nation is surely a generalization that is only sustained because others who hold contrary views fear the wrath of the so-called "God-fearers". And so before you judge Malawi as a God-fearing nation please remember that the nation also has self-proclaimed atheists of the type of George Thindwa. Before you pass off Malawi as a God-fearing nation recall the many men of the collar who break the Lord?s commandments with no ounce of shame.

For a country that is known to be peace-loving isn't it surprising that all three regimes in this country have founded youth groups based on the premise of violence. The MCP had its Malawi Young Pioneers who were known to reign terror on anyone who happened to cross or not to cross their path. Fast forward to the multi-party era and the UDF had its violent young democrats. In the DPP era the Young Democrats have simply metamorphosed into the DPP Youth. Where on this piece of peace-loving land do these parties find these violent people to recruit into their youth leagues? If you were to ask me I would say, take Malawians love for peace for granted at your own peril.

In fact don't take anything that is said to be a typical Malawian characteristic for granted. Don't make the mistake of judging Malawians based on widely-held beliefs or else you'll be in for a rude awakening.
　

Look at the verb and not the noun

2011-07-31T13:07:00.000-07:00

I have a hypothesis and the hypothesis says: if a person is looking for a meaningful relationship with a member of the opposite sex s/he must look at the verb and not the noun. Let me now prove this hypothesis:

Don't be impressed by the phone s/he owns but by how often s/he phones you.

Make sure s/he is not putting on act because an act is just that - an act or a fake. Rather, look at the way s/he acts.

Don't be preoccupied by his/her shape but by what shapes him/her.

Don't fuss over his/her frame but over what frames him/her.

How s/he addresses you matters more than his/her physical address.

S/he should not treat you as help but s/he should help you.

Don't let the labels on his/her clothes blind you to how s/he labels others.

S/he can be in the lead but does s/he know how to lead.

Don't look at his/her share but at how s/he shares others.

Before you love him/her make sure s/he doesn't have another love.

Appreciate the way s/he holds you but drop him/her if s/he has a hold on you.

Its not the face that matters but the way s/he faces you.

Object that s/he treats you like an object.

Make sure that s/he doesn't take you for a joke but that s/he jokes with you.

Don't look at his/her bank account but at how s/he banks on you.

Its interesting that relationships can be also be looked at in terms of parts of speech. The verb is usually the most important part of a sentence. Without it, a sentence will hardly make sense. The verb always asserts something about the subject of a sentence and expresses actions, events or state of being. Verbs are words that tell us what a subject is or does. In other words,verbs describe the subject. On the other hand a noun is simply a naming word – it names a thing like a phone, a table, or a car.

When it comes to relationships couples must strive to attain the verb mode. The verb mode will describe the state of your relationship and the state of your partner. When you look at your partner through the verb mode you will seek to understand your partner beyond the surface. On the other hand, if you resort to the noun mode you will not see your partner for who they really are. When you look at someone through the noun mode you will only see the material things that they own. You will see their phone, labels, bank accounts, physical shape and the like. You will look at your partner and see a joke or an object.

With the noun mode you will only have a name without understanding what that thing does. You always need a verb to understand the actions of the noun or the state of being of a noun. It is therefore very important that in relationships couples must go to the verb mode to understand what their relationship and partner is all about.

Exploitation of Malawi's poorest poor

2011-07-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

Following events of 20/07 it seems inappropriate to write about anything else apart from issues of the demonstrations. One could approach the issue of demonstrations from various angles: one could look at how the demonstrations were organised, one could look at the role of President Bingu wa Mutharika in all this, one could talk of police brutality and our police's lack of capacity in dealing with public demonstrations. Whatever way one looks at it one cannot ignore that people have lost their lives because of the demonstrations.

At the time of writing this article, both online edition Maravi Post and Zodiak radio were reporting that the death toll from the demonstrations stood at 18. Two days into the demonstrations none of the murdered had been identified in neither the print nor the electronic media; they were simply known as the nine from Mzuzu, one from Karonga, six from Lilongwe and two from Blantyre.

Who are these people that died and did they die for something they believed in? I ask these questions because the organisation of these demonstrations was caught up in class politics right from the beginning. Take for instance pre-demonstration materials that were circulated by the civil society. One of them read “If you cannot join and you are a Chief Executive, Managing Director, or any other Officer , or working in the Police, Army, and if you are a Civil Servant please release your house servant/gardener on this day of 20th July”.

The same write-up went on to call on Malawians to join the demonstrations but only Malawians living in certain areas were specially mentioned to join the demonstrations. In the southern region, the demo material highlighted people from Ndirande, Chilomoni, Chilobwe, Bangwe, Zingwangwa, Machinjiri, Mbayani, Chileka and Lunzu. In the Eastern region special mention was made of Matawale, Chinamwali, Nsazi, Itiya, Ndola, St Marys, Chikanda and Mpondabwino. In the Central region the civil society particularly called on people from Area 25, Kawale, Biwi, Mchesi, Chinsapo, Area 23, 33, 49, 39, Bunda, Likuni and Mugona and in the Northern region special mention was made of people from Zolozolo, Katawa, Chiwanja, Mzilawayingwe and Chasefu.

If you look at all these areas they have one thing in common and that is they are not Nyambadwe, Namiwawa, Sunnyside, Mount Pleasant, Mulunguzi, Area 9, 10, 11, 12, 47, Chimaliro or Kaning'ina. They are townships where some of Malawi's urban poor live.

Now turn to the petition of the civil society organisations which is subtitled “A Better Malawi is Possible.” I must say that it is a well-written petition that identifies problems and tries to offer solutions. It calls on government to exercise good governance, to be prudent with public funds and to observe the rule of law; and all these are good things. But when it comes to relating the identified problems to the people, the civil society petition is largely a middle class affair.

Not that there is anything wrong with the middle class articulating their specific problems, they should in fact voice them out at all costs. But the middle class should not use the lower class to fight their battles. The middle class should not stand on the podium and say they are speaking for Malawi's poorest poor and yet they do not take the peculiarities of the low class problems into account.

Is it fair for the civil society to say that houseboys and housegirls should march on behalf of general managers and civil servants. Who asks the houseboy what he wants? Does the housegirl have a voice? Has the houseboy told you that he wants to go out into the street and march for fuel as if he ever gets to ride in his boss's car? Domestic servants remain among the most exploited workers in Malawi. The civil society petition does not talk about the problems domestic servants face. Where the petition talks of labour rights, it only talks about the white collar worker. Why then should domestic servants march for the middle class?

The petition lists some of the problems Malawians are facing because of forex shortage: failure to pay taxes when going abroad, failure to purchase foreign goods, failure to pay school fees for dependants abroad, failure to pay examination fees to foreign education providers, failure to access treatment for vital medical facilities. Does your gardener partake in any of these things listed here? Between residents of Mugona and Area 47 who is more likely going to need forex to travel abroad? Why didn't the civil society call on residents of Area 47 or any other upmarket area to come out and demonstrate?

Why did the civil society only highlight townships when the problems they were talking about mostly affect middle class Malawians living in the upmarket areas of the type of Area 15 and 47. I am quite aware that many middle class people also live in townships of Kawale, Ndirande, Matawale, Area 25, Chilobwe, Chasefu, etc, but I also know that poor people live there. In the end most of the battles took place on townships turf exposing both the middle and low class of these areas to danger. The upmarket areas on the other hand remained safely tucked out of harm's way.

The rural poor, who are mostly smallholder farmers, remain Malawi's majority and yet the civil society petition did not make an attempt to show how, for example, bad governance is affecting poor people in the villages. The specific problems Malawi's rural poor face were not highlighted in the petition and yet organisers of the demonstrations gave interviews that they were speaking for poor Malawians in the villages.

When you say you are speaking for the poor, which poor are you talking about?

As a postscript let me mention that its not only the organisers of the demonstration that have exploited the poor in these demonstrations. The ruling elite have done the same. The machete wielding men in DPP vehicles – official rumour has it that these men are watchmen working with a certain security company belonging to a politician. Again poor watchmen being used to maintain the status quo for the ruling elite.

Please do away with the white judicial wigs

2011-07-18T00:03:00.000-07:00

For some reason I do not understand why our learned men and women of the law still look as if they are stepping straight out of a Victorian novel. Perhaps I understand the long robes. After all in many societies world over, important people such as judges, men and women of the clergy, chiefs, etc, do wear some sort of long robe to exert authority. But the white wigs I do not understand. I do not understand the white wigs because nothing screams “colonial legacy” like white wigs sitting on the black heads of our judges and lawyers.

These judicial wigs which do vary in colour from white, blonde and an ageing yellow (the latter being very true for wigs that have seen better days) have a colonial history attached to them. Of course one would assume that British court dress would have been one of the first things to go when we lowered the British flag and raised the Malawian one close to half a century ago. But for some reason we kept the rather ridiculous looking British court dress. And we kept a lot of other things that the coloniser brought along including the belief that we are naturally inferior to the coloniser.

Not that everything that colonialism brought is bad or that it is bad to borrow from other cultures. After all there is no single culture that can claim cultural purity; cultures are constantly borrowing from each other. For instance here I am conversing to you in the coloniser's language, does this make me colonised? Perhaps it does but I also take solace in the fact that the English language is now not synonymous with the British empire. The English language has become a kind of world language that allows a Malawian to hold a conference call with a South African, an Indian, an American and a Nigerian at the same time. English could have been forced on us through imperialism but conversing in English nowadays is no longer about speaking the Queen´s language. English has been “vernacularised”. (Of course a local user of English becomes colonised if s/he refuses to learn any local language or stops people from conversing to his/her children in local languages because s/he believes that local languages are inferior).

I digress. Back to judicial wigs. Judicial wigs are a bad hair statement. Maybe our judges don't care for a fashion sense but to be honest, very few black people can pull off fake blonde hair. Unless you are Beyonce don't try fake blonde hair and expect that you won't come off as aping the coloniser. Unlike the robe, the judicial wig was something that was made with a white person in mind. Not that the white judicial wigs don’t look ridiculous on white people (Thomas Jefferson, said that English judges looked to him "like mice peeping out of oakum") but at least they match.

A lot has now been written on the connection between colonialism and for example, black women's obsession with “europeanizing” their hair and black people's obsession with skin lightening creams. When our judges and lawyers wear that fake white hair they are no different from black people who try to europeanize their looks. Can we please get rid of those wigs? Colonialism aside, what benefit are those wigs to our judicial system? Is there really any sense for our judicial officers to wear horsehair wigs in a country as hot as Malawi? Is there any sense for our judiciary to spend money on a wig that usually doesn't cost less than a thousand US dollars (a simple internet search will show you that judicial wigs don't come cheap).

I know Malawi has a penchant for tradition and we do not easily let go of things we have done for years. And if we believe that our legal people can only deliver justice if they have something covering their head then maybe we should find them something else to wear and not the judicial wig. As an alternative maybe the judiciary can try to adopt one of the many headgears worn by our various chiefs, something that is well suited to the weather than the full bottomed powdered wigs.

When it comes to our colonial legacy it seems as if we kept both the baby and the dirty bath water. We need to throw away the dirty bath water and still keep the baby.

Money and marriage

2011-07-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

Money is not only the root of all evil, it can also be a source of much unhappiness and marriage breakups. Whether you have it or not, money still accounts for many disagreements in marriage.
And the thing about money is that very few people talk about it or agree on how they will handle money prior to getting married. Usually people fear to talk about money before the wedding because it is considered safer this way. If you are upfront and bring the subject of money up before your wedding you can come off as a gold-digger who wants to assess his/her partner's worth. Sometimes people don't want to talk about money before marriage because they are afraid that they will expose their own reckless spending habits. And so many people go into marriage without knowing how they will handle their finances together or how much finances are involved between the two of them. From day one the marriage is already shrouded in financial secrecy.

Now how do you turn financial secrecy into financial intimacy (I borrow the term financial intimacy from the title of Jacquette M. Timmons book). You cannot become financially intimate if you are not aware of the financial secrets that you are keeping from each other. Are you secretly sending money to your parents without your partner's knowledge? Are you tithing without informing your partner? Are you buying things that you know your partner won't approve? All these questions reveal one underlying thing – values. Different people have different values and when it comes to spending in marriage, each partner would want to spend money on things that s/he values. Since people don´t always marry someone who shares their values, there is bound to be a clash on what a couple would want to spend their money on.

To avoid this clash, some partners resort to financial secrecy. She is a strong Christian woman but her husband does not care if Jesus walked on water or if there is an afterlife. She is afraid that if she suggests tithing to him he will disapprove. He believes in helping out a friend when in trouble but the wife does not approve of his friends. He thinks that if he asks her if he can lend his friend money, she will disagree. To avoid a possible argument, the Christian woman might simply go on tithing without informing her husband or the friend-helping husband will simply go ahead and lend his friend money without telling the wife. Of course such secrets can only be maintained if the couple are lying to each other. A partner would have to lie about how much s/he is earning or about where his/her money goes.

If your partner is not comfortable to show you his/her pay slip there is a fair chance that s/he is lying about how much s/he earns. If your partner does not come out clearly on how much s/he earns (kumangopanga zibwibwi ukamufunsa) there is also chance that they are lying. If every year you ask your partner how much s/he gets and s/he keeps on telling you K50,000 (even after you watch Mose wa Lero boasting on TV about how he has been increasing salaries of civil servants annually), there is a big chance that there is an extra K17,000 your partner is not telling you about. If every month your partner keeps on telling you that his/her salary was deducted for reasons that don't make much sense, there is a possibility that s/he is hiding money from you.

Now, if you have all these lies and secrets there is no way that you can become financially intimate. Financial intimacy means being honest with each other and being respectful of each other´s values. As a couple you must sit down together and discuss how you would like to use money. As a couple you should be able to discuss why one partner values something to want to spend money on it. If you are a believer and your partner is an atheist, it doesn't mean that the believer shouldn't tithe. The two people should agree on the best way of meeting each other half way. Marriage is about compromise.

After the two of you agree on how best you can meet each other half way you should then put your finances together (regardless of how much each one of you earns and regardless of whether one of you has a job or not). Have one pot of money and then open accounts for specific expenses. For instance you can have one joint account for your savings, another joint account for your monthly expenses and bills (fees, rent, water, electricity, food, etc). After you have allocated money for the necessary expenditures, you should then have two separate accounts for spending money. You can allocate equal amounts in the spending money accounts or the two of you can agree best on how much to put in the spending accounts. But the purpose of the individual spending account is to allow each partner some freedom to do whatever they please with the money. If she wants to use the money for weaves or for buying endless bridal shower presents she can take from her separate bank account. If he wants money to hang out with his buddies, he too can take from his spending account.

Whatever way you decide to organise your finances, it is important that both of you be honest to each other and both of you should endorse your spending plan. It is only then that you can begin to move towards financial intimacy.

The usual and unusual: solving relationship problems

2011-07-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

Different people have different ways of solving problems in relationships. Conventional or unconventional, people have tried it all in a move to save relationships that are otherwise doomed. Read on.

Juju. Unconventional as it might seem juju still remains a popular method for solving problems in relationships. Whether juju works or not is not scientifically proven but that doesn't stop people from seeking the services of a medicine man/woman when they are faced with relationship problems. Inability to conceive, philandering spouses, virility issues, lack of finances in the home, are all relationship problems that find themselves on the doorstep of the medicine man/woman.

Prayer. Coming from a so-called God-fearing nation, I fear to equate prayer with juju but like juju the mechanics of prayer are also based on belief. Maybe you cannot say for sure if its prayer that put a stop to your partner's alcoholism but if you believe that prayer works why not go ahead and give it a try when faced with relationship problems.

Third party. Third party services are generally accepted when it comes to solving problems in relationships. Third parties come in various forms: friends, ankhoswe (marriage counsellors), family members, church elders, neighbours and whoever it is that people talk to when they have relationship problems. But of course there is no guarantee that a third party will succeed in bringing back two people who are on the verge of breaking up. It all depends on how good the advice of the third party is and if the disagreeing couple are willing to take the advice.

Media. In today´s world people are increasingly looking up to media for relationship advice. Whatever problem you are facing in your relationship you can be assured that someone has talked about it in a book, on TV, in magazine advice columns, on the internet, on the radio, in a song, and other such media. But again it is not automatic that just because someone blogged, sung or wrote an advice column about the particular problem you are facing then your problem will be solved.

Power. While some people choose to read about it or to talk about it, others choose to exercise their power in solving relationship problems. Power is exercised differently in different relationships and each partner usually has his/her own source(s) of power. For example if one partner is the sole breadwinner in the home s/he can use his/her financial power to control dissent from the partner without financial muscle. Traditional gender roles can also be used as sources of power (for example a woman can communicate her unhappiness in a relationship by withholding sex or by not putting too much effort in her cooking). But this method only works in as far as the other partner is willing to be dictated to.

Clothes, beauty accessories and grooming. When some people have problems in their relationship they turn to improving their physical appearance with the hope that their new look will solve their problems. Many a beauty salons have cashed in from women who wanted to rekindle their dying relationships with a new look. Or consider the man who goes to buy a new suit to win a girl over.

Children. They may be little but some have sought stronger relationships in having children. She convinces herself that if she has his baby maybe he won't go around any more. He convinces himself that once she has his baby she will stay home more. They are both convinced that what they need is a baby to stop the disagreements between them. Again no guarantees that a baby will bring the two of you together.

The two of you. This is probably the most accepted method of solving problems in a relationship but it is probably also the most difficult. It is difficult because it is not easy for two people in a relationship to just be honest with each other and openly talk about their problems. But if the two of you can get to agree to honestly talk about issues you will probably find the right solutions to your problems.

Give China a break

2011-06-27T02:30:00.000-07:00

This week I found myself listening to Nameless´song, China. For those of you who don't know China, its a song that talks about how everything in Malawi has gone “China”. China is in this song used as a synonym for fake. The artist talks about how today´s old people are “China” because they don´t want to grow old. He talks about how the national football team is now “China” because it doesn´t win any matches anymore. In short the song lists a lot of things that are now “China” in Malawi, or in other words, it lists things that are fake in the country and calls them “China”.

I deliberately referred to this China song because I wanted to show how a seemingly innocent thing like a song can help distort our public perception of an entire peoples. What the song China does is to associate things negative and things fake with China. Consider when Nameless sings that mayeso aManeb alowa China, koforma, koprinta kwake ndikuChina and yet Malawi´s exams are not even formed or printed in China. The song reduces China into a stereotype of everything that is fake.

Today the phrase kulowa China has become part of the normal everyday language and we use it without flinching an eyelid when we want to refer to something that is bogus or to things that are common place (Let me confess that I too have used the phrase on several occassions). And yet we forget that we liken these bogus and commonplace things to a place that is not bogus at all. China is a real place with real people and it is unfair to reduce this entire nation to a stereotype of fake. Coming from a history of colonialism, we have been victims of racial stereotypes and we should know better how such stereotypes work in denigrating a whole peoples.

While it is indeed true that the cheap items the Chinese sell in most of their shops are to blame for the negative image associated with them, it is not totally true that everything with a made in china label is fake. Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, once said the thing about stereotypes is not that they are untrue but they don´t tell you all the sides of a story. And in the case of China we don't seem to get all the sides of the story. We don't seem to get that while China has some of the crappiest merchandise in the world, it also offers the best on the world market. We don't seem to get that China has a rich culture and that its people are hardworking.

Mine is not a manifesto to support China´s presence on Africa. I don't know what China wants with Africa and to be honest I find the idea of using Africa as a dumping ground for second rate goods to be deplorable. But having said this, I think it is equally deplorable to judge the Chinese on account of their race. Some of the screaming headlines that make into our newsapers seem to suggest something close to racial witch hunting. Headlines like Chinese kills wife, Chinese caught with private parts, Chinese caught with forex – headlines which do not emphasize the crime committed but emphasize the fact that the crime was committed by a Chinese national.

Just stop

2011-06-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

This article goes out to women but more so to single/unmarried women. Please take a minute and for once, please just stop.

Stop setting marriage ultimatums for yourself. Stop telling yourself that you should be married by 25 because you will end up marrying the wrong person. Marriage cannot be determined by ultimatums or deadlines. When it is right, marriage will happen but if you force it, it will happen alright but it will be over before you know it.

Stop telling yourself that there is something wrong with you because your younger sisters and all of your friends have married and you haven’t. There is nothing wrong with you. Maybe it happened for your younger sisters and your friends but it certainly hasn't happened for you. So stop stressing that mwana wang'ono wapeza banja (a little girl has married) and you haven't.

Stop telling yourself that your eggs have an expiry date. Sure they do, but don't let the fear of menopause force you to make rash decisions about your life. Don´t let the fear of getting old force you to make decisions that will literally make you grow old before your time. An unhappy marriage coupled with kids raised in a miserable environment is a sure recipe for accelerated ageing.

Stop fussing about the amount of time you have invested in him. Yes, you might have given him five years of your life but if you feel he is not right for you don´t marry him just because the two of you have had a long standing relationship. Its better to let the five years go to waste than have 40 years of an unhappy marriage.

Stop telling yourself that you need to sleep with him in order to keep him. When you begin to think like this you begin to use sex as your sense of security. Without it, your sense of security fades and your relationship also fails. Sex should not be used as security; if the relationship is right, sex will naturally find its place in it.

Stop making excuses for him. Stop telling yourself that he will change once he gets married. Stop telling yourself that you can change him. If we struggle to change ourselves, do you expect that it will be easy to change somebody else?

Stop believing that a relationship will be the solution to all your problems. If you have problems (economic, social, spiritual or whatever), do not lie to yourself that you need to get a man. Not only will you be using the man in this case, but you also limit your own potentials for solving your own problems. Don't get a man because you want a problem solver. If you find a man who is good at solving problems, well and good for you, but this should not be the drive behind your getting into a relationship in the first place.

Stop being desperate for a relationship. Once you become desperate, it shows in all your actions. And there are men out there who are experts at preying on desperate women. Such men, like wolves in sheep's skin, will pretend that they are really into you when all they want is one thing. After they get that thing they will discard you. But you will not realise that men are simply using you because of your own desperation. You will continue moving from one relationship to another looking for a Mr. I-will-marry-you who is not forthcoming. When you finally open your eyes, men have used you so much that nobody really wants to use you any more.

So, did you take the minute to just stop?

Imaginary haters

2011-06-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

In recent times the word kundihater has joined the Malawian slang vocabulary. Taken from the rather overused English slang, “hater”, kundihater might be a recent appropriation from the English language but the idea of hating is certainly not new to Malawi. For as long as I can remember, Malawians (not all but Malawians nevertheless) have been obsessed with the idea of haters hence things like kusilika or using charms to protect one´s life, job, home, etc, from the evil forces of haters.

Now, who is a hater? Wikipedia describes a hater as a person who expresses intense feelings of hatred or spite, when the reason for this is perceived as unreasonable or spurious. While the word “hater” was meant to be used in this restricted sense to refer to someone who hates for no apparent reason, the word is loosely used today to label anyone who disapproves of someone even if they have a good reason for disapproving.

If you listen to music today, especially music influenced by hip-hop culture, you will hear the word hater used several times even in cases where the song in question does not require to make reference to haters. If you look at people's comments on various social media you will see a generous use of the word hater even when it is clear that haters have nothing to do with whatever they are talking about.

Now the word hater has found itself in the local vocabulary and it seems some people are getting obsessed with its misuse. Just look at the Facebook status updates of such people: anthu akundihater, they will write in the morning; amene uja amangondihater, they will write in the afternoon; olo utandihater God is with me, they will write in the evening. When such people are conversing they will always remind you how some haters are trying to pull them down.

But do haters really exist? Haters exist but not at the scale that some people make them out to be. For some people it seems like haters is all they ever see in life. Such people are always thinking that someone is plotting their downfall.

But as they say people are sometimes their own worst enemies. When you are your own worst enemy you will tend to look for imaginary haters to blame for your failures when you are otherwise responsible for your own downfall. If you take a critical and honest look at your own life, you will find that the biggest force holding you back from reaching your full potential is not some imaginary hater but yourself.

Need I cite the example of our own President Bingu wa Mutharika? Sometimes I believe the First Citizen sees haters where they are none. When the opposition query government bills they are added to the President's list of haters, when NGOs ask after fuel they are added to the list of haters, when lecturers and students cry for academic freedom they are added to the list of haters, when newspapers report that some people don´t have food they are added to the list of haters. I can go on and on about Mutharika's list of haters – Asians, donors, Malawians, faith leaders, not one but two vice presidents have all found their way on Mutharika´s list of haters. Now I hear the MHRC boss, John Kapito, is the latest addition to Mutharika´s list of haters.

Sometimes there can indeed be haters in your life but more often than not haters can only get at you if you let them. If you focus all your energies on finding your haters or of proving a point to them you will not succeed in life. If you have a hater (and you are quite positive that the person is indeed a hater) then the best thing to do is to ignore that person. Don't spend your energy on something that is not worth it.

Why he will cheat with your best friend

2011-06-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

You've probably heard this story before – they used to be best friends of the pondapo nane mpondepo type but now they don´t talk any more because she slept with her friend´s man. And you ask yourself, of all the women in the world why did he pick her best friend to cheat with?

A man can cheat with your best friend because your best friend is like you. When one picks a friend they usually pick someone who they have things in common with. If you are the wedding and zinkhonswe type of person you´ll most likely choose a friend who also likes to patronise such events. If you are the Chez Ntemba and Blue Elephant type you´ll choose a friend who also likes her nights out. All I am saying is that we tend to choose friends who mirror our interests and opinions. Chances are that your man might get attracted to your friend because she too possesses the same qualities that he found attractive in you.

A man can cheat with your best friend because she is not like you. Its not always the case that we pick friends who are like us. Sometimes one will pick a best friend who will compliment one´s weaknesses. And so, if you are a meek person you can choose a bold person for a friend because you want someone to speak out for you when you can´t do it yourself. When you are an unpopular person you can choose a popular person for a friend because you want your friend´s popularity to act in your favour. Your partner can notice how your best friend is everything that you are not, and it is this difference that can attract him to your best friend.

A man can cheat with your best friend because it is safe. If a committed man is looking for an affair there is no safer place to find it than in his wife's/girlfriend's best friend. Affairs are nasty business and require a lot of discretion. When a man is cheating with his partner´s best friend he can be assured that the woman he is cheating with will not post the affair on her facebook wall or tell all her friends about it. Both the man and the woman will try their best to be as discreet as possible because both of them have an obligation not to hurt the other woman.

When it comes to affairs, its not always the man that makes the first move. Sometimes your best friend can notice how well your man treats you and she might want him for herself especially if she is having relationship problems of her own. If she likes him she might seduce him and it takes a very strong man to say no to a woman.

All in all, best friend affairs are necessitated because of proximity. Because your best friend is around you and your partner most of the time, your partner can develop a familiarity with her. Familiarity can lead to coziness and before both of them know it they are in each other´s blankets.

Unfortunately, I don´t think it is possible to prevent your man from having an affair with your best friend. If you were to try to prevent it, you would go paranoid because you would be suspicious of all your friends. If its any consolation, a man who cheats on you with your best friend would have cheated on you anyway. The only difference in this case being that when you find out about the affair, you will not only lose a man but a best friend as well.

Confessions of a thin woman

2011-05-29T23:37:00.000-07:00

People who know me know that I have always been a slim person. I am not particularly tall but standing at 168cm I am slightly taller than the average urban Malawian woman (according to a 2000 study conducted by Msamati BC and Igbigbi PS on the Anthropometric Profile of Urban Adult Black Malawians, the average height of urban Malawian women is 155cm).

As a grown woman my weight hovers around 45kgs and 47kgs. I am not curvy – I have the what is considered undesirable thabwa (wooden plank) body shape as opposed to the desirable Coca-Cola bottle shape. In short, let me just say that I do not have the ideal body weight and body shape that are considered as embodiments of Malawian beauty.

As a little girl growing up I was taunted in primary school because of my weight. My peers always commented with scorn in their voice at how thin I was, komanso ndiye ndiwe woonda bwanji. I was called names like mosquito and I was likened to a needle.

When I moved to secondary school, the taunts took a different form. I was no longer called names but most of the girls (I went to an all girls boarding secondary school) made it a point to let me know that I was not blossoming into the perfect woman.

In the dorms conversation usually centered around hips and the girls with wider hips were considered to be more desirable. On Saturdays, when we dressed up in our own clothes (and I did have a lot of pretty and trendy clothes because my mum used to own a shop for ladies clothing at that time), the girls would marvel at my attire but they would also point out that I didn’t have the right hips for the clothes.

After a while I stopped dressing up in my trendy clothes and found a new use for them. I would lend them out to girls who participated in fashion shows and I would also lend them out to girls who wanted to look pretty Saturdays.

A.... do you remember my long denim dress which my brother bought for me in the UK? When you wore it the other girls couldn’t keep their eyes off you but when I wore it noone hardly noticed me.

N...... do you remember that short spotted black skirt with the big belt? My mum bought that skirt for me in South Africa. When you wore it everybody used to say what great hips you have. When I wore it, O.... said it was like I didn’t even have a waist.

M... do you remember that expensive hipster pants suit I bought from aMsiska for my secondary school graduation? You said I shouldn’t wear it because I didn’t have a butt.

It was at some point during my secondary school days that I made up my mind that I would never wear a wedding dress. I was afraid everybody would look at me and say “what a skinny bride she is, she doesn’t even have the hips to fill her dress.” (Later I overcame this fear but I still chose not to wear a typical wedding dress for other reasons other than my body).

I think it was only after I got to college that I began to accept my body for what it is. I stopped wishing to get fatter and to have bigger hips. I am not sure what exactly it is that made me to start accepting my body – maybe its because even countries like Malawi were being flooded with western images of thin is beautiful or maybe its because I found a man who loved my body just the way it is.

Anyways, as soon as I began to accept my body I found out that I started feeling good about myself. I started feeling more confident and I started feeling good in my clothes. Although by the time I had finished college I had fully embraced my body shape the society at large had not.

I continued to receive stares and comments that seemed to suggest that a person with my body shape is not normal.

When I became a mother, even after I'd had two children, some people still couldn't believe that I was capable of bringing another life into this world. They would look me up and down and say “ndiye mimbayo inali patipo,” as if thin women are incapable of having children.

By virtue of my job as a newspaper reporter a lot of people know my name even when they don't know my face. I have heard the disappointment in some people's voices when they finally see the Deborah who writes newspaper articles: “so you are the Deborah who writes all these articles, I was expecting someone stouter,” as if thin people don't have the brains to write articles.

While a lot of people have told me that I should put on a little weight, one man had the audacity to go further and tell me that my husband would like me much better if I were little fatter. How this man could claim that he knows what my husband wants beats me but I told him off that my husband fell in love with me because I am who I am.

Now, I live in the Western world where beauty ideals can be said to the exact converse of Malawian ones. I think in the eight months that I have been in Germany I have received more compliments about my body than I ever did in my twenty-something years in Malawi. I can be in the ideal complimented body shape group here but I still see the scorn towards people who do not meet the western beauty ideal. And here its even worse because the ideal image is all over TV, magazines and the internet.

I ask myself, how can something that is desirable in one part of the world be undesirable in another – is beauty not just a creation?

Unremarkable remarking

2011-05-23T00:13:00.000-07:00

My primary school teacher always warned our class against using the same word to define a word. He used to say that it doesn't make sense for one to define uncomfortable as not comfortable because such a definition does not make an unfamiliar term familiar. But today I will go against the advice of my primary school teacher and define unremarkable remarking as remarking in an unremarkable way.

I have simply restated the terms I set out to define because I am working on the assumption that you all know the meanings of the words unremarkable and remark. Now, if you all know what is to remark and what is to be unremarkable then you obviously don't need me to tell you what unremarkable remarking is because its simply that – remarking in an unremarkable way.

Why all the fuss with unremarkable and remarking? Because they are just some people who can't remark in a remarkable way. Every time such people open their mouths to remark on something or someone they end up with an unremarkable remark. For purposes of this article let us call such people unremarkable remarkers.

Unremarkable remarkers will give you a compliment with one hand and take it away with the other. Examples:
Oooh what a beautiful dress you are wearing but if only you had the figure for it.
Congratulations for passing your exams after three retakes.
Such is the unremarkable remarker – she/he will give you a compliment but only to expose your imperfections.

Unremarkable remarkers will make you feel unworthy of success. Examples:
Even you could “catch” such a beautiful girl.
Zalowa masanje! Even you can afford a car.

Unremarkable remarkers will bring in issues that do not concern the matter at hand. Examples:
She can't file papers properly because she likes men (What does her love for men got to do with her inability to file papers?)
Vote me into presidency because I am a woman/man (what does your sex got to do with your ability to run government?)

In reading this article one can easily misinterpret that I am against honest criticism (especially with the first set of examples that I gave). I am not against honest criticism but criticism can only be honest if the criticizer has honest intentions in the first place. Take the first two examples I have given, why I'm I saying that they are not fit to be categorised as honest criticism?

The two examples are clearly not honest criticism because the unremarkable remarker's only intention is to make the other person feel bad. By juxtaposing the compliment (beautiful dress) with the woman's flaw (unshapely figure), the unremarkable remarker is simply trying to make the woman wearing the beautiful dress feel bad about herself. In a way the unremarkable remarker is saying that you can have a beautiful dress but you will never be beautiful. The unremarkable remarker is saying you can pass your exams this time around but you will never be an intelligent person.

Unremarkable remarkers should really be looked at as people with a negative energy around them and they try to pass on this negative energy to others. Unremarkable remarkers don't want you to feel good about yourself, they don't want to lift up your spirits. All unremarkable remarkers do is to spite you with mean remarks.

Unremarkable remarkers only want you to lose your confidence and feel insecure. Don't listen to them and try to feel positive about yourself. And for the most part, people who go around giving unremarkable remarks are not doing anything remarkable in their own lives.

Questioning the “real” man

2011-05-16T00:12:00.000-07:00

Society's definition of a “real” man and “real” woman has created gendered stereotypes which affect how both men and women look at the world. While gender activists are now questioning these stereotypes, most activists only concentrate on how gendered stereotypes have been a negative force in women's lives. Where the activists mention men, it is only to show how gendered stereotypes have benefited men. While it is indeed true that men have largely benefited from gendered attitudes (for example boys are more intelligent vs girls are less intelligent), we should also question how the stereotypes have a negative impact on men's lives.

It is important that we must pose this question not only because stereotypes limit men's capabilities like they do women's, but also because women have set men as a benchmark for women's equality. I will illustrate my point by drawing on several common stereotypes, which, in my opinion, negatively impact men:

Men are not as good parents as women are. Because our society deems care giving as something only women can do, some men don't participate in raising their children apart from providing them with financial assistance. This is a negative thing because such men miss out on shaping their children's lives.

Its okay for men to drink irresponsibly. While irresponsible drinking is sometimes frowned upon, it seems to be generally accepted in men who hold jobs and are able to provide for their families. The thinking seems to be: as long as he can provide shelter and food for his family, he can drink as much as he wants. But while men might embrace this notion that they can drink as much as they want, they should realise that it can negatively impact on one's health and financial situation.

Its okay for men to be promiscuous. Men who play hard are glorified and praised for all the skirts they manage to conquer. It is generally believed that men can have sex without strings attached while the same behavior is not acceptable in women. Promiscuous behaviour should not only be unacceptable in women, it is also unacceptable in men. Society might glorify men's sexual desires but is it worth the disease, expenses and emotional traumas that come with multiple relationships.

Men are dirty. Need I quote the popular saying, mamuna azinukha (a man should stink), which is used to encourage uncleanliness in men? What is so nice about a man being dirty that as a society we should encourage men to do it? I think men should be able to question such stereotypes and break away from them.

The only thing a man can cook is a boiled egg. It is generally accepted in our society that men don't cook. When a boy is born he is always doted and waited upon by his mother, sisters and aunts because he cannot take of himself. But such an attitude limits the potentials of a man. Bachelors will go on believing that ubachelor ngowawa because they are assume they are not capable of taking care of themselves without a woman's help.

Men are not supposed to be weak. Society demands that a man must not show a weakness of character and this is something that might force men to make wrong decisions. For example because a man doesn't want to seem weak, he won't admit to his wife that he doesn't know how something should be done.

Now, how do all these negative stereotypes towards men affect women's quest for equality? As I mentioned earlier, these negative stereotypes towards men are not questioned and are therefore taken as acceptable. And as women come in to be equal (using men as their benchmark), they will also embrace these negative stereotypes and take them to be the norm. Women will also want to do all the irresponsible things that men do – have sex with no strings attached, drink like a fish, be dirty. It is therefore important that when addressing issues of gender inequality, women must realise that not everything associated with men is good for humanity.

The coveted male child

2011-05-09T00:33:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I got an email from a woman who said is a regular reader of my column. The woman wanted some advice from me and this is what she had to say: I really need your help. I am a married woman with three daughters. The problem is that my husband is not satisfied with the three girls and he says I must bear him a son. I don't want any more children. In fact I only wanted two children but I went up to three because my husband was pressurizing me for a son. When I try to reason with him to be satisfied with the three girls we have he threatens me that he will get another woman who will bear him a son. What should I do? Please help.

After I read this woman's email I decided to write an article out of it because this is a story that is not unique to this woman. I have on numerous occasions seen and heard how a male child is coveted and how women who do not bear the desired male heir are blamed.

I have heard the pride in voices of first time fathers when they manage the “feat” of siring a boy on the first go. “Chino kodi, ndi chi mantu” (I am a real man), the new father will boast to his friends when they inquire on the sex of his newborn. The friends will equally praise the new father on his accomplishment, “aah nyongatu zilimo aise.”

I have seen women who only have girls get pregnant over and over again with the hope that they will one day bear a son and make their husbands proud.

I have heard stories of men trying their luck with other women because their own wives “could not give them a boy.” The women are in most cases blamed for not bringing forth male children and yet secondary school biology tells us that it is the father who determines the sex of the child. Remember that biology lesson on chromosomes – a woman always contributes an X chromosome while a man either contributes an X or Y chromosome. An XX gives you a girl while an XY gives you a boy. But when the daughters start coming all these biology lessons are thrown out of the window and women are usually blamed for something they have no control over. Next time you decide to pick on her for not giving you boys please kindly remember that the sex of the child depends on the behaviour of the sex chromosomes of the male sperms, and unfortunately not even a man has control on how his sperms behave (at least not in the natural sense).

I am not saying that people should not have a sexual preference when it comes to having children. Its perfectly okay to desire male or female children or a combination of both. But where the desired sex is not forthcoming I don't believe its worth breaking a marriage over and neither is it worth having more children than you can take care of.

In the end what matters is that boy or girl we are all human first. The onus really is on the parents to raise a girl/boy into the kind of person they want him/her to be. Times have changed and girl children like boy children are capable of doing almost anything as long as you provide them with a suitable environment. Yes, maybe a girl might not be able to carry on the father's family name the same way a boy would. But this really is something trivial and not worth planting seeds all over the place with the hope that one of these seeds will germinate into a boy. The most important thing is to realise that girl children too carry your blood even if they will adopt funny-sounding names of their husbands upon marriage. And the children she will bear from that marriage will have a strain of your blood which they too will pass on.

Do people understand marriage vows?

2011-05-02T00:37:00.000-07:00

When two people get married they exchange marriage vows but the question is does everyone understand what their marriage vows mean? I ask this question because I have seen many people behave in a way that is the exact opposite of their marriage vows. For such people Till death do us apart changes its meaning and becomes something else. When it comes to for richer or for poorer and in sickness or in health such people only embrace the richer and the health part.

My point really is not to condemn anyone for not being true to their marriage vows. Rather, I am questioning why we let ourselves say vows whose meaning we do not understand. I deliberately use the pronoun “we” because I too have said vows that I do not understand. Let me share with you my own personal story.

I got married at the District Commissioner´s (DC) office before these two government officials. I must say that I don´t remember what it is that I vowed to the man I married and neither does he remember what he vowed to me. Those who have had the chance of marrying at the DC´s can probably relate to what I am saying. A government official stands in front of you and reads out a really long passage from her book (I assume it’s a book of Malawian marriage law) and asks the groom to repeat after her.

I never understood anything as the government official read out the vows with my husband repeating after her. The sentences were too long, the English too difficult to comprehend (I think they are still using laws written in colonial days) and there was nothing nice sounding about the whole passage. The only word that I remember that she made my husband say is “solemnize” and I think I only remember it because she used it more than twice. Too bad I wasn´t even sure what “solemnize” meant at the time.

While my husband was made to “solemnize” a really long passage, things were different for me. The government woman only made me repeat two sentences after her (which I unfortunately can’t remember as well) before she asked me if I wanted to take my partner for a husband. I said yes and she asked my husband the same question to which he too responded in the affirmative. She declared us man and wife but my partner and I had hardly grasped any of the oaths she made us say to each other.

You are probably saying that I got what I deserved for marrying in a government office instead of marrying before a man of God. Well, I can tell you that not everybody who gets married before a man of God comprehends their marriage vows.

Vows made in church might sound like easy straightforward words: I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honour you all the days of my life. I take you for my lawful (husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part, according to God´s holy ordinance. But when you look at these words carefully and try to understand their deeper meaning you will see that these are not easy words to comprehend.

These words are not a simple recitation one makes in church but a pledge for loyalty, dedication, commitment, sincerity, honesty and devotion. I am the last person to be giving anyone advice on religious matters but church wedding vows will not hold much meaning for you if you have no serious relationship with God.

If the only reason you started going to church is because you wanted the church to officiate your wedding then you will not understand what these vows really mean, if the only reason you had a church wedding is because that’s the way its done then you will not fully understand your wedding vows, and if you only had a church wedding because you wanted to show off then you won´t understand your marriage vows.

I know that I didn´t understand my marriage vows but I would like to say them again and this time I will choose my own words, words that I understand.

Of marriage crises and chitsulo cha njanji attitudes

2011-04-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

We are now living in the age of crises. We have the fuel crisis, the forex crisis, the vice president crisis, the Nsanje Port crisis, the civil servants' salary crisis, the University of Malawi crisis …. Methods have been employed to solve the crises. We have tried to “economically engineer” the crises with our economics PhDs and World Bank experience, we have reincarnated two dead people – the biblical Moses and the founding President – with the hope that their great names will also work for us, we have called ourselves “unpredictable” and like the unpredictable persons we boast to be we have given both hope and despair. When all our methods seem not to work we get angry and do not seem to listen to any word of reason. Like the chitsulo cha njanji that we really are, we remain stubborn and are unmoved by the voices of the people regardless of the weight of the train they are riding in.

In marriage just like anywhere else, chitsulo cha njanji attitudes do not work especially if your marriage is going through a crisis. Just to be clear, a chitsulo cha njanji attitude is one where you don't listen to what others have to say and think that only your opinion is the right one. If your partner is disgruntled in some way the best thing is to sit down with him/her and try to solve the problem together. If you on the other hand adopt a chitsulo cha njanji attitude things are bound to backfire on you.

Let me demonstrate how a chitsulo cha njanji attitude works: Your partner might question why sex in the home is as scarce as fuel is in filling stations. If you are a caring partner you'll come out clean and tell your partner that sex is not forthcoming maybe because you are losing your virility or maybe because you just don't like it anymore. The two of you can then sit down together and work on the identified problem. On the other hand if you have a chitsulo cha njanji attitude you will deny that there is a problem in your marriage. You will dismiss your partner's concerns and accuse her of being ungrateful for all that you are doing for her. When you have a chitsulo cha njanji attitude you will not listen and you will not see the writing on the wall.

My appeal to anyone in a relationship is: don't take the chitsulo cha njanji path even if all your methods of solving a problem seem to have failed. Maybe you have tried to “economically engineer” the marriage by getting a well-paying job or maybe you have tried to be nthesanjala by making your homestead more food secure. But if all these methods seem not to work with solving the crisis in your marriage are you going to adopt a chitsulo cha njanji attitude with your partner?

To this question I will say don't adopt a chitsulo cha njanji approach with your partner. Try to find other solutions and most importantly incorporate what your partner has to say in the solution. If all solutions fail then it is clear that maybe this marriage wasn't meant to be. When all else fails sometimes it is best to accept that things have failed and let go. You can indeed let go of your partner and try to start a new life on your farm, that is, if you do own a farm.

Otherwise don't torture your partner with your chitsulo cha njanji attitude by telling him/her that you will only run the marriage your way.

Local Romance

2011-04-18T00:33:00.000-07:00

Maybe you have tried the flowers, the chocolates, the candlelight dinners because this is how romance is supposedly done. But at the end of it all you usually feel empty and start questioning yourself why you had to spend a thousand to buy her a bunch of flowers which will wither away in a couple of days. Of course she seems ecstatic when you bring her the flowers and calls you sweet, but she´s only doing this because this is what she has seen girls in movies do. Like you, she too is questioning herself why she should get excited over a bunch of flowers when in all honesty she would have preferred a nice pair of shoes instead.

You know what? If you see no point in buying flowers or going on expensive candlelit dinners, don´t despair and think that you have failed in mastering the art of romance. It could just be that the chocolates and flowers romance was not cut out for you and you should try doing something else. You could indeed try out some local romance. Local romance has its own advantages: its cheap, it can be done with readily available resources and most importantly you understand it. Here is how local romance is done:

Surprise gifts. As I hinted somewhere in this article romantic presents need not only be flowers and fluffy teddy bears. In fact if you live in a society like Malawi I would recommend that you avoid the flowers and the chocolates and buy her something practical. Buy her something she can use. Miniature teddy bears with hearts on them are cute but when you live in a country where queuing for fuel and blackouts are the norm, miniature teddies are not so cute after all. You want to buy her a present she will appreciate and not a teddy bear which she will gladly let your five-year-old turn into a plaything. She might even question your intelligence for buying her an expensive teddy when you could have bought her something more useful with the same amount.

Mkomya. Has someone ever mentioned that mkomya is a natural aphrodisiac? Well, if nobody has, let me be the first. Prepare him a great meal (one that has him licking his fingers and nodding his head as his eats), add a little flattery and you can never go wrong. Quite a cost effective method by the way.

Romance is really about doing things you don´t do everyday. And so if you are the type of man that is rarely around the house and never lifts a finger to do anything, surprise her by spending the day at home and being useful around the house. She´ll surely love it.

Language. Chichewa might not join Spanish, Italian or French on the list of romantic languages but that doesn´t mean it can´t be a romantic language. Give Chichewa the right tone and choose your words carefully and you can have your partner melting in your arms. For instance if you are a younger generation couple and call each other by first names try to turn things around one day and call each by your clan names. And so instead of calling him Chimwemwe, call him aChisale and see what effect that can have. Another example would be the formal inu and the informal iwe. If you are a couple that addresses each other using the formal inu, try addressing each other using the informal iwe. Add a little playful tone and before you know it you will be giggling like some school going lovers.

You could also try applying oil to her hair while she lays her head on your laps, kupalana mfundu (removing each other´s dandruff), cutting each other´s nail, chatting - simple little things that cost almost nothing but add to the romance in your life.

The good in Malawian women

2011-04-11T00:21:00.000-07:00

She doesn't need to know you personally but if you need someone to cry at your brother's funeral or to dance at your daughter's wedding you can surely count on her. She seems to have enough tears for every funeral, enough dancing shoes for every wedding, enough coos for every newborn and enough ululations for every bridal shower.

She is hard working and seems to do more work than everyone else around her. Most times she doesn't seem to mind the work or if she does she has a good way of hiding it.

She is hospitable. She seems to have a smile ready for anyone who drops in to pay her a visit. Sometimes she might not like the unannounced visits but that won't stop her from faking a smile or from sharing her hard-earned nsima.

She keeps families together. She does everything within her power to make her marriage work and to protect her children. She maintains contact with akuchimuna and akuchikazi and brings them together.

She cooks for her man. She might not be the best cook in the world but that won't stop her from putting ingredients together to prepare something to tease her man's taste buds.

She is afraid of bringing shame on herself and on those who matter in her life. She therefore tries to shun away from bad behaviour and when she does engage in it she at least tries to be discrete so as not to bring shame on her family's name.

She is proud of her body. Unlike women in other parts of the world she doesn't seem to mind the extra fat on her tummy or her chubby thighs. She loves it as her hips widen and as her buttocks get rounder.

She raises children into men and women. It doesn't matter if the children are her own or not but it seems mwana wanzako ndi wako yemwe, ukachenjela manja uzadya naye was carefully drilled into her.

She is a chameleon that changes its colours to suit her environment. She can be in a business suit as the perfect career woman , she can be in a chitenje and a duku as one of the mourners at a funeral, she can be in a church guild's uniform, she can be in heels and a cute dress as a woman out having fun with her husband. Whatever it is, she knows how to dress the part, act the part and fit in.

She is a loving and caring woman. Ask yourself if there is anyone more loving or caring than the woman in your life. She can be your mother, or your wife or your girlfriend. Who else pampers you more than she does, who else takes care of your needs more than she, who else adores you more than she does …

Does she sound familiar? She probably does because you live around her and have grown up with her. She is the Malawian woman. For all her individualities – sharp-tongued, nosey, beautiful, submissive, talkative, unfaithful, boring, fun-loving, timid, smart, courageous, cowardly, devilish, glamorous, polite, old-fashioned, outgoing, petite, shabby (a whole range of adjectives can describe the individual Malawian woman) – she usually still has certain characteristics that trail her as a Malawian woman.

Spend your time with her and observe her but most importantly appreciate her.

The good in Malawian men

2011-04-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

Most of the times we tend to focus on the negative that we don't see the positive. Many a times we talk of how men are like dogs, how they will lie to you with a straight face, how they will sleep with you and dump you and do other such horrible things. In as much as our men might do some of these bad things, they still have some good in them and this is what I want to focus on today. What are some of the common good qualities that most of our men share? Read on.

They are there for family. He might not approve of his younger brother's academic inabilities but that won't stop him from paying school fees for the younger brother. Talk of in-laws, cousins, uncles and sisters – he is there to offer them support in whatever way he can, even if it means cramming the whole lot of you in one tiny bed-sitter.

They love to pay for things for you. They don't care if you have money or not, they will still take the bill. I don't know if this is a male ego thing but whatever it is, men love to pay and the ladies love that men love to pay.

They love to top up your phone credit. Although in the category of love to pay for things for you, maunits still deserves mention in its own paragraph. If there are things Malawian men love to buy for women, phone credit is definitely in the top ten list.

They lead their women in the right direction. Not that Malawian women don't have their own sense of direction but sometimes one tends to go off-course and always needs someone to take them back on course. Think of the times he came to cool you down when you were about to give your nosy neighbour a piece of your mind or when you were about to fire your otherwise great maid for breaking your expensive china.

Their sweet tongues. You are probably wondering if Malawian men are indeed sweet talkers but believe you me, these men of the Warm Heart have their own ways of using terms of endearment that make women melt. You know that he is probably lying but the way he says “mommie, nkhawa bwa” while looking you straight in the eyes makes you forget that you are supposed to be angry with him for coming home smelling of some strange perfume. Or think about the way he playfully says “nanunso inu, tabwela kuno.”

They appreciate their women's cooking. I am not sure why this is so but most Malawian men I know appreciate their wives' cooking even when the wife is not such a great cook. I wouldn't eat some of these women's cooking if I didn't have to but the way you will see the husbands to these women munching their wives' cooking makes you wonder if all of you have been served with food from the same pot.

These are some of the common good traits that I have observed in the Malawian man. Of course each and every man is an individual and has his own outlook to life but there is always that something that makes you know the Malawian man wherever he goes.

Watch this space for the good in Malawian women.

Of the single woman who has given birth

2011-03-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

The single woman who has given birth is forever condemned to ridicule. She is considered damaged goods. She has put a dent in her CV and nobody looks at her as marriage material. Because they know that she is a single woman who has given birth, some men will try to take advantage of her and treat her as an easy lay. Some men will genuinely like her and might even want to make a wife of her but like vultures, the man's friends, cousins, aunties and uncles will come and warn the young man against her. “Don't you know that she has already given birth?” they shall ask him.

Because she knows that she is a single woman who has given birth, she knows that her chances of finding a man are limited. And so what does she do? She carefully tucks her young one at her mother's and goes on with her life as if she has not given birth. She might even get married and the husband will not even know that his wife has ever given birth before.

The mother of the single woman who has given birth closely guards her daughter's secret. The mother knows that her daughter's chances are now limited and she will do anything including taking her daughter's child as her own. The child shall never know its real mother and shall call the person who is actually its mum asisi.

Handing over ownership of her young one to her mother is not the worst thing that a single woman who has given birth can do. To save face, the single woman can dump her new born in a pit latrine or abandon it in the bushes to die.

Before she gives birth, the single woman faces a lonely and hard pregnancy. Because she doesn't want people to know that she is pregnant she tries to hide her pregnancy. She doesn't care if its 40 degrees out there, she'll still put on a heavy jacket to conceal the bump on her tummy.

Afraid and with no one to talk to, the single woman can resort to an unsafe abortion which can lead to permanent health complications and sometimes even death.

Faced with a pregnancy, the single woman decides that her best option is to marry the father of her unborn child. She knows that she doesn't really care for the man but if she doesn't marry him who else would marry her now that she is damaged goods?

Maybe people should give her a chance and not judge her too harshly. Yes she has made a mistake but don't condemn her to eternal damnation. Before you condemn and judge her think of how your condemnations influence her to dump her baby in a pit latrine or to have an unsafe abortion.

Disclaimer: This article is not meant to promote children out of wedlock. The right time to fall pregnant is when you are both financially and emotionally stable. But if it does happen that someone you know (or yourself) falls pregnant at the wrong time, don't imagine that their/your life is over. It is something that can be dealt with in a positive way.

Married women: Don't turn yourself into despicable married men

2011-03-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

She drives or if she doesn't she at least has friends who do. She is a fashionista – sometimes she looks pretty good depending on how she pulls her look together but sometimes the latest fashion trends betray her and show her for the grown woman she really is. The tight little boob tube dress does nothing to hide her bulging tummy, the shoulderless style does injustice to the breasts which have suckled young ones and the sleeveless cut reveals discoloured armpits that have seen too many razors. She has money – she either makes it or she married well – and loves to spend it. She loves to have fun and will on most nights be seen partying with her girlfriends. Did I mention that she is married?

I guess the belief that bars are no places for married women is beginning to lose its value. More and more married women are now going out, not in the company of their husbands but in the company of their girlfriends. The women will call each other up and meet at a club. They will probably laugh a lot and call each other atsikana (girls) regardless of their ages. They will drink and maybe even get drunk. They will hop from club to club and go back home at around 4 or 5 in the morning.

As long as she knows her limits, I don't think there is anything wrong with a married woman going out for an occasional night of fun with the “girls”. However these girls nights out become a problem when they become too frequent and when married women try to behave like despicable married men. Now a despicable married man is one who drinks himself silly, one who drinks and drives, one who goes out to drink every night or every weekend, one who hits on other women at drinking places, and one who reveals things that are not meant for the public ear when he is out drinking.

In these days of equal rights it is easy for married women to become despicable married men. One of the biggest problems with the rights issue is that women tend to set their benchmarks according to men's actions and according to liberties enjoyed by men. While most of these male liberties (if I might be allowed to call them that) are indeed vital for female emancipation, women must learn to distinguish between the good and the bad they can learn from men. Women must not make the mistake of reliving the mistakes made by men.

Now if you are a married woman and you want to avoid falling into a trap of a despicable married man here is what you should do if you want to go clubbing with your friends:

The most important thing is to first have the blessings of your partner. Old-fashioned as this might sound, any married person ( including the man) must ensure that their partner is okay with them going out. If you go out without getting your “visa” chances are your partner will start having wild imaginations as your whereabouts and this might lead to conflict.

After getting the visa from the husband, you should pick out your outfit carefully. You don't want to look like a dowdy married woman but at the same time you don't want to send the wrong message with your choice of clothes. I am not saying don't wear short skirts or tight trousers but just wear them in a way that you don't look like a slut. Don't do such things as displaying your panties with a low-cut jeans. And if they are sagging please keep them in a bra – I guess the cute bare-back tops are not for everyone.

Now when you go out, control your drinking. Don't take more alcohol than you can handle. There would be nothing more embarrassing than a drunk married woman baring her C-section scars to the public.

You and your married girlfriends must also make it a matter of principle not to accept offers of free drinks from men. It starts with accepting one free drink and before you know it you are exchanging phone numbers. And buying your own drinks helps to send a message to the men in the club that you are there strictly for your own business.

If you married don't flirt. Sometimes married women can get crazy and try to flirt a little to see if they are still marketable or if they can still attract a man. You might think you will be able to control one little flirt but when you are acting under the influence you never know where one little flirt can lead to.

And if one of the women in your group displays despicable behaviour – dresses like a slut, flirts with men in a club, drinks too much, is unnecessarily loud and draws attention to your group – drop her like a hot potato.

Remember women don't drink and drive. We have already lost a lot of our men to this vice, we don't want to lose you too.

Lies, lies, lies

2011-03-14T00:21:00.000-07:00

Each and every relationship has its fair share of lies. Both men and women will tell lies in a relationship for various reasons. Some do it to make a good impression on their partner, others lie to cover their tracks, some do it because they don't want to hurt the other person, others do it out of habit, others lie to feel good about themselves, some lie as a means to their own selfish ends. Whatever the reasons, here are some lies that people might tell in a relationship.

Men:

I will stop drinking and smoking for you. He probably will but his days as a non-smoker and a non-alcoholic will only last until you accept his proposal or until you sleep with him.

I am working late. There is a fair chance that he really is working late but this is also one of the oldest lies in the book. In relationships “working late” doesn't just mean spending extra hours at the office doing overtime – it can mean anything from spending time with a new girlfriend to hanging out with the guys at whatever watering hole. Don't be surprised if the man who was working late comes home smelling of strange perfume or has booze written all over his breath.

I've always used protection. Wait until women start coming from all over claiming that he fathered their babies.

I didn't father that baby. Of course you didn't and its just a coincidence that with each passing year that kid gets to look more like you. The kid walks like you, talks like you and even thinks like you.

You are the most beautiful woman I've ever laid my eyes on. But why is it whenever he is having a discussion of beautiful women with his friends he never mentions your name. He sure can mention Kim Kardashian, J-LO or his boss' secretary but never Abiti at home.

Beer costs less than what you spend at the salon. Yes one bottle of beer costs less than what she spends at the salon but then you don't drink one bottle, do you? And again she doesn't pay for all her friends' hairdos like you pay for all your friends' beers?

Women:

I got it on discount. No she didn't. You would probably go bananas if you knew that her 30ml-bottle of perfume could have bought four bags of cement or that her new suit costs as much as sending your son to one of these ludicrously-overpriced private schools in town.

The baby is yours. Yeah, you only have her word for it.

I don't care how much money you make. She is lying and she is actually thinking about how much you make. Even if you are poor and she goes ahead and marries you , she still thinks about how much you make although she will never admit it in your face.

It was great. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't but you can never tell if it was really great when she's saying that all the time. Maybe you can tell that it wasn't great after all when you catch her in bed with another man.

The kids are asking where their father is. No, they are not. Its actually her who is asking where her man is. The kids are really an excuse to find out your whereabouts.

I am virgin. Yes if you are dumb enough to believe her.

Maybe the pill didn't work. The pill didn't work because she wasn't taking it. Now that she is pregnant you really don't have much of a choice but to marry her.

Telling time the Malawian way

2011-03-06T20:07:00.000-08:00

Malawians have their own way of telling time and its called Malawian time. Its not really difficult to learn how to tell time the Malawian way. Just follow the following few and easy steps and you will be telling Malawian time in no time.

If you are a really important government official and you are scheduled to open a really important meeting or whatever function, please make sure that you arrive at the meeting at least two hours after your appointed time. Its important that you keep everybody waiting and you eat into the time of the other speakers at the meeting. How do they know who is really in control if you all arrive at the same time?

If you have attained the status of a celebrated musician and you have a show,always appear on stage five or six hours after your expected time. In the meantime keep the audience busy with a bunch of second-rate curtain raisers.

If you a pastor make sure you break into a really long prayer just when the clock strikes twelve, the time when the stomach of every person in your church is grumbling with hunger and they all can't wait to get home.

If you are the president have the state radio announce that your plane will touch down at KIA at 11a.m. Three hours after 11a.m. have the radio announce that the president will actually arrive at 3:30p.m. Don't show up at 3:30p.m, don't even show up at 5:30p.m. Show up at 7p.m. and have one of your messengers tell the press, the youth morale and the dancing women, all who have been waiting for you at the airport since nine in the morning, that His Excellency, the esteemed professor will not address the people because darkness is now upon you.

Weddings. Now weddings are a whole different story and it really depends in what capacity you are going to the wedding.
1.If you are the bride and groom arrive at your own wedding at least two hours late – never mind that your invitations say “We will strictly observe time” in bold letters. Its important that you arrive after everyone else has arrived so that they all get to see your grand entrance. And more than that, it is extremely vital that all those doubting thomases see for themselves that you are finally tying the knot. And a late arrival by the bride and groom always ensures that the pelekani pelekani (money throwing) will start with a packed hall.
2.If you are going to a wedding as a very close friend or as a close family member (say as an uncle, aunt, brother, mom) don't make the mistake of being on time or the mistake of being late. Your brother's or best friend's wedding is practically your own wedding and you will spend all your time on it. The question of early, on time and late does not arise in this case – you are a part of the wedding.
3.Ongowonekela (no English equivalent). The list of ongowonekela includes such people as eighth cousins, people you go to the same church with, former neighbours, people you went to primary school with, wedding mongers, etc. Now, if you are going to a wedding as ongowonekela, it is advisable that you arrive late. Don't arrive on time and don't even think about being early lest you be labelled as overzealous or one who goes in search of wedding Fantas.

Funerals. Funerals, like weddings, are another complicated affair. But there is a two-way rule to tell funeral time. On one hand, ngati maliro ali anu (family members, close friends) then it is advisable that you spend all your time at the funeral, that is, the minute you hear that so and so has passed on, you go and find the mourners and gather with them until after the burial. On the other hand, ngati maliro si anu (check ongowonekela list) don't rush off to the funeral the moment you hear of someone's demise. If you arrive at the funeral before the owners of the funeral you'll be accused of sending their loved one to an early grave or of being in search of funeral meat.

Try a God-abusing nation

2011-02-28T00:14:00.000-08:00

I have heard the expression we are a God-fearing nation countless times that I am not sure what it means anymore. People are creating Facebook pages based on Malawi as a God-fearing nation, the expression is there on car stickers, in conference rooms, in classrooms, at weddings, on radios and TV, and it even comes as a signature with some people's emails – in short its just everywhere.

Before I continue let me make a little disclaimer that this article is not meant to question anybody's beliefs nor is it meant to sway anyone from the path of the Lord. Rather I just want to understand the use or is it the abuse of the we are a God-Fearing nation line.

For some reason I always thought the expression God-fearing means to be in reverence of God and His authority. People who revere God genuinely live by his ways and obey Him. Whether Malawians actually live by God's ways is open to debate - a debate, which I hope, won't end with the usual argument that we are a God-fearing nation.

The way I see it, we are a God-fearing nation, has simply become the fashionable thing to say regardless of whether it is being used in the context of matters religious or in reference to Mafunyeta's music. People are taking advantage of the we are a God-fearing nation and are using it to stifle different opinion. I am sorry to say but the expression has become a cheap way of winning arguments.

If you want to silence a group of feminists or gender activists, there is no better way to do it than to dismiss the feminists as a group of women with crazy ideas who don't understand that Malawi is a God-fearing nation. Any debate on homosexuality in the country is simply curtailed with a we are a God-fearing nation. Teachers with no answers to a student's inquisitive mind will hide their ignorance behind the we are a God-fearing nation.

Simply put, we are a God-fearing nation has become a sort of verbal bogeyman to scare off people with alternate views. And for the most part God-fearing propagandists are intolerant people who want to oppress minorities.

Not that I am totally against the use of we are a god-fearing nation, rather, I just want to see the expression used in ways that make sense. At the moment I can't help but feel that people use we are a God-fearing nation to suit their own agendas. Why for instance would anyone claim that a married woman who chooses to retain her birth name has no fear of God or indeed why would anybody question the faith of a student who asks his/her teacher why it had to take Dr. David Livingstone to discover Lake Nyasa when there were people already living around the Lake. Or why should the mission statement of the Malawi Vision 2020 start by reading that “by the year 2020, Malawi as a God-fearing nation will be secure, democratically mature, environmentally sustainable ....”

I hope this article won't cost me my citizenship in the God-fearing nation. But then I just want to make sense of this God-fearing talk and help avoid a situation where we would wake up one morning to be told that we can't question the authority of the President because we are a God-fearing nation.

Life's awkward moments

2011-02-21T00:02:00.000-08:00

First of all let me start by apologising for not appearing on this page last Sunday. The flu got to me pretty bad this past week and the last thing I could think about was to sit down on a computer and write something down. Now that I have got this little explanation out of the way I would like to move on and talk about today's topic – life's awkward moments.

I am sure each and every one of you has experienced an awkward moment at one point or another. You see the thing about awkward moments is that they just pop up at the most unexpected of times. You can be going about, minding your own business when out of nowhere an awkward moment comes and hits you in the face. Of course its not always easy to deal with an awkward moment because as the phrase itself suggests, it is awkward. And not only is the moment awkward but it also makes you feel awkward and causes great embarrassment.

I have pulled together a list of some of those moments that can get really awkward:

You use the toilet in someone else's house and then you realise that there is no water in the cistern and the toilet won't flush. Or you finish your business in someone else's toilet only to find that there in no toilet paper in the room. Fancy yourself calling out to the owner of the house to come to your rescue.

Passing a group of the opposite sex. It doesn't matter whether you are a man or a woman but its never easy to pass a group of the opposite sex when you are by yourself. You can surely pretend to be unmoved by the group's presence and try to walk on with confidence, but deep down inside you are struggling with yourself and wishing the moment to be over.

Finding yourself in a room alone with a parent-in-law of the opposite sex. While in other cultures fathers-in-law have cups of coffee with their daughters-in-law and sons-in-law go for a drive with their mothers-in-law, such things are almost unheard of in our culture. Believe you me, it will get awkward if you find yourself alone in a room with a parent-in-law of the opposite sex.

Embarrassing questions from children. Children are by their nature inquisitive and they have a thing of asking not only difficult questions but embarrassing ones as well. With so many subjects considered as taboo on home turf, it becomes really tough to answer questions like where do babies come from and whats the urinating organ called.

People whose names you forget. Lets face it, there are just people whose names you can't remember but who, for some reason, always remember you. Need I say how awkward it is when you run into a person who remembers everything about you when you can't remember a single thing about him/her.

Sex scenes that come up in movies when you have visitors. If you have your church elder or older people visiting you don't leave your TV on because you never know what will come up on the TV screen. Don't catch yourself in an embarrassing moment trying to switch channels when inappropriate scenes come up.

Trying to get out of an awkward situation. There is nothing more awkward than trying to get out of an awkward situation because the moment you try to do that you draw attention to the awkward thing itself. And when you draw attention to the awkward thing everybody notices it and you end up feeling more embarrassed. Of course I am aware that there are some people (people like Bakili Muluzi) who are pretty good at getting out of awkward moments – they will make a joke out of it or they will simply pass on the awkwardness to the other person and continue as if nothing had happened.

Stereotyping domestic workers

2011-02-07T00:18:00.000-08:00

Domestic workers are an essential part of Malawian life. It is almost impossible to find a house without a maid, a houseboy, a cook, a gardener, a nanny, an errand boy or a watchman. Today I would like to talk about how our society has stereotyped domestic workers; stereotypes which eventually play a big role in perpetuating abuse of domestic workers.

All domestic workers are the same. A typical stereotype used mostly by employers when they feel that their houseboy or housegirl has done something wrong. Anthu awa amongafanana (they are all just the same) or ndikhalidwe lawo (it is in their nature) are some of the expressions used to describe domestic workers. But not everyone who works in the domestic service is the same. If you had a bad experience with one gardener or watchman, don't generalize that experience as being representative of all domestic helpers. One time I was shocked when a relation of mine said, anthu antchito! onse amangokhala ngati mayi wao ndi m'modzi (its as if all domestic workers came from one mother).

Meat gets into their heads. This stereotype is usually used by employers who are insecure, mean or just downright unreasonable. I am sure you have heard a boss say to her maid nyama yanga ndiye ukutumbwa nayo (my meat is making you haughty) or nyama yanga ndiye mukunenepa nayo (my meat is making you beautiful). So what if the food the maid is eating in your home is making her buttocks rounder or is evening out her skin tone? It is employers who think like this who usually end up depriving domestic workers food.

They need to be shouted at. Another stereotype which employers use to justify the verbal abuse they inflict on their workers. Anthu awa samamva kungowauza bwino-bwino . You shout at them all the time because you believe that they don't understand if spoken to nicely. And when you start feeling that the shouting is not enough you start resorting to physical violence.

I saved you. You believe that because your cook or houseboy comes from a poor background you saved him by bringing him into your home. If you constantly use sentences like munthu osayamika iwe (you are not grateful) or uzikumbukila komwe unachokela (you should remember where you came from), then you are probably stereotyping your houseboy as a poor and helpless person who only saw light after you came along to save him.

Stereotypes related to tribe. I know that I am touching on a raw nerve here but sometimes we need to talk about some of these things to put an end to them. I am sure you have heard people assess domestic workers based on their tribe. People say to each other, “don't employ a nanny from tribe X because they are a proud people,” or they say “employ someone from wherever because they are a tidy people.” And I have heard of another tribe that is not recommended material for nannies because the women there like men and if you get a servant from this other tribe you will be in trouble because the people there love books too much. The absurdities of some of these things.

These people have no life. You think that servants have no life of their own and they do not exist beyond you. You therefore confine them indoors and shout at them if they as much as take a little stroll outside the gate. You never give them a day off because you think there will have nothing to do with the free time. You get shocked if your nanny tells you that she wants to go and get married. You give her a long lecture and tell her that marriage will not be in her best interests.

I hope that this article will help you reflect on how you treat your domestic workers. I am not saying that people should not engage domestic workers but servants need to be treated in a humane way too. if treated with the dignity that it deserves, domestic work can be just like any other job.

What she says and what she means

2011-01-30T23:11:00.000-08:00

Do women always say what they mean? How sure can you be that when she says X she really means X and not Y. Read on and maybe you can grab one or two things on understanding the semantics of women.

You are getting ready to go out and she says to you, “you are not going out again, are you?” She is not really interested in your answer and all she is saying to you is don't go out.

You are out having fun somewhere and you get a call in the middle of the night, “where are you?” Again she's really not interested in where you are or what you are doing. All she's saying is that you have been gone for too long and you'd better get back home that very minute. Same thing if she calls and says “I am just checking up on you” or “I miss you.” Don't be fooled that she can call you when you are out having fun with the boys just to be romantic.

If she says “pick me up after work” or “I'll pick you up after work,” she means that you will be stuck with me for the rest of the evening and there is no possibility of you going anywhere to engage in extra-work activities.

If she tells you a really long story of how the husband to one of her friends is sending their first born to Kamuzu Academy or how her friend's husband has bought the friend a new car, she is simply saying why can't you send our kid to Kamuzu Academy or why can't you buy me a new car.

If she tells you how lovely it is that the Whoevers always come together as a family to church every Sunday, she is not just telling you some story about the Whoevers dedication to Sunday service. She is telling you that why can't you be like Mr Whoever and join her and the kids to church every Sunday.

If she grabs her bag and says “I am coming with you today,” she is telling you that you never take her out and come rain or sunshine you are going to take her out that day.

If she says “you are not going dressed like that, are you?” She means I don't like how you look and why don't you go put on something else.

If you propose and she says she has to think about it, chances are she's interested and she probably wants to play hard to get. After all, whats there to think about if she's not interested. Give her a little time and chances are you might actually clinch the deal.

If she says she doesn't like one of your friends she is not simply expressing her dislike for your friend. She is actually telling you that she thinks your friend is a bad influence and you should not hang out with him anymore.

If you ask her what is wrong and she says nothing, you can bet your whole bank account that its not nothing. If she says nothing, she means something is wrong. Its up to you to find out how you have offended her and go about correcting it. And by all means, please avoid getting her in the “nothing” mood because its never easy to figure this one out.

What should come first?

2011-01-23T23:46:00.000-08:00

The question “Which came first, the chicken or the egg” is one that continues to boggle minds since the days of ancient philosophers. While the dilemma posed by the chicken-and-egg mystery is understandable, it becomes surprising when we (as in humans) continue to get the order wrong on things that we shouldn't. I am here talking about how we sometimes tend to do X first when evidence at our disposal shows that it usually works out better if Y is done first. Let me drive my point home with an example, which is also the gist of my discussion today.

Have you seen how we sometimes believe that we can only start investing in our futures after marriage? You can be a nice boy or girl, straight from college who lands a fairly well-paying job at some reputable company. Quite understandable if in the first few months of your employment you get excited with your paycheck and throw money around. But there should come a time when you must get over the excitement and think about investing your money. Unfortunately, I have noticed that many young people tend to think that one should only start investing after getting married.

However, its difficult to invest in anything once you have a family. When you have a family you are more concerned with sorting out the most immediate pressing needs of the family that it sometimes becomes impossible to put money in investment.

Let me again draw you to the hypothetical unmarried young man working for the reputable company. Now this young man is sent from his base in Malawi to do some field work in say Senegal. While in Senegal the young man earns an extra US$500 in allowances. There are so many things that the young man can do with the US$500. When he comes back home he will have around K75,000 and he can use the money as a down payment for a piece of land or he can invest the money in a business.

Now imagine if this young man was married and he has come back from Senegal with US$500. You should also bear it in mind that this young man never made any efforts to grow his money before he was married. All he has is his paycheck. When he gets home the wife tells the young man that the primary school their six-year-old son goes to has decided to raise the fees by K10,000 in the middle of a school year. She also tells him that the landlord came by while he was away and raised the rent of the two-bedroomed house from K20,000 to K30,000. His wife hands him the day's papers and a copy of his pay slip. He reads the headlines first: Escom, waterboards raise tariffs, Minibus owners hike fares … He opens his pay slip – his net figure is the same, as usual. He wonders if his salary and the price of the targeted subsidized fertilizer are the only two things whose figures never increase.

In these two scenarios it is obvious that the married man will do what is expected of him and sort out the immediate needs of his family. He can't use the K75,000 to buy shares when his son has been chased from school for fees non-payment. On the other hand, the unmarried young man can easily make adjustments to his lifestyle and still use the K75,000 for investment.

We are living in tough times where the least that most families can afford to do is live from hand to mouth. In the days of our forefathers things were different – they inherited land and they didn't have to pay for food, and other resources like we do today. It was okay then to marry off a young man or woman as a way of settling him/her down. But this is just not true anymore. Young men and women should not lie to themselves that they have to wait until marriage to settle down (where settle down means things like owning a home and buying assets).

It is important that young people realise that the best time to make investments is when you are free from responsibilities. Parents also play a key role here – if your son/daughter gets their first job don't put pressure on them to get married. Rather encourage your child to make some meaningful investments before s/he marries.

On being Malawian

2011-01-17T01:02:00.000-08:00

When I decided to follow my husband to Europe four and a half months ago, I feared the worst for this column. I repeatedly asked myself if I was going to manage to write about a Malawian experience now that I was going to live in a foreign land. The fact that everybody who knew me kept asking me how I was going to write about Malawi from azunguland didn't help matters at all and only worsened my fears.

I think it was two weeks after I had moved here (Germany) and I was on the phone with my mother-in-law when she told me that her friends had been asking her that kodi mpongozi wanu azilemba chani mmene ali kunjamu (what will your daughter-in-law be writing about now that she resides outside Malawi). I told my mother-in-law that I honestly didn't know and we'll just have to wait and see.

But four and a half months later, I think I am ready to give my mother-in-law and everybody else who kept asking what I will be writing about (including myself) an answer. You see, I have never felt more Malawian than I do at this moment in my life. If anyone had asked me five months ago what it means for me to be Malawian, I would probably have stumbled with the answers and responded with something as obvious as “I am a Malawian because I am a citizen of Malawi.”

But now that I do live outside of Malawi I have come to realise that being a Malawian is not just about being a citizen of the country. Being Malawian is about all those things we do everyday when we wake up and start our day and when we go to sleep when the day ends. Most of the times we tend to take these things we do for granted and we never realise that it is these same things that set us apart.

Today, I try not to take my Malawianess for granted anymore. I am more aware of who I am and I could list a hundred things that make me Malawian. But since my editor has given me a word-limit, I can only list as much as my space allows me.

I am Malawian because I enjoy being in the sun. I hate it that I don't see much sunshine here. I do understand that its winter in Europe now but our winters were never below zero degrees and we still took our clothes outside to dry even in winter. It bothers me that we have to hang our clothes indoors here. I remember back in Malawi how, whenever I took the washing from the line, I would always put the clothes on my face and inhale the sun's warmth on them. I can't do that anymore here.

I am Malawian because I can live with a few spiders or a few ants in my house and not really care. Don't pretend as if you don't know what I am talking about – even those of you in Area 43 and Area 10 suburbia have one or two cockroaches in your kitchen or manalimata (little house lizards) on your walls. It bothers me that I hardly see any insects here. I wonder if they have flies (even the place where we dump our trash is free of flies) or if they have manalimata...

I am a Malawian because I appreciate that we try to grow fruits on our yards. Yes, we do cut down a lot of trees but if you go round you'll still see that most people have one or two trees of whatever fruit growing on their yards. People here don't grow fruits like we do. They have trees around their homes but they are not fruit trees. Fruits here are grown on farms and we buy them per kilo at supermarkets. It bothers me that a kilo of bananas costs almost the same as a kilo of chicken.

I am a Malawian because of the food that I like to eat. When I was in Malawi I used to say that I wasn't really a nsima person and I wouldn't mind if it was struck out of my diet. I think I was of lying. Today I would, without even a moment's hesitation, swap all these sausages, breads, pastas and pizzas for a plate of nsima and beans that don't come in a can.

I am a Malawian because I realise that a chitenje (wrapper) is a must have for a Malawian woman. I never used to appreciate chitenje when I was in Malawi and hardly wore it in public. But now I view chitenje differently. When the day is extra cold I put my chitenje on top of my jeans and it always works – even the European cold cannot penetrate the chitenje. I proudly carry my three-year-old on my back with the chitenje and have the German moms, who have their own three-year-olds strapped up in prams, stare at me in awe.

In a nutshell, let me say that my not living in Malawi cannot stop me from writing about Malawi because Malawi has already shaped my world view. The more I live here and notice the differences, the more I become connected to my homeland. It is this connection that will keep me inspired to write on about Malawi and its peoples.

How does she look at you

2011-01-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

Call this a sequel to last week's article, How does he look at you. I thought writing this article in reverse would help to answer some of the questions and comments my readers had in the course of the week. “Do such men really exist,” one reader asked. “Why do women stay with men who display some of these characteristics,” another asked. “Why do you want to open a can of worms in people's relationships? I am afraid that this article will incite women, who were otherwise submissive, to start questioning their partners,” another reader commented.

First of all if there is a can of worms in your relationship its bound to open one way or another. It doesn't matter whether she reads an article in a newspaper or has a pep talk with one of her girlfriends – if you are keeping cans of worms in the house, one of you is bound to open them. My advice: avoid bringing cans of worms in the house. Don't lie to yourself that you can safely tuck your can of worms in the corner of your house and not be tempted to open it.

Do such men really exist and if they do why do women stay with them? I based my last week's list (absurd as it might have sounded to some of you) on true life stories I have read or heard and on emails I receive from lots of women out there. Yes, I do get a lot of emails from women asking me what they should do about their abusive or cheating partners. I get emails from women asking me what they should do with their husbands who won't let them have a stake in the business and so on. Since I am no namkungwi/counsellor (I am just a person who writes what she sees) I simply tell most of these women to do what they think is right and best for them.

Now, coming back to today's topic: as I have already hinted at somewhere along this article, I thought doing my last week's topic in reverse would give me a chance to show that I do not only blame men for some of the things that happen in relationships. If you do a “how does she look at you”, you will see that some women also look at and behave towards men in the same stereotypical way. Sometimes, like at this moment, it becomes necessary to talk about these stereotypes just to show how absurd they are. Maybe if we all begin to see these stereotypes for the absurdities that they are we will stop practicing them.

She looks at you as an unrestricted ATM: She thinks you are made of money and can't stop asking you to pay for this and that. The only time she is lovey-dovey is when she wants you to pay for something or when you have bought her something.

She looks at you as her decision maker: If you ask for her opinion on issues, she always tells you to do what you think should be done. If something happens in your absence she will not sort it out until you come back to tell her what to do.

She looks at you as a sperm donor: Maybe the motherly gene is just too strong in some women that the only thing she'll want from you are babies. After you have given her the baby(s) she seems disinterested in you and spends all her energy on the child(ren).

She looks at you as a bouncer: I understand that women want to feel protected around their man but it also helps to be reasonable about it. If she deliberately pushes you into fights with other men or thinks you don't feel pain by making you do some risky things, then its most likely your girl looks at you as some kind of super-strong human being.

She looks at you as all-knowing: For some reason she thinks you should just know about everything. If she's unhappy, she wont say anything and expect you to just know what is on her mind. If you don't get guess what is bothering her the more angry she gets.

She looks at you as a sex machine: There is a general belief that men like sex more than women and that a man hardly ever says no to sex. I however don't think this is true, its just that we (both men and women) have been raised to believe that this is the case. And so she believes that if she offers sex, a man should never say no. If you tell her that you are not in the mood or that you are tired, she wont believe you and will accuse you of sleeping around with other women.

But how should she look at you? She should look at you as a man who is first and foremost a human being. She should love and respect you. She should not think you are capable of doing impossible things. She should be guided by the principle of what he can do, she can do and what she can do, he can do.

How does he look at you?

2011-01-02T23:42:00.000-08:00

Do you often times catch yourself wondering what he really thinks of you? Read on and maybe you can find the answer in the following lines:

He looks at you as a slave: the only conversations he seems to have with you revolve around your domestic chores, “when is my food going to be ready, why didn’t you iron my shirt properly?” You work from morning till evening and all your work goes unappreciated. He takes you for granted and believes that you were put in this world to cook and clean for him.

He looks at you as a gullible rich woman: if you are the one with the money, here is how you can tell if he’s only interested in squandering your hard-earned Kwachas. When you are together he adores you and treats you as if you are the only one for him. He’s got a very sweet tongue and tells you all the things you want to hear. But when he is away from you he talks of you as if you were a piece of trash and tells people that he only stays with you because of the money (ndingomudyela).

He looks at you as a sex machine: He wants to have sex all the time and doesn’t seem to care that you are not in the mood, or that you are tired, sick, pregnant or that it’s that time of the month. He is filled with unrealistic pornographic images and forces you to do things you are not comfortable doing.

He looks at you as a baby making machine: closely related to the sex machine but here sex is not about satisfying the man’s insatiable lust. Here the man uses sex for one and one purpose alone – having babies. He wants you to get pregnant every year. He is totally disapproving of birth control. If for some reason he thinks you are not conceiving at his required pace, he will ridicule you and threaten to get another woman who can bear him babies.

He looks at you as a gold-digger: If he thinks of you as a gold-digger he will in most cases let you know his true feelings. If you ask him for money for the salon he will answer you with something like “do you think I grow money on trees?” If you tell him that you need some new clothes he will respond with something like, “you unappreciative woman, do you think I am made of money?” If you often get such responses from your man, then it’s most likely that he looks at you as a gold-digger.

He looks at you as a nagging partner: He usually tells you not to bother him or to leave him alone. He does not really listen when you are talking and gives you that look that says you are wasting my time. If he displays any of these characteristics then it is most likely that he finds you a bother and he can’t really wait to get away from what he sees as your nagging.

He looks at you as the show-off wife/girlfriend: The show-off wife (or popularly known as the trophy wife) is usually a beautiful woman whom the husband likes to show off in public. Usually the act of showing off is not done for the woman’s benefit but the man uses her to prove a point to others that he managed to catch himself an attractive woman.

He looks at you as you: When he looks at you as you he appreciates the person you are and loves you for who you are. He treats you as an equal and he does not take you for granted. He is sensitive about your needs and tries as much as possible to keep you happy. He is there for you and he listens to you. He supports you and stops you from taking a wrong path. Yes, this man loves you for all your wrongs and your rights.

I deliberately saved the “he looks at you as you” for last because I feel that this is how a man should look at his woman.

Contrary to popular belief …

2010-12-29T09:05:00.000-08:00

Contrary to popular belief, skin lightening/whitening/bleaching creams are not your passport to everlasting beauty. Do you know what harmful chemicals are contained in these creams which you just buy off-the-counter – creams with ingredients that have been banned in the USA, Europe and Asia but somehow find their way on the African market? Just take a look around you (maybe at yourself or at your mother, sister, aunt, cousin, friend) – do you see the damaged skins? Funny how the very thing you thought would make you beautiful makes your face fall off, literally.

Contrary to popular belief, fluency in English does not equal to intelligence. Have you seen how some people are totally wowed by ideas of great English speakers? Such people just remind me of my childhood days as a pupil at a government school and how we would marvel at another pupil’s English speaking capabilities and think that the pupil would automatically scoop the first position. I guess it’s just a matter of time before you realise that not every fluent speaker of English has great ideas.

Contrary to popular belief, not everybody who goes to church is a good person. I know of some people who are not church folks and yet they are good people and I know of others who never miss a prayer service but their actions would make you think that they read the bible in reverse.

Contrary to popular belief, white weddings do not always translate into successful marriages. You can have a white wedding or a black one for that matter (the term white wedding presupposes that all other weddings officiated outside the church are the antithesis of white), but if the marriage is not founded on the principles of love, understanding and respect then it is most likely that the marriage will fail.

Contrary to popular belief, a college degree does not always mean you are better than a person without a degree. If you don’t want to end up as an ignorant person then I would suggest that don’t assume the “I have a degree” attitude. Open up your mind to what others have to say (including non-degree holders) and learn from them. You will be amazed by just how much that secondary school drop-out knows.

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone who owns a car is rich. I think Malawi has now reached that stage where a car should be looked at as just a car and not as a symbol of affluence (of course I am not talking about the latest range of jaguar here). Not every one of these people whom you see driving has a bank balance worth talking about it, that is, if they even have a bank balance at all. Try taking a look at their fuel gauge, that should tell you something.

Contrary to popular belief, prisoners are not worst beings than those outside prison walls. Yes, a prisoner is someone who supposedly did something bad but that doesn’t mean that the people who are not in prison don’t do bad things. We just don’t know what each one of us does outside prison walls because we have just never been caught.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not stupid for a man to learn how to cook. I think men can learn a thing or two from women who are now embracing the traditionally male roles in large numbers. Women can now make their own money and don’t necessarily need a man to earn a living. In years to come women will become self-sufficient in many aspects as they would have mastered both the traditionally male roles and the females roles. But if the men refuse to learn the female roles they shall one day find themselves at a disadvantage when the woman decides to stop taking care of the man’s domestic needs. When that day comes be sure that you at least know how to fry your own egg.

When you love marriage more than your partner

2010-12-20T00:32:00.000-08:00

In an ideal situation two people are supposed to get married because they are in love. But more often than not it happens that people get married for other reasons than love. People can get married because they need someone to offer financial support or because they need someone to wash and clean for them. Sometimes people get married because they have been forced into marriage or simply because they are smitten by the looks of the other person.

The reasons why two people end up as husband and wife are too numerous to mention but today I would like to single out one of these reasons – do you know that it is possible for a person to become so obsessed with the institution of marriage that they actually end up getting married?

Let me clarify my point. In a society like Malawi we are raised to believe that when a girl/boy reaches a certain age, she or he must get married. The society has its own ways of making sure that this is drilled in its youngsters. The girl child is raised in such a way that she will one day make some man a proud wife while the boy is raised to become a responsible husband.

If it so happens that the boy or the girl reaches that unwritten prescribed age for marriage without any wedding bells in sight, the society also has its ways of pressurizing the boy/girl to quickly get hitched. It can be anything from small delegations of aunties and uncles coming to sit down with you to derogatory words such as whore, faggot and miser.

Of course different people will handle such societal pressure differently. For some life still goes on regardless of what people think of them but for others life cannot go on if the society thinks lowly of them. It is usually the latter kind of people who are driven into loveless marriages for the sake of fulfilling the societal expectation that everyone must marry.

Now how do you know if the society has got to you?

If you have reached that unwritten prescribed age for marriage and you are not yet married, look out for these signs to see if you becoming a victim of societal pressure. Are you getting desperate and looking for someone to marry everywhere (at church, on the internet, on the lonely hearts column, at the market, at the office)? Is this coming new year’s one of your resolutions to get married come rain or sunshine? If you do manage to get married while feeling this desperate, chances are your marriage will be doomed from day one because you will settle for anyone for the sake of getting married.

Now you don’t always have to be unmarried to be a victim of societal pressure. You can be in a marriage that is not working – maybe he hits you, maybe she openly cheats, maybe she’s fallen out of love – but you still stay on in the marriage because you don’t want anybody to say that banja lakukanika (you have failed). For the sake of being known as Mrs Somebody or for the sake of being known as someone’s husband you still stay on.

I would have called this article anything. For instance I would have titled it Marrying for Marriage’s Sake (sounds good doesn’t it?) but I deliberately chose to call it When you Love Marriage more than your Partner because I wanted to show that if you are married for marriage’s sake then you are not in love with anybody. The only thing you are in love with in this case is the concept called marriage.

To take or not take a husband’s name

2010-12-12T22:59:00.000-08:00

Let me start my topic today by narrating a discussion I had some months back with some women regarding our current First Lady. Not that I want to pick on Mme. Callista but she is a well-known public figure and she’s been one of the hottest topics in the news this year after marrying the First Citizen. I can therefore safely make the assumption that quite a considerable number of people are aware of her background including her interesting name history.

When Callista came into the limelight after winning the Zomba Likangala parliamentary seat, she was known in the public arena as Callista Chapola-Chimombo, with Chapola representing her maiden name and the latter her late first husband’s name. After it was announced that she would marry President Mutharika, I sat with this group of women discussing the impending presidential wedding when I asked if Callista would hyphenate her name after marrying the President. And this is what one of the women in the group answered and I quote, “ndi ulemelero waupezawu angapangenso zopusa zimene zija,” (do you think she can do something that silly with the good fortune that has befallen her).

Of course today Callista no longer hyphenates her name, she’s simple plain Callista Mutharika. Whatever her reasons for choosing to drop the hyphen remain the First Lady’s business. What I am however interested to talk about is the statement the woman made that day about Callista – the one about her finding glory and therefore needing to take her husband’s name.

I don’t know about you but I literally understood this woman’s statement as meaning that hyphenating names is a silly thing and Callista would be stupid to hyphenate hers after landing such a rich and powerful husband. I of course didn’t agree with this woman because I felt her statement reduced a woman to the shadow of her husband. I felt as if she was saying that a woman is who she is because of the person she marries and if she marries someone powerful the more justified she is to take his name.

I believe what I have just described above is the main reason why society expects women to take their husband’s name upon marriage – I think many people believe that once a woman gets married she belongs to her husband and she must therefore be known by his label. This week I asked people on my discussion group if a married woman should take her husband’s name or not. At the time of writing this article I had received comments from 26 people. Out of these nine said when a woman marries she must take her husband’s name, five said she does not have to, another five said she must hyphenate and the remaining seven where for neither this nor that.

All the people who said she must take her husband’s name argued that a married woman is a part of her husband and she must therefore take his name. Here are some of the comments people wrote in support of this school of thought:

“Yes she has to because God says they will be one flesh and the man will be the head.”
“Yes, how will people know that she is someone's wife?”
“If she is married it means somebody has taken her responsibility so there is no way she can have her original name {property}”.

People from the opposing school of thought on the other hand argued that women should not change their names upon getting married because this idea is a colonial concept introduced to Africa by the colonialists. Others argued that women have been forced to change their names because all along men have been making the rules and they want to dominate the world.

The hyphenate proponents on the other hand argued that the hyphen helps to bring in some kind of balance between the tradition and the modern. A woman can still keep her original name and add on her husband’s name to show that she is also a part of him.

To conclude this whole topic I will say that a woman (married or not) must choose to call herself what she wants without someone (a man) prescribing to her what she is to be called. If a woman wants to take her husband’s name let her do it because its want she wants and not because she feels she’s her husband’s property.

We need to start asking some important questions which will make us weigh this issue from both sides. Why is it its only women that have to make sacrifices and compromises in this issue? Doesn’t the man become a part of a woman when he marries her? If it’s important that people know that she’s someone’s wife is it not equally important that they know that he’s someone’s husband?

Be a part of the world around me

2010-12-06T00:26:00.000-08:00

Hello. Today’s article will be a little different from what I usually write about. Instead of writing on some topic like how to be a good husband/wife/neighbour/friend etc, I will take it a little easy and talk about a little addition I want to bring to the column.

I think as we all know this column is called This World Around Me which basically means that whatever I write here are my perceptions of the world. But I would like to change things a little bit and make this column more about us. Not that I will change the title to This World Around Us but I just want to bring in more voices in the column from time to time.

Now, this is what I propose to do (perhaps I should say have already started doing). If you a Facebook user and you want to be a part of this you can look up a group I have created, Discussing the World Around Us and request to join the group (the group’s URL is http://www.facebook.com/groups/worldaroundus ). The group is open and everyone is free to view the group and join it if they so wish.

Once you have joined the group you can participate in the discussions on the group. Everyone is free to add their comments or to comment on other people’s comments.

From time to time I will be posting a topic to get views from people and at a later date I will be compiling the comments into an article. Don’t worry, I will not mention anyone’s name in the newspaper unless someone clearly states that I attribute their comments to their name in the paper.

For starters, I have already posted a topic for this week on the group and people have already started discussing it. The topic under discussion is should a married woman give up her maiden name or not. If you feel you have something to say on this topic then please do go to the group and add in your comments.

If on the other hand you are not into facebook, you can send your comments on the above topic to my email nyanguluchipofya@gmail.com. Let me stress again that all comments will be treated as anonymous unless in cases where the author asks that they be identified.

Let me also state that this exercise will go beyond simply copying and pasting your comments in my articles. I rather want to use your comments to gauge people’s feelings towards a particular issue. I will be interpreting your comments and analysing issues like how do men look at this particular topic and how do women look at it, and then cite your specific comments as examples.

And again I will not be doing such kind of articles on a weekly basis. I think I might do this once a month for now and I can re-evaluate the frequency in future depending on how people like the idea. This therefore means that I will still have three weeks in a month to do my usual articles of the likes of Things Men Do, Judgements we Pass on Others, Native Expatriates, etc.

As a last word let me thank the people who follow this column and I ask you to be part of this little new idea of mine. Please feel free to suggest anything you might want to suggest – I can be reached on my facebook or by email.

I hope to catch you next Sunday when I present to you what people think about women and names after marriage.

Turning him down the decent way

2010-11-28T23:42:00.000-08:00

Do you remember how it was like in primary school when a boy professed his undying love to a girl? One of two things would happen, it’s either the girl would “accept” the boy (usually after playing hard to get) or she would reject his advances. Now, it’s the latter part that I am interested to talk about today. Do you remember how these primary school rejections were done?

The girl would gather her girlfriends and give you a public verbal showdown, telling you off in all sorts of abusive language that there is no way she can go out with you. Or if it happened that the girl you asked out was not a master of verbal wrath she would simply break down in tears upon hearing that you fancy her. And sometimes if you were really unlucky she ended up reporting you to the teacher or to her big brothers who would give you a beating. And on top of all this the whole school would unite into one big choir and sing at you for asking a girl out.

Anyways such is (or should I say was?) primary school life and people are expected to shed off some of these primary school characteristics as they grow up. But sometimes it happens that one doesn’t easily grow up even after going through college and getting a job. I know of some women well into their twenties who would still pour out abusive verbal diarrhoea on a man who asks them out.

Now I am not saying women should not turn down men’s proposals but it is important that women learn to turn down men’s proposals nicely and politely. Women should at all costs avoid making a public spectacle when turning down a man. Don’t stand at the car park of Shoprite and speak on top of your voice, “ukuona ngati ndingakulole iweyo, uli ndi chani iweyo? Siine saizi yako,” (Do you think I can go out with you, what do you have? You are not my type).

Not only will such behaviour mar your CV and scare off other potential suitors, it will also make you lose your respect as a woman. As a mature woman you should be able to say no to a man without being offensive. If a man asks you out and you are not interested simply say so and don’t attack the man’s weaknesses or tell him that he is bad looking or poor.

I know that there are some men who don’t want to take no for an answer but in most cases if you say your “no” in a way that means no the man is likely to back off. All I am saying is that avoid leading a man on whom you are not interested in. I think it is really mean to give someone the green light and then turn him down. If you are not interested in someone then it is only proper that you be honest with that person right from the beginning.

And sometimes you can indeed say no in a way that means no but the man still persists. In such cases then I would advise that you avoid all contact with this person. If you meet him on the street just ignore him and ignore all his calls or texts.

If some stranger stops you on the street and starts to hit on you then I would also advise that you not be abusive in your response but simply walk away. Walk away without turning back to look at the person and go about doing your business.

As far as woman/man goes every woman should expect that there shall come a time when some man will approach her because he fancies her. And when that time comes it is important that every woman should be able to deal with it in a mature way.

Don’t go around screaming like a primary school girl if you don’t want a man, have the power to tell him that you are not interested and mean it.

Causes of conflict in marriage

2010-11-21T23:36:00.000-08:00

I have on many occasions written on relationships on this page. Just a few weeks back I wrote on the characteristics of both a good husband and a good wife. You might indeed be a good man or a good woman but there still comes a time when you come face to face with conflict in a relationship. As those who study conflict will say, conflict is unavoidable in relationships. I will below discuss some of the common causes of conflict in marriage:

Money: Whether you have it or you don’t money remains one of the biggest causes of conflicts in marriage. Partners will disagree on how to spend it, invest it, save it, waste it or do anything about it.

Cultural upbringing: The thing about marriage is that you usually don’t marry someone whom you have grown up with in the same household. You pick someone coming from a different background and this can be a source of conflict in marriage. You can be the daughter of an ex-diplomat who has never had a single mphini in her life and ends up marrying a man who tells you that his monthly programme always includes a visit to the witchdoctor. Or you could have grown up in a house where both the boys and the girls did the house chores but you marry a man who believes that the kitchen is a woman’s place.

In-laws: In-laws can break or build a marriage. Some in-laws can just be outright mean and be out to frustrate you. Or some in-laws will just take a natural dislike to you or you to them. Whatever the issues are, if one of the partners feels that the in-laws don’t give him/her enough space, are too critical or intrusive, there is bound to be conflict in the marriage. The situation is made even worse when one of the partners is forced to take sides between his/her partner and his/her family.

Sex: whether it’s the quantity or quality, matters to do with sex can be a source of conflict in marriage. And the bad thing about sex is that most times partners are really not honest with each other when it comes to matters sexual for fear of hurting the other person, embarrassing them or indeed embarrassing themselves. And so the unsatisfied partner ends up bottling things inside which can manifest themselves through angry outbursts or unresponsiveness.

Children: Whether you have them or you don’t children can cause marital conflict - a man who is looking forward to being a father but finds out that his wife can’t conceive or a man who insists that his wife gets pregnant every year because he wants a son to carry on his name. You might have the right number of girls and boys in the house but a couple can still disagree on how to raise the kids and what values to instil in them.

Step-children: Marriages have fallen apart because of failure to handle step-children. A father might feel that he has to side with his children no matter how disrespectful they are to their step-mom or a woman might feel that her partner is not providing anything to his step-children.

Time: The amount of time you spend together as a couple can be a cause of conflict in a relationship. One partner might feel as if you don’t spend enough time with them or they might feel as if you don’t give them enough space. It is important that couples spend the right amount of time together to maintain intimacy but at the same time one partner shouldn’t feel imprisoned because of a relationship.

As I said at the beginning of this article, conflict is unavoidable in relationships but it is important that partners address whatever conflict they face together and in a constructive way. Remember it has been argued in conflict and relationship books that conflict, if handled well can actually be very healthy for relationships.

Things like good communication, forgiveness, understanding and problem solving can help a couple resolve most conflicts in an amicable way. Don’t be obstinate and always listen to what your partner has to say when you disagree.

How to avoid being a bad neighbour

2010-11-15T00:35:00.000-08:00

I think most people want to be thought of as good neighbours regardless of the type of persons that they really are. Being a good neighbour comes with many benefits and one always appreciates their neighbourhood better if they get along with the people who live in it. On the other hand if you are at odds with your neighbour life can be an unpleasant experience and can make your day to day living very frustrating. Below are a few tips that can help you out on being a good neighbour.

Keep the dogs on a leash. First of all you don’t want your dog to bite off your neighbour’s calf muscle or to eat the neighbour’s chickens. Second of all you shouldn’t have your dog wandering about and pooping on people’s yards. I don’t know how this science works but I am sure you have seen people put out empty Sobo bottles all over their yard with the hope that these bottles will keep out dogs. Please save your neighbour the “Sobo-bottle science” and keep your dogs on a leash.

Return things you borrow from your neighbour. Once in a while someone rushes off to the neighbour’s to borrow one thing or another. It can be an iron to press your best shirt for a really important interview or in this regime of fuel shortage it can be a chigubu (jerry can). Whatever it is that you borrow from your neighbour please remember to bring it back and most importantly bring it back in the same condition as you took it. Don’t wait until your neighbour comes to fetch their things back from you. Or don’t break a knob off your neighbour’s radio and simply stick it back with glue and hope that your neighbour won’t notice. If you break any of your neighbour’s things while they are in your custody (please try to avoid this by all means) then explain to your neighbour what happened. Out of courtesy also offer to pay back for the broken item. If your neighbour is a good neighbour they will understand that accidents do happen and they will even let you off without paying for the thing.

Try to understand the lifestyle of your neighbour. Do not expect your neighbour to be like you in all aspects. Your neighbours will have their own way of living and it is important that you respect their lifestyle. For instance you can be that type of person who just enters into neighbours’ houses without knocking. Now if your neighbour doesn’t return the favour and still knocks on your door after months of knowing each other then it means they don’t approve of you entering their house without knocking. It would be best if you knocked on this particular neighbour’s door before entering their house.

Don’t poke your nose into your neighbour’s business. Learn to draw the line between being a helpful neighbour and a nosy one. Sometimes you might indeed want to genuinely help your neighbour but always be sure that your neighbours want your help. You don’t want your neighbours feeling as if they are your charity case. And as I said keep your nose in your own face and not in the neighbour’s. Avoid going to the neighbour’s house when you are pretty aware that the owners are not around. Don’t befriend your neighbour’s house help or relatives with the intention of digging up some dirt on your neighbour.

Keep the noise down. If you are a good neighbour you’ll be considerate of the other people living around you and you’ll try to keep whatever you do down. If you are driving into a residential area you’ll keep the music in your car down – you don’t want to blast into a group of mourners with your Snoop Dogg. If you and your partner have made it a daily ritual to fight every morning on top of your voices and chase each other down the streets maybe you should reconsider and try to keep your arguments down or reduce them to once a year. If you are having a party at least have the decency to inform and invite your neighbours – you don’t want to deprive your neighbour of sleep with the noise from your party, at least let them join you.

Have some vehicle etiquette. While you are enjoying yourself in the comfort of your own car it is also important to remember not to bring discomfort to others. Don’t speed in residential areas, you don’t want to run into your neighbour’s kid or to splash rain water all over your neighbour’s white nurse uniform. Don’t come home drunk in the middle of the night and honk endlessly as you wait for your wife to come and open up for you. Don’t flash your headlights into your neighbour’s windows more especially if you and your neighbour share a semi-detached house. And talking of semi-detached homes always park your car in a considerate manner so that your neighbour also has space to move their own car with ease.

Be approachable. As someone living in a community it is important that you be an approachable person whom your neighbours can count on in time of need. You don’t have to be best friends with your neighbour but it wouldn’t hurt to say hello to your neighbour now and then. Don’t close yourself off with a really long fence complete with an armed guard at the gate because no one will feel free to approach you like this.

And most of all always remember the golden rule; do onto your neighbour as you would want them to do onto you.

When you have a good man …

2010-11-08T00:22:00.000-08:00

When you have a good man he will never hit you no matter what you have or have not done. A good man will never resort to violence to prove to you to that he is a real man. After all, if he is really a real man he will pick on someone who is his equal in strength.

When you have a good man he will not compare you to his mother. He shan’t always remind you that your baking or ironing is not as good as his mother’s. A good man knows that you are your own person and there is no way you can be like his mom. If he wanted a wife like his mother maybe he should have tried marrying her before his dad beat him to it. And this also goes for comparing her with ex-girlfriends, ex-wives and other people’s wives.

When you have a good man he will treat you as an equal. I am not saying that men should become masters at scrubbing pots to prove to their partners that they consider them as equals. Treating your partner as an equal is really about treating the other person with respect. A good man will never belittle his wife because she doesn’t have a college degree or an office job. A good man will always consult his partner regarding major decisions in their life. A good man doesn’t pick the car keys and start off without saying goodbye to his wife. A good man will realise that a woman is also a human being and she does not have to work like a slave. Please don’t come home at midnight and expect her to wake up and put on a pot of nsima for you, you’ll have to do with the cold nsima that has been kept for you.

When you have a good man he will be faithful and he will keep you satisfied in bed. Let me stress the point, osangopalasapalasa ngati nkhuku (don’t just scrape over her like a chicken would a pile of garbage) – take your time to satisfy her. Don’t use her to release your one minute sexual urges and then fall asleep.

When you have a good man he shall take it upon himself to provide for you and the family. Yes these are the days of financially independent women but it does not mean women want financially insecure men. I am not saying that men need to be rich to keep a woman but they must at least show the effort that they want to provide for their families. A good man will also save for his family’s future and ensure that his family will at least have some form of security in case of his death or some other misfortune.

When you have a good man you’ll feel protected and secure. He might not have Arnold Schwarzenegger’s muscles or Wilson Schoolboy Shasha Masamba’s punches but he’ll make you feel safe nonetheless. Whatever dangers or hardships lie in your way you’ll always know that you can count on your man.

When you have a good man he will understand you. He will understand that you are pregnant and you just need a little pampering or that your hormonal balance has gone haywire. He will understand that you’ve had a rough day at work and you just want him to listen to your miseries. He will understand that you can’t look your best all the time or that age is simply catching up with you.

When you have a good man he will not make you lose yourself and embody him. Some men ask you to lose your faith, lose your job, lose your friends, lose your name, lose the way you dress and lose everything else that defines who you are. A good man will leave you to make your own choices regarding your identity.

When you have a good man he will not be unnecessarily jealousy. He will not think that every man you talk to is your secret lover. He shall trust you.

When you have a good man you’d better hold on to him because as they say, all the good ones are taken.

When you have a good woman …

2010-11-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

When you have a good woman she shall treat you with the respect that you deserve. She will not wash your dirty laundry in public and she will respect your opinions and feelings.

When you have a good woman you can trust her and tell her anything. If you tell her things in confidence you’ll be sure that she will never repeat the same to her friends. I know that sometimes it can be difficult to resist the urge to tell your best friend that last night your husband confided in you that the president has appointed him Director of such and such an organisation. Whatever you do ladies just remember that if your man stresses to you that don’t tell this to any of your friends he means keep it to yourself.

When you have a good woman she will keep you focused on the future and encourage you to save. If she on the other hand encourages you to go on spending sprees and is out to impress other people that she can shop the whole world then it’s most likely that you chose wrong.

When you have a good woman she will make the effort to keep you satisfied sexually. Remember that not all men are the same and what worked with your college boy friend might not necessarily work with the other guy. All I am saying is find out what your partner wants and try to provide that. But of course whatever you do should be within your own comfort zone. If you feel that your partner’s sexual demands are a bit too much for you then it would be best to talk to him nicely about it and reach some sort of compromise. So if he wants some fried chicken but fried chicken makes you nauseous you can try serving some grilled chicken instead.

When you have a good woman she will make the effort to look good for you. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t look like J.Lo or M’bilia Bel, the fact that she makes the attempt to look good for you is what counts.

When you have a good woman she will support you when times are tough. She will stand by your side, she will not judge you and her love for you will not waver because of hardships.

When you have a good woman she will not try to turn you against your family and your friends. She shall draw your attention to the positive sides of your family and friends and not to their negative sides. For instance if your wife keeps on giving you examples to prove that your mother is a bad person you might end up believing that your mom is indeed a wicked person. Of course it also lies with a good woman to realise when a family member or friend has ill-intentions towards her man. In such a situation you shall make your partner see the facts as they really are.

When you have a good woman she will try to keep you under control. She will know the things that you tend to do in the extreme and she will cool you down when you are about to lose it. She’ll know exactly what to say to you when you are in such moods and she will make you feel better.

When you have a good woman she won’t pressurise you to do something bad or to commit a crime because of her own selfish needs. If she wants a crime committed she’ll at least have the sense to leave you out of it and not drag you into her business.

When you have a good woman she’ll be proud of you and she’ll gladly point you out to her friends. She won’t feel ashamed that your face is covered in pimples like a teen who is going through puberty. She’ll love you for who you are and will see the best in you.

When you have a good woman you won’t need anyone to tell you that you have a good woman because you’ll always know it. You might not appreciate her but deep down in your heart you always know that you have a good woman.

When friends are gold-diggers

2010-10-24T23:32:00.000-07:00

Gold-digger: A woman (and nowadays the definition also includes a man) whose primary interest in a romantic partner is their money or material belongings.

Unfortunately gold-diggers are not only limited to romantic relationships, there are some friends who will dig more gold out of you than would a teenage girl married to a filthy rich old man.

Be wary of these gold-diggers who come in the guise of friends. They will be all smiles and make you feel as if you are their best friend in the whole wide world. But it won’t be long before their true colours come out and if you are smart quick enough you’ll be able to see through them. You see a person who is after you because of what you have doesn’t really care about you and one way or another there shall come a time when they can’t keep up the act any longer.

It will start with little things like borrowing your DVDs or containers and not bringing them back. They will come and borrow such things as tomatoes, sugar and salt but hardly return the favour when you run out of such kitchen essentials. From the DVDs and kitchen items they will then move to borrowing sums of money which never get paid back.

And because these people never really cared for you in the first place they won’t respect your feelings or your privacy. They will repeat all your secrets to the next person who cares to listen and they will bad mouth you when they are with other people.

And you can tell a gold-digging friend from the way they keep on dominating a conversation when you are together. They will mostly talk about themselves and not give you space to talk about yourself. If your friend keeps on acting as if what you have to say is not important then perhaps its time to re-evaluate your relationship. Maybe it might be that your friend just likes to talk but chances are your friend doesn’t really care for the person who you really are.

They will be quick to come and celebrate with you but will always find an excuse when you need support because times are tough.

Friends who are after your material things will also never be honest with you. They will lie to you about themselves and they will lie to you about you. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said “true friends stab you in the front?” Yes, if a person is really your friend they will be upfront with you and tell you the truth no matter how it hurts. They will never go behind your back and say things about you.

Gold digging friends can also get pretty possessive because they don’t want others to benefit from what they are benefiting. Have you ever wondered why some friends get angry when ever they see you try to make friends with other people? Have you also wondered why such friends will always talk ill of new people you try to make friends with? It’s because these gold digging friends are afraid that they won’t get as much material things from you if you have so many friends.

Take a look at your friend: is your relationship one-sided, do they act artificial when you visit them? How about that drinking mate – are you the one who is always buying drinks, have you noticed how his “visa” is always conveniently inaccessible when he has money and you have nothing in your pocket.

Open your eyes and see these gold-digging friends for who they really are. At least with gold-digging friends you can easily end the relationship unlike when you are married to one (a gold-digger).

“I’ll help if you give me some attention”

2010-10-10T23:05:00.000-07:00

Have you been around people whose actions scream – “I’ll help only if you make me the centre of attention?”

Let me elaborate. S/he is seemingly very helpful, quick to offer a hand to someone in need but when nobody is watching s/he would kick a starving child in the stomach for all they cared.

Yes, I am talking about people who use offers for help to gain attention for themselves. Now, there is nothing wrong with getting some attention for some good you did for somebody. However, the problem comes in when you become obsessed with attention seeking and make it the primary goal of your living. When you actually start going out looking for people to help in exchange for some recognition just know that you have officially become an attention seeker.

Attention seekers usually portray themselves as wonderful, generous, helpful, kind, caring and compassionate but this is far from the real person within them. For example, the only reason they will dish out that fat cash condolence at a funeral is because they want their presence to be felt when whoever reads out a list of people who gave in cash condolences. No wonder politicians take advantage of funerals to give in cash so that they can have their names read out in public. Maybe it’s high time we put a stop to this idea of reading out cash contributions at funerals.
The thing about attention seekers is that they also seem to have an endless energy when engaged in activities that involve a group of people. For example there are some people who are known as azintchito (active) when it comes to such events like funerals and weddings. They will singlehandedly go out of their way to make sure that all the cooking is done, the floors are swept and the dishes are cleaned at some community event. I am not saying there is anything wrong with helping out at community events but just make sure you are not doing it to seek attention. If you are wazinchito at community events but your own home is full of dirty dishes, cobwebs and all sorts of dirt then you are probably an attention seeker. All I am saying is that if you are wazinchito, it will first show in your own home and not out of it.

Another characteristic of attention seekers is that they always make it a point to announce to everybody that they once helped you. Don’t make the mistake of asking your attention-seeking neighbour for some salt unless you want everybody else in the neighbourhood to know that you have been begging for salt. If they help you with cash they will go all around town boasting that the only reason X is surviving in town is because they loaned X some money.

Perhaps the behaviour of attention seekers can be best understood when looked at in relation to the behaviour of some (not all but a considerable number) of our politicians. Have you seen how some politicians always make sure that a camera is following them when they do something good. The only reason they will reach out and touch the starving people in their area is because they want the whole thing to be broadcast on MBC’s Reach Out and Touch. For the attention seeker it’s never about the other person, its all about them.

The moral of this article – if you are going to help somebody just go ahead and do it without making a fuss about it.

Some annoying bus passengers

2010-10-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

I don’t like to get on buses, whether it’s just a minibus around town or the big buses that travel long distances. Not that I have a thing against buses – mini, maxi or whatever – but honestly speaking our public transportation is not the best of options more especially if you care about such things as comfort and convenience.

I need not mention examples such as bad driving (doing formula one chases for passengers on highways, passing red lights), the rude conductors, running out of fuel on the highway, the uncomfortable seats, the constant break-downs, the “selling” of passengers onto other buses and all other things that bus conductors and drivers do.

Unfortunately bus drivers and conductors are not the only ones responsible for nasty bus rides. Yes, passengers on buses can be as bad, if not even worse than their drivers. And today I would like to point out some of these things that passengers do on buses that I find annoying:

People who keep on screaming on top of their voice mpase mwanayo bele (put that baby on the breast) every time an infant cries on the bus. I don’t know if it’s just me but almost every time I have been on the big local buses there has been at least one person who kept hurling instructions to mothers travelling with infants. I am not sure if the instructions are meant to help the mother (by the way it’s not easy to travel with a baby) but I find such comments disrespectful towards mothers.

Now I am not saying that people shouldn’t eat in buses but sometimes I feel we Malawians overdo the eating when we are on a bus. At every stop (and the buses have many stops) you see the person you are sitting next to reaching out on the window to buy some chiwaya, mandasi, biscuits, boiled eggs etc and littering the whole area with their food. And talking of boiled eggs and other such strong-scented foods, can people avoid them altogether when they are travelling?

You see the thing with food like boiled eggs (especially when eaten in abundance) is that it makes you release bad air and so it doesn’t help matters for your fellow passengers if you keep on releasing silent ones from behind.

And then there are those passengers who insist on making conversation when it is clear that the other person doesn’t want to talk to them. Can people please learn to respect other people’s privacy in buses? If you are trying to make conversation and the other person keeps on answering with one word sentences or has his/her head buried in a book then that’s a clear sign that they don’t want to talk to you.

And now let’s talk about those passengers who try to hit on you in buses. Yes, I have heard of romances that started in a bus but trust me it’s not everyday that fate is going to put you on the same seat with your soulmate. If the other person doesn’t seem interested in you can you please drop it instead of insisting on asking them some personal questions. There is a thing called a green light, if you don’t see one emanating from the other person then drop the “what is your number, do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend” questions.

The last thing I want to do in a bus is sit next to a man who pees in a bottle. Maybe I can handle it if you are sitting at a distance (out of my sight) and surrounded by fellow men and you decide to do the bottle peeing antic. But if I am sitting next to you don’t reach in your pants and pee in a bottle. There is a reason why some of these parts are called private.

Some more “don’ts” for a bus include: no smoking, don’t get on a bus drunk – you might end vomiting on someone or emitting bad breath on everyone. And can you stop talking really loud, some people are trying to get some sleep in the bus or enjoy the scenery without being disturbed by your no-joke jokes.

And a last piece of advice, if you try to confront someone on a bus for being annoying please make sure that you are reasonable about it otherwise it can end up backfiring on you when you fail to control a really loud and drunk teenager and you don’t get the support of the other passengers. Remember that sometimes the most annoying people on the bus are the ones who are annoyed by others on the bus.

Native expatriates

2010-09-26T23:47:00.000-07:00

Please excuse the apparent oxymoron in my title, I couldn’t help it. We all probably know that there is no way an expatriate can be a native because by its definition the word expatriate broadly refers to a person in a different country from where s/he is a citizen.

But of course there must be a reason why I combined these seemingly contradictory terms to come up with the term native expatriates.

Now, a native expatriate is a person who is a citizen of a country, born and brought up in that country but wants to adopt things foreign.

If you look around in our Warm Heart of Africa I am sure that you can find your fair share of native expatriates. Here are a few pointers on some of the characteristics that native expatriates can display:

Their children are only spoken to in English and the children’s nanny is under strict instructions not to spoil the children’s English with some native tongue. The nanny is also under instructions not to let any native “toungued” children through the gate.

They do not consume any local media because they say they don’t care what happens in their own country. For them news is what is reported by foreign media such as BBC and CNN. Such people can even tell you what the Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda is doing that week but can’t even mention one country where our ever globe-trotting President Bingu wa Mutharika has trotted to.

They are always quick to use the ndiwachimizi word to anyone who is different from them. They always think that what they do is progressive and anyone who does anything to the contrary is backward.

They look at a woman with untreated hair as a character straight out of John W. Gwengwe´s Kukula ndi Mwambo. Such will be their comments, abale kukanika ndi kachitini karevlon wangolowa China m’taunimu (she can’t even afford a relaxer yet its found all over town).

They shall look at people coming from the village as lesser beings who are in need of some form of education. Usually they shall treat any visitors from the village with suspicion and the children shall be warned in whispered tones to keep their distance.

They shall also look at their domestic help as lesser beings and always feel that the cook or the maid is taking away their sugar and salt. They shall feel as if the cook owes them a big favour for redeeming him/her from the village into their home.

They think tea with bread represents prestige and tea with cassava or sweet potato is for a poor man. Such people never seem to get it in their heads that a person can choose to drink tea without milk not because they don’t have money but because they prefer black tea.

Similarly if they catch their neighbour eating nsima with beans they shan’t think that the neighbour has a penchant for beans but that s/he can’t afford meat.

They believe everything with a made in Malawi tag is of a lesser quality than everything else foreign.

I am sure that with all these examples you now have an idea of how a native expatriate behaves and we can now safely go back to the definition of the term native expatriate as outlined in paragraph three of this article.

In that paragraph I did say that a native expatriate is a citizen of a country, born and brought up in that country who wants to adopt things foreign. But after outlining all these examples I would like to extend my definition to include “but fails miserably to do so.”

Yes a native expatriate will try to adopt things foreign but will always misunderstand what it means to take another person’s culture. In trying to take the foreign culture the native expatriate shall shed all his national traditions and values and shall look at those who hold a different world view as backward.

Instilling traditions or downright abuse?

2010-09-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

Almost each and every country has its own set of moral ethics and traditions which it passes down to its generations. As those who study societal morals and traditions will argue, it is important that each nation develops a strong traditional and moral base to help shape national identity and encourage a sense of patriotism in the citizens.

While I fully agree with such scholars that tradition is vital for national development and that each country must indeed have its set of well defined traditions and morals, there is just this one thing that bothers me when it comes to the issue of traditions.

Have you seen how some people will pretend that they are passing on traditions and morals when in fact all they want is to criticise and belittle others?

Take a social affair, such as a funeral for instance, have you seen how some people are always talking down on everybody and trying to make others feel uncomfortable.

Such people, whom we shall for the sake of this article give them the name “tradition critics”, will usually pick on someone at the gathering and find fault with everything that the person does.

They shall find fault with the way the other person has tied their chitenje (wrapper) and if the other person decides to help out with the cuisine at the funeral kitchen the tradition critics shall find fault with the way the person is making the fire or holding the sufuria: manja kupepela chonchi (she can’t even hold a pot).

Even if that other person is just sitting down the critics will still pick on them for idling or for not sitting properly: ndimmene mumapachikila miyendo pamaliro chonchi (is this how you sit at a funeral).

And all these criticisms come in the name of teaching the other person traditions: sanakule bwino mwana ameneyu, alibe mwambo (she wasn’t raised properly, she has no sense of traditions).

Please get me right, I am not saying that people should grow up without a sense of tradition and I am not saying that people should not be taught proper etiquette if they are lacking in some ways.

What I am against though is how some people do this teaching of traditions. It’s as if they are always on the lookout for other people’s faults and they seem to get a sense of satisfaction from pointing out the other person’s wrongs.

And usually tradition critics will criticise you in front of everybody and on top of their voice. Really, what is the intention here – to instil some traditions in the other person or to degrade them in front of everybody?

I am sure there is a nicer way of telling the other woman that she hasn’t worn her wrapper properly. You can call her aside and using a nice tone with a smile on your face explain to her the way a wrapper is worn.

But the minute you use a judgemental tone and criticise someone in public just know that you have crossed the line. Yes you might feel good about yourself for embarrassing the other person but really what good does that do. You should remember that the other person has feelings too which need to be respected.

And for the people who’ll find themselves victims of traditional critics all I can say is that don’t take such criticism personally. If someone has some well meaning criticism you will see it from the way they will deliver it.

Don’t let such critics dominate your lives or stop you from being yourself at social gatherings and at places that require some traditional mannerisms.

Usually such people have their own insecurities which they want to deal with by picking on others.Don’t let them ruin your lives.

And remember the best traditions are those you are most comfortable practising.

To marry a drinker or not

2010-09-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

This week I got a message on my Facebook from one of my readers who wanted advice if she should marry someone who drinks or not. This was what she said:

I need to know if it’s ok to marry someone who drinks. I have seen many women having problems with boyfriends or husbands who drink. My grandmother discouraged me from marrying a guy who drinks because she was worried he was going to spend too much money on beer, come home late and maybe cheat. Some say a guy who drinks is boring because he’s usually not open unless he is drunk. Some say a guy should never be at home all the time but should go out and drink with his friends sometimes. I think drunkenness keeps us away from God because when we are drunk we can’t think of praying before we go to bed.

I didn’t want to send this woman (name withheld) an answer directly in her inbox lest she later blames me for messing up her decisions. But as the days passed I felt myself pondering on her question and failed to resist the urge to write on the topic of drinking and relationships. I am hoping that she at least won’t hold me accountable if I express my thoughts on the subject through this article.

The decision to marry a person who drinks (or any other character for that matter) lies entirely with the person about to do the marrying. If someone thinks they can handle being in a relationship with someone who drinks then that’s fine and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Unfortunately for women and fortunately for men, Malawi is a country where we don’t have many female drinkers and therefore the question of whether to marry a woman who drinks or not usually never arises for men.

And when the question does arise, it seems society already has a ready answer for men: DON’T marry a woman who drinks because she is a whore. I am sure you’ve heard comments like mkazi wake uja siwabwinobwino, anakumana naye pabala (little wonder she is not a straight person, he met her at a bar). Unfortunately the situation is not the same for women.

A lot of men in Malawi drink and chances of women finding a sober guy out there are like between 0 to 5 percent.

Of course not all men have same drinking habits but on average the majority of men who drink in Malawi drink until they get drunk. They are the few exceptional ones who will do two or three bottles but most men go beyond this.

There are some who only drink weekends but they still drink themselves foolish anyway. Others will drink almost everyday after office hours. Some will drink whenever they have money. For others it doesn’t matter whether they have money or not, they will just drink.

And the bad thing is that there is a lot of irresponsible drinking in the country which seems to be sanctioned by the society. People drink and drive and the authorities don’t do much about it unless its Christmas time when the police intensify standing in the roads with alcohol detectors. Men with families will drink themselves silly and yet they have not provided for their families. Children of any age can go to drinking places and buy all the beer they want. The bottom line is that we have created a culture where it’s okay to drink irresponsibly (note irresponsibly) and many of our men are doing it.

Women living in such a society will therefore find themselves marrying men who drink because it’s the only option they have. The women might think the drinking is part of life and that it will not have an effect on the marriage. But once you settle down in that marriage the harsh reality hits you that drinking and family do not mix.

Yes you can live with the drinking but there will always be something haunting you at the back of your mind. Its you who’s going to lie in bed at 2 in the morning wondering if he didn’t end up in a ditch somewhere because he was drinking and driving, its you who is going to lie next to beer breath till death do you apart, you who will be wondering if he’s not with another woman and you who will face the various abuses that come with alcoholism.

But as I said at the beginning of this article the decision to marry someone lies with the person getting married.

Its Okay...

2010-09-06T04:25:00.000-07:00

Do you stop yourself from doing something because you are afraid of what someone is going to say or think about you? Well, today we are going to play a little game called finishing the phrase “It’s Okay….” Think of all the things that you want to do but never get to do them because you want to fit in or because you want to look cool in front of people.

Well, today is your lucky day because you are going to tell yourself that “It’s Okay” no matter what one thinks. You are going to get rid of all the baggage of trying to impress somebody and just be yourself.

Here we go:

It’s okay to tell your friend(s) that you don’t want to go for a drink or that you’ve had enough to drink. Refusing a drink invitation doesn’t make you less of a man. To hell with them if they think you are under petticoat government just because you refused to go out for a beer. After all if they are real friends they should be able to respect your boundaries.

It’s okay for a marrying couple not to sit on a love chair. What really is behind this idea of putting the bride and groom on a platform as if they were replicas of a Greek god and goddess mounted on a pedestal for all to admire. It’s okay for the bride and groom to sit with their guests and mingle with them. It’s
okay for the bride and groom to go to the toilet. Really, how do you expect the brid
e to get down from that stage to answer the call of nature when all eyes are on her.

It’s okay to grieve your own way when you’ve lost a loved one. No one should prescribe for you how you should cry for a loved one. It’s okay if you don’t feel like shedding tears or wailing. It doesn’t mean that you loved the dead person any less. It just means that you are expressing yourself as you feel.

And while we are still on the subject of tears it’s okay for a man to cry. Again, crying will not make you less of a man. If you feel like crying just go ahead and do it and not worry about what people will think.

It’s okay to get divorced or not to be married. Don’t stay in a loveless or abusive marriage for the sake of being called Mrs Somebody. Simply follow your heart and don’t mind if the onlookers say you failed to keep a man.

It’s okay not to know something and admit that you don’t know it. Nobody knows everything and so don’t make a fool of yourself by pretending to know something when you actually don’t know it. And if you look on the bright side of it you get to learn more if you admit that you don’t know. No one is going to offer to teach you something when you’ve told them that you already know how to do it.

And again it’s okay not to have something. Nobody owns everything and so don’t worry if you don’t have a car or a beautiful wife like your neighbour’s. People have different things. If you really want something just work hard at getting it instead of going round lying to people that you own the whole of earth and you about to acquire Mars and Jupiter as well.

It’s okay to have a different opinion. You do not have to agree with the popular opinion if you feel it won’t work out for you. Do what you think is right and if it’s really right then you should be fine.

It’s okay to have your own sense of fashion. You don’t necessarily need to go with the flow all the time. And seriously it gets kind of annoying when you go to the shopping centre and you find half the girls in similar hipsters and same shoes. It really helps sometimes to keep your fashion you own. And again the bright side of it is that you don’t spend all your money on clothes because you keep on buying when something new comes in season.

It’s okay to tell people that they are not good at something as long as you are nice about it. Don’t tell them outright that they suck, tell it to them in a nice way and try to offer some constructive criticisms. For instance let’s stop lying to some of these local musicians that they can sing when we pretty well know that the minute they open their mouths the expression “music to my ears” instantly turns to “hell in my ears.”

And lastly its okay for you not to agree with whatever has been written on this page.

More wedding blues

2010-08-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote on how couples are “forcing” people to meet the cost for their weddings and I must say that the article received such overwhelming response. A lot of people sent in feedback and shared experiences they’ve had at weddings, bridal showers and zinkhonswe (traditional engagements).

This week I thought I would go a step further and talk about the different ways couples are using to reap money from people who attend their wedding. Apart from the usual pelekani pelekani, it can’t be denied that weddings are now turning into money spinning ventures.

You dress up and go to a wedding reception, expecting to have some fun and make merriment with the bride and groom but what do you get – an auction. Yes, a real auction with the Master of Ceremonies (MC) serving as an auctioneer.

There was a time when wedding MCs would only auction the wedding cake (which your guests are supposed to get free by the way) but it seems these auctions are now getting to a whole new level.
Some weeks ago I witnessed a wedding where a couple auctioned their picture. It seemed this couple had it all planned. They had their wedding pictures from earlier at the church quickly developed and framed and brought one such picture at the reception for auction. I couldn’t believe my ears when the MC turned auctioneer opened the bidding for the picture at K50,000. I was like who on earth is going to pay K50,000 for a wedding picture.

And just when I thought we’ve had enough auctioning at this wedding, the MC reached on the table and brought out his next piece. It was a wall clock (these cheap ones that are in China shops all over and cost not more than a thousand) with another picture of the couple embedded within the clock as background. Yes, you have rightly guessed the MC once again opened the bids at K50,000.

The unfortunate thing is that these mediocre acts do not only happen at weddings, but at pre-wedding functions such as bridal showers and zinkhonswe as well.

The following is a true account of what happened at one girl’s bridal shower in the Capital City. You know at bridal showers there is this time when the girl’s fiancé brings a present for his bride-to-be. And so it happened that this guy brought a bunch of nicely wrapped roses for the girl and everyone marvelled at how beautiful the roses were. It was only after the boy had left that everyone got to know the real purpose of the roses.

The MC instructed the girl to unwrap the roses and present each person whom she loved in the crowd with a rose. And so the girl went round presenting the roses and it seemed she only gave a person a rose after careful consideration. She would size a person up and take in what they were wearing before giving them a rose.

After she had given out the roses (they were about 15 in total) the MC called to the 15 “loved” ones who had received the roses and asked them to come to the front. After they had lined up at the front you can guess what the MC asked them to do – yes to drop K500 each in the basket. With all eyes on them the poor women had no choice but to oblige.

If you think this is only happening at showers then you surely haven’t been to a chinkhoswe. You know there is this latest craze of having African ornaments at zinkhonswe. Now if you go to a chinkhonswe and you notice clay pots filled with fruits, I suggest that you run. If you stay don’t be surprised if the engaging couple presents you with a pot of fruits. They will say the usual crap that the fruits are for the special ones, the people whom they love but all these people want is what is in your pockets.The minute you receive the pot of fruit a lichero will be hovering nearby and you will be asked to pay up.

Please people can you bring sanity to these ceremonies because at the rate we are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if people stop going to weddings altogether.

And as a postscript have you noticed that the more the pelekani pelekani and the begging, the less the food served to the guests. And usually they will wait until five (when most of the guests are gone) to serve the bottle of Fanta and dried piece of chicken.

You want a wedding, please pay for it

2010-08-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

Can someone please tell me why people want to have big weddings when they can’t afford it? A budget of over half a million is drawn and yet the soon to be bride and groom can only afford a quarter of the budget.

And so the begging starts - more like begging at gunpoint if you ask me because they bad mouth you when you don’t give in something. And nobody wants to be called a bad person, or stingy, or whatever adjectives these wedding fundraisers use to make you cough out your hard-earned savings.

A wedding committee is formed and if you were to analyse the composition of the committee you would see that they are some common characteristics that usually run through the members. Usually the couple will ask you to be in their committee – they even send formal request letters nowadays - because you have something they want (it can be anything from your money, your car, your cooking skills to your chicken pen).

After they have put people they can rip from in the committee, the couple then goes looking for the “don” of the committee, i.e., someone who has a reputation for getting things done (where getting things done shall mean the ability to go around and make people contribute to a wedding).

It is usually this don who stands up during committee meetings and makes absurd suggestions like that the young couple should ride in a Merc on the wedding day and yet there is no money for hiring the Merc.

If you happen to be an unfortunate relative (close or not) owning a luxury car then brace yourself for a phone call or visit from this don asking for the use of the car. And this don usually has such skill that you are forced to release the car only to have it returned with scratches from cheap sticky tape used to put up balloons on the car.

It is also this same committee don who usually goes around calling the various friends and relatives reminding you that everybody else has made their pledge and you are the only one remaining.

And as if this is not enough, the bride and groom also expect you to make more contributions on the actual wedding day through pelekani pelekani.

Wedding MCs will use all sorts of gimmicks to make sure that you contribute as much as you can through pelekani pelekani: “If you are a true friend of the bride and you are not jealousy of her you will come forward and give her something,” “all women dressed in white (yes the MC knows that white is a popular colour for weddings) please come forward and give our bride something.”

Please people about to get married don’t count on other people to finance your wedding. If you want to have a lavish wedding then make sure you can afford it. If people are to contribute to the cost of the wedding let them do that out of their own volition and not because you have gone to them with a begging bowl.

I can understand a relative or friend coming to you because they need money for an operation or to pay a child’s school fees but a wedding, please!

After all you still can have a small but nice wedding that is within your means. You don’t have to prove a point to anybody that you managed a guest list of 300, a forty member bridal party and a plushy venue for your wedding. It is such attitudes that have forced some people to use public coffers to finance weddings.

When we let maids graduate into our bedrooms

2010-08-15T23:37:00.000-07:00

In Malawi we have reached a stage where we have become so dependent on domestic help to the point that most families can’t survive without a worker. This is quite understandable considering that more and more women are joining men in taking up professional jobs and there is no one left to take care of business in the home.

But even in cases where you are a stay-at-home mom there are just times when you can’t handle all the house work by yourself looking at the large families that we have in this part of the world. And so it’s only fair that the poor mother employs someone to help her with this and that.

Still more, this does not mean that you should leave everything in the hands of the maid to the point that she takes over control of your home. As women we must understand that this is Africa and our men are brought up to look at certain issues in a certain way. Even if he is the modern type he still wants to see his woman provide some mkomya (that special home care wives provide to their husbands) now and then.

You sure can be the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the land but this should not stop you from going into the kitchen once in a while to make a special meal for your man.

Even if you have a busy work schedule you can make it a point to at least set off a day where you knock off in good time and prepare a meal at home.

We all probably know the local saying that mamuna ndi pamimba meaning that you can never fail to satisfy a man with food. You surely don’t want your maid to be scoring points with your husband all the time because she’s the one who is always taking care of meals.

Meals aside, there are just some places which are no go zones for your maid and the bedroom is one of such places. No matter how busy or lazy you are, don’t let your maid clean your bedroom. I have heard not so wonderful stories of what some men can do after chancing on the maid cleaning up the bedroom.

Another no go zone – don’t make the maid wash undergarments. Not only is this an abuse of your domestic help but really what should stop your husband from looking at the maid as a wife when she is the one taking care of his underwear.

As a wife and probably a mother you must make it a point to take an interest in the kids. I know of some women who live their children with the maid for 24 hours and don’t know what goes on with the kids. Men do notice these things. He will notice that the minute you hold the baby the baby starts crying endlessly but the baby is all smiles when s/he is with the maid.

Another thing which men notice is when the maid takes better care of his relatives than you do. When his mother comes visiting, it’s the maid who rushes to make sure that she’s fed while you are on the couch enjoying the latest season of Big Brother. Don’t deliberately create environments which will get your husband thinking that the maid would have made a better wife than you.

As a last word all I can say is that don’t let your domestic help become a solution to all your household problems because your man will definitely notice that it’s the maid who is in control and not you. Don’t get surprised when the maid graduates from the boys quarters to your bedroom.

How about a couple’s MGDS

2010-08-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

The current government has its own growth plan for the country, it’s called the MGDS or the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy in full.

Now let us take this acronym and give it a new meaning – the Marriage Growth and Development Strategy.

Just as government saw it fit to have a strategy plan to help steer the country from being a predominantly importing and consuming nation to a predominantly manufacturing and exporting economy, it is also important that couples should develop their own strategy plans to help transform a relationship from being a predominantly fighting and unsatisfying relationship to a predominantly loving and satisfying one.

You can draw a leaf from the government MGDS and come up with your own MGDS. If you look at the government MGDS you’ll find that it’s built around the concept of priorities. Government has so far picked out certain priorities (nine at the moment) which it thinks are vital for Malawi’s growth and development.

Similarly couples can work out their MGDS around the same concept of priorities and pick out those issues which they think are vital to the success of the marriage.

I have below a list of some priorities which can help you get started in developing your MGDS:

The first and most important priority in any relationship is love. Don’t ask me what love is because I can’t describe it as I would a pen. But just know that love is a feeling and I believe everybody feels it differently. If you are in love you’ll simply feel it and you’ll know it. If you don’t get that special feeling in a relationship then perhaps you are just not in love with the person you are in a relationship with.

Another important ingredient in a relationship is respect. People that are in a relationship must learn to respect each other. They must respect each others feelings, decisions, strengths, weaknesses and to cut a really long list short, couples must respect each other in every other way.

Thirdly, a relationship must wield sexual satisfaction. Sometimes people that are married take sex for granted and handle it as a routine that must be carried out. If you take this attitude towards sex in marriage don’t be surprised when the marriage starts falling apart.

Children are also a priority in marriage. I know that there are so many dissenting views on the issue of children with some people arguing that children are not important in marriage. Yes, in some countries couples can live happily with a pet for a child but not in my home country. Children help to build a relationship and keep a couple together. Many a times couples have been prevented from breaking up because of children.

It’s also important that you have some form of comfort in marriage. You don’t have to be rich to comfortable but you must try to make your environment homely and comfortable so that each one of you looks forward to coming home.

If you are in a relationship please don’t lie to your partner. Try at all times to be honest with your partner because every little lie will make your partner lose trust in you when you are found out. And please remember that you can’t really have a relationship if there’s no trust.

A person who is in relationship must also be reliable. Your partner should be able to rely on you to be there for them. Not that every time she asks you to bring back some groceries you say you have forgotten. There is no way a relationship can grow like this.

Anyways these priorities are simply meant to help you out in case you want to come up with a MGDS. And please don’t write out some eighty page document saying that’s your MGDS.

You really don’t have to write anything down. You can keep your MGDS in your head and show it out through your actions.

The hypocrite within us

2010-07-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

I have heard many people commenting that Malawians are such a hypocritical bunch. While this observation might be true I don’t think that Malawians are more hypocritical than, say Americans, Indians or whatever other nationals are in this world.

I think hypocrisy is everywhere regardless of race, colour, religion, tribe, political affiliation, etc, and almost each and every person has practised it at some point in their life.

While it is generally agreed that hypocrisy is a vice, it can’t really be avoided and it will always be there especially in a society that is based on moral norms. People will always practice double standards because they want to have the best of both worlds.

In other words people will pretend to hold beliefs, opinions, virtues and principles that are morally acceptable in the public eye because they want to fit in. But once these people are out of the public eye they will put on their true colours and succumb to their real desires.

And so you will find a priest who has vowed himself to celibacy caught in the most compromising of situations. You are left wondering how a man who is supposed to be celibate could have fathered more children than Jacob Zuma.

Unfortunately when it comes to religion it’s not only the church elders who are hypocrites. Most of the sheep that flock to church Sundays are more hypocritical than hypocrisy itself. I am sure you have heard of the English proverb, “They are not all saints who use holy water” and we even have a local equivalent of this proverb, afiti opemphera. Whoever came up with this proverb was spot on. I am sure I need not give examples to show how church frequenters are breaking the Lord’s commandments all the time.

And the good thing about being a mfiti opemphera is that the Church usually protects its hypocrites. If you are a church faithful who has been exposed doing some ungodly acts you can bet on it that the church will in most cases rally behind its faithful and condemn the person who exposed the faithful for who s/he really is.

Of course hypocrisy isn’t there in matters religious alone. I am sure you have heard someone out there saying I can never do things Yos do. Yos are dismissed as being out of this world and being full of themselves. But the minute this “yo hater” starts getting money you find them doing stuff they dismissed as yoish. Chains will suddenly find themselves attached to the waist of their trousers, Bluetooth mobile phone headsets will be attached to their ears, allover sudden their car will have a personalized number plate and 2Pac will be blasting from the speakers. You are left mouth wide open wondering what happened to this person who used to vow that yo culture was a no go zone for them.

And then there is the latest Malawian craze – the circulating of other couple’s intimate moments to the whole world. Before you hit the forward button on your phone or email just reflect for a minute on the kind of stuff that you have in your own phone or computer. If people were to go through your phone or computer wouldn’t they find worse things than what you are about to circulate. Remember the saying about everyone being a thief but you only get to be labeled as such when you are caught stealing.

And then there are funerals. I think some of the worst hypocrisy in this country exists at funerals. I remember this one time I accompanied one of my friends to her uncle’s funeral. As we drove to the late uncle’s house this friend of mine told me all sorts of bad stories about the uncle, she even told me she was not sorry he died and he deserved it. After gossiping about the departed man all the way I was surprised how my friend transformed herself when we arrived at the house of the bereaved. She fixed her headgear and chitenje and put on a show that would have had Izeki ndi Jakobo drooling with envy. I couldn’t believe that the woman who had just said she wasn’t sorry her uncle had died could cry like this. I could only shake my head in wonder as I watched her console her uncle’s widow with rivers of tears in her eyes.

A tired woman makes an irritable wife

2010-07-25T22:32:00.000-07:00

Do you feel as if your wife is moody and always screams when she’s not supposed to?

Does she always put you off when its time to fulfill conjugal obligations? Perhaps she doesn’t even make the effort to look good anymore.

You know what? Maybe your wife is just one tired woman. Yes, fatigue has worn her out so much that she doesn’t even care anymore. The only thing that she can manage is to scream at you and put on her moods now and then.

Most women in Malawi work hard but often times we take the roles of women for granted. And here I am talking about the traditional role of a woman as a homemaker. Don’t we usually find ourselves making a comment like “ndi ntchito yake,” (it’s her job) when referring to women and house work.

So the poor woman has to juggle the kids, the cleaning, the cooking, the washing and taking care of the husband’s needs.

After spending a sleepless night taking care of the baby the woman is also the first person to get up to put the bath water for daddy. After that she has to make sure that the kids are ready for school, the house is cleaned, food is cooked, the washing is done and the endless list of household chores.

When the husband comes back from the work he expects to find a cup of tea waiting on the table. If there is no tea he shouts at the poor woman for not doing anything all day.

My advice to men is don’t overwork your wives. Appreciate the work she does for you in the house and make sure that your wife gets enough rest.

Trust me, you don’t want to end up with a tired wife. A tired woman is moody and not fun to be around.

Fatigue also affects the sexual performance of a woman. If she’s tired all the time don’t expect to get some. She is most likely to respond to your sexual advances with some rude remark.

And if you are lucky to get some I doubt that the woman’s performance would be top notch. She’ll just agree to the sex because it’s a job she has to fulfill and get done with. An overworked woman will look at sex as one of her chores and won’t offer the full intimacy that the act deserves.

And so my plea to men again is please think about women. It wouldn’t hurt for you to put on the bath water after your wife has been up all night with the baby.

Surely do you have to call your wife all the way from the kitchen (where she’s busy cooking for you) to come and take off your socks.

And to women my advice is you are not superwomen. You are just human and you can only work to a certain limit. It’s important to note when your body cannot take anymore.

Don’t refuse help. Sometimes women themselves are to blame for the treatment they get. As a mother you have no business babysitting your grown up sons, let them do some work around the house.

And as a mother the onus is on you to raise your sons so that they grow up into good men in the future, men who appreciate it when a woman is doing some good work for them.

Feedback: Where is "Things Women Do"

2010-07-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

I have been running this column for close to five months now and I have never shared with you the feedback I get from my readers. Today I thought that I would give myself a breather and let my readers do the writing for me.

But before I start telling you what my readers think of some of my pieces I thought that I should make one or two general comments I have noticed about the feedback I get.

The first thing that I have noticed is that most of my male readers (not all but most of them) don’t like the word “feminism” or to read about gender equality or women’s rights. One man who said is a fan of this column actually told me that the only reason he reads this column is because mulibe gender yambili (there isn’t too much talk about feminism). Several other male readers have made similar comments and one man actually warned me when I was just starting out “don’t use your position as women's issue campaigner - leave that platform to the Whites et al.”

And the second thing that I noticed is there is really a pattern to the feedback I get. When an article attacks men I get a lot of comments from women and vice versa. I guess its just human nature that people will rally behind their own sex.

Anyways, let me now share with you some of the comments I have received from my readers. And just to mention that this column is on Facebook, www.facebook.com/deborahs.column, and there are some amazing conversations going on the page. You are free to check out the column on Facebook and see for yourself what my readers are thinking.

I get a lot of feed back and I can’t write all the comments I get at one go. I thought therefore that today I could share with you some feedback on one of the most popular articles that appeared on this page, Things Men Do. You probably remember that 600 worded article about the little excuses which men make. Well, I got a lot of feedback from my readers on this one with many men asking me that I should do a female version of things women do.

This is what one reader who is based in Blantyre had to say about Things Men Do:

Iwe Deborah, see our world our way. Sha! Kumangolalata eti?
I could write you on the flipside; "Things Women Do!"
1. Inflate groceries bill
2. Borrow beyond their means
3. Fail to plan
4. Manising
5. Screw the garden boy
6. Pinch pennies, send home (in fact build a mansion that surprises you)
8. The first born in the family is always not his. Top secret
Women have dark, darker, darkest secrets. Things men do, pali chani apa!

While the Blantyre reader really gave me a piece of his mind, this reader from Kasungu was quite gentle with his comments: “l am a great fan and reader of your column. l write to give honest feedback on that article (Things Men Do). I think everything that you wrote about men is very true and l don't know what research you took. Please keep it up. However, l would very much love for you to also come up with an article on "Things women do”. Please l would also want to read the other side of the coin. There other things that ladies do that die with out being aired out to the society. Your article l guess helped a lot of men out there that behave just the way you outlined.

And this is what one male in-law of mine had to say about that article: “Thanks for shaming us in such a positive way. I hope my reasonable friends out there will resonate with your very familiar sentiments...
I know of a number of friends whose wives actually join them to watch games in clubs and pubs kuti mwina honey will appreciate a wife's effort to develop an interest in his teams, friends, sojourns, etc!... I know friends whose wives suggested joint bank accounts kuti mwina but alas!... I know friends who have sworn they can't go for VCT... And I know some who have affairs despite having some of the most sexually appetising wives ... Bwino bwinotu guys... Mumafuna chani kweni kweni!”

I would love to share more feedback but I have reached my word limit. More feedback next time.

No to chequebook romance

2010-07-06T05:29:00.000-07:00

The musician from Balaka made it pretty clear in his hit song Jakuzi that it’s not about the Jacuzzi, the cell phone or the money – it’s about your heart and spending time with her.

All Lucius was trying to say in his song is that it doesn’t require material things for you to impress your woman – a thing most men can’t seem to get in their heads.

Of course the chocolates, the flowers and the romantic dinners are nice but the more often you do these things the more they begin to look so cliché.

And again we all know that these are days of a global recession and even here in Malawi (which our government economists say is one of the fastest growing economies) money is not easy to come by. You can’t therefore afford to do the dinners and the Cadburys everyday.

So stop fussing about taking her for a meal when you know that you can’t afford it and do the following instead:

· When you wake up in the morning tell her that you love her and that she looks beautiful even if she has that annoying panty hose on her head.

· Please notice her when she’s been to the salon and compliment her on her new hairdo. She probably made the effort for you and it would really mean a lot to her if you notice it. Same thing goes for a new dress or a new pair of shoes. If you don’t like the new hairdo/dress/shoes please reserve your comments for the next day and again be nice about it. Try a line like “I think this new hairstyle is nice but I still liked the previous one better. I think you looked cute in short hair …” You will see that she will go back to the old hairdo in no time.

· If she asks you to bring back a tub of butter or a loaf of bread after work don’t make the mistake of forgetting. Forget to do what your wife tells you at your own peril. And here is a tip, if she asks for a tin of milk bring back her favourite brand and mention it that you know that NIDO is her favourite milk and that’s why you brought back a tin of NIDO. A woman will love you for life if she knows you even know her preferred type of margarine for baking.

· Offer to help her with some household chores. It doesn’t matter if she is the old-fashioned type and prefers to do the housework herself. Even if she refuses your help it will still mean a lot to her that you asked.

· Take an interest in the kids. Play with them, help them with their homework or whatever you can think of. In short, spend some time with the kids because women love this. You will come across as a very sensitive guy and women love sensitive men.

· Skip your football match and instead give her the remote control and watch her favourite show with her or one of those Nigerian movies.

In short women love and appreciate it if you spend time with them. It’s not the big things that matter but the little things. The fact that you remembered that you have to take her to the salon without her having to call you first, you remembered to pay the water bill or to get a new notebook for your son’s first day of school will mean much more to her than buying her the latest cell phone.

If you listen to her and are sensitive to her needs you will never go wrong. Women might like your pay cheque at first but they will soon get tired of it if they know that all you can offer is the cheque book.

Show her that you can still be romantic even if you can’t afford to write a cheque.

Donor Funded Relationships

2010-07-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

Nowadays more and more women are getting a good education and subsequently getting good jobs.

But in as much as we are trying to fill the gender gaps in the employment sector (albeit at a snail’s pace), things seem to remain the same in personal relationships between men and women.

And here I am particularly talking about a relationship between a man and a woman where both of them have jobs.

I don’t know if it’s just me but I do get the feeling that sometimes ladies overdo it when they are dating someone.

Now both of you are working and getting a salary, maybe the lady even earns more than the man, but when it comes to meeting the financial needs of the relationship the lady leaves everything in the hands of the man.

If you go out for a meal he is the only one who settles the bill. Not even once do you offer to pay.

If you go for a night out he is the only one who buys the drinks. And if you want to be really mean you bring along a string of girlfriends whom you expect your boyfriend to treat on his tab. And when these girlfriends of yours notice that there is a man in the house, they don’t go for the cheap beers like kuche-kuche but settle for the expensive drinks that come in fancy bottles.

Then there is the issue of phone credit. You expect him to load your phone with airtime all the time but not even once have you ever surprised him with a “me to you“. You know what, ladies can be really mean. After you have bought her lunch and loaded her phone with a $10 card she will still “flash” you when she wants to talk to you.

Now I am not against you treating yourself to your man’s money but isn’t it only fair that if you can afford it you too should treat him to some of your money.

Would it really hurt to take your man to dinner once in a while or to buy him something nice?

I am sorry to say that sometimes we ladies act like a third world country that has all the resources at its disposable but keeps on going back to donors for aid.

And the donor in this case is fully aware that the developing country is capable of taking care of itself but the donor still pumps more aid in the developing country to create a dependency syndrome and to satisfy their own ego as a superpower.

Drawing from this analogy of a donor and a “donated” country, one can also conclude that men are aware that a lady is quite capable of buying her own phone credit, but they will keep on sending her airtime to create that dependency syndrome and to satisfy male egos as an all-time provider.

Of course for the lady it feels good to get a free lunch but what the woman doesn’t realize is that by depending on the man all the time she is limiting her own chances of being an independent woman.

A woman that depends on a man all the time can never achieve full independence. Similarly a country that is dependent on donors can never be independent. I think I don’t need to belabour the point because we all know what happened to Malawi recently with the Aunt Tiwo and Steve Monjeza issue.

You might have that good job or that degree but if you still wait for a man to take care of you then you can never really be empowered.

Women should understand that if they want to be empowered they have to start changing their attitudes toward life. And maybe this attitude change can start with you taking your man to dinner tomorrow night and paying for it.

After all you are equal so what should stop you from taking your man and his buddies for a night out and spoiling them with whatever they fancy to drink.

When Mothers-in-law Become Worst Nightmares

2010-07-01T02:25:00.000-07:00

The relationship between mothers-in-law and their daughters-in-law has always been a thorny issue ever since man and woman decided that they shall live together as husband and wife.

If you have a darling of a mother-in-law and have a great relationship with her then congratulations but most women complain about how their mothers-in-law are always causing them hell.

In Malawi the souring of a mother/daughter-in-law relationship is further worsened by cultural upbringings which dictate how a “proper” woman should live her life. If a girl doesn’t conform or behave in this “proper” manner she is likely to face the wrath of her mother-in-law.

Culture aside, it can’t be denied that there are some mothers-in-law who are just set to wreck your life right from the beginning. She feels you have stolen her son from her and every chance she gets she reminds you that she was the one who carried her son in the womb for nine months and gave birth to him.

A mother-in-law will usually feel that you have taken her son away from her if he was her source of income. Now that you have come in the picture she fears that her son won’t provide as much for her and you will be the number one priority in his life.

It’s very easy to tell if your mother-in-law feels as if you’ve taken away her source of livelihood. If she’s got a really sharp tongue she’ll tell you in your face that ukudya ndalama za mwana wanga (you are eating my son’s money) or she’ll make some sly remark like ndalama za mwana wanga mukutumbwa nazo (you are having fun with my son’s money).

Apart from the money issue, there are some mothers-in-law who just want to run your home for you. Nothing you do is good enough for her or for her son.

If such type of a mother-in-law lives close by she can be a real nuisance. She’ll come to your house and she won’t like the way you are dressed, she won’t like how you’ve arranged the furniture and she won’t like the way you cook.

She’ll come to your house and give instructions to your maid, she’ll rearrange the furniture and even bring little meals which she believes are worth her son.

And then there is a mother-in-law who is always criticizing your parenting skills. Nothing you do is good enough for her grandchildren. From the day your baby is born she’ll criticize you for not holding the baby right, for not feeding the baby right and she will just try to make you feel as if you are failing in your motherly role.

She might even have the audacity to embarrass you by making some nasty remark about you in public “ati chizungu, kamwana kangoonda. Akungokadyesa purity mmalo mokapasa mgaiwa wa nsinjiro.”

And let’s not forget the mothers-in-law who want to turn their daughters-in-law into maids. Now that her son has married you she expects you to do everything for her. She expects you to go to her house and do the cooking, the cleaning, the washing and the gardening. If you don’t do any of these things for her she will brand you as a lazy person and make your life miserable.

It’s unfortunate that some mothers-in-law tend to behave this way towards the girl their son has married. If left unchecked, mother-in-law problems have led to situations where even marriages have broken up especially if the husband fails to deal with the two women in his life.

To the young woman who has a nightmare for a mother-in-law I can only advise that you be firm with her but don’t disrespect her. If she unleashes her sharp tongue on you don’t react by unleashing your own sharp tongue or by gossiping about her with your own mother because this won’t help matters.

Show her that you still respect her but this does not give her the right to run your life. You can do this by talking to her nicely or making her understand why you choose to do things in a certain way.

And mothers should learn to let go of their children. Yes you carried that boy for nine months and gave birth to him but there comes a time when he becomes a grown man and you have to let go. He finds someone else to love and you have to learn to respect his wife.

Stop competing with your daughter-in-law for your son’s attention. Don’t you have a husband that you need to take care of yourself?

Stop meddling in your son’s marriage. Be there for your daughter-in-law but not in her way.

One for Every Occassion

2010-07-01T02:23:00.001-07:00

It’s almost unheard of for a married woman to be seen in public with a man other than her husband. If she’s going to cheat on her husband she’ll at least have the decency to be discreet about it.

But when it comes to men it seems our society gives them the freedom to enjoy multiple partners. You husband can be at a nightclub all night with another woman and chances are you won’t even hear about it. But if someone sees you having as much as an innocent dinner with a male colleague be assured that your husband will hear about it before you even taste the dessert at your dinner.

Since it seems our society accepts immorality in men, some men have taken advantage of the situation to have a woman for every occasion.

If he’s going out to have some nightclub fun, say at a place like Chez Ntemba he will take his night girl.

If the following day there is a function at his work place he will bring a whole different person. His workmates know that the woman he has brought is not his wife but no one will tell you about it. They will just whisper among themselves at the party that so and so has brought a mistress and it ends there.

If there’s a big formal function, say a state banquet, you will see this same man holding hands with another woman whom he finds suitable to take to such functions. He won’t even have any scruples that he is being beamed on national television.

And when does this man remember his real wife – on the Sunday that he feels he needs some divine intervention in his life he will go digging for his wife so that she can accompany him to Church.

When there is a funeral at the village or when its time to harvest the maize at your garden in the village that is the time you remember your wife.

When he is so sick and needs someone to look after him at the hospital that is when he remembers that he has a Mrs and calls upon her to be by the bedside and carry bedpans.

Really, is this what your wife is good for – taking to funerals and hospitals but when its time to have fun you take wakugulu.

I think there is nothing more disrespectful than for a man to take another woman to a public event when he has wife at home.

I know such men usually argue that they don’t take their wives because she is not worth to be seen in public with (siwakugulu). To this I always say why did you marry her in the first place if you think she’s not of your class?

Did you deliberately marry a woman whom you knew would be powerless so that you can take advantage of her and abuse her with infidelity?

Again, you might say that you were of similar status when you first married and you have now upgraded while the wife has lagged behind.

Yes I know that some women can be quite conservative and refuse to upgrade. You can ask them to accompany you to a state ball and they will refuse and say pitani bambo. However this should not be used as an excuse for a man to cheat on his wife.

If you really love your wife and you feel she’s not living up to your standards you will be honest with her and tell her how you feel. If she’s got ears and she really cares for you she’ll listen to your needs and the two of you can discuss ways to meet each other half-way.

Whatever you do, please men don’t slap it in her face by appearing on national television holding hands with another woman at the presidential ball.

Judgements we Pass on Others

2010-07-01T02:21:00.000-07:00

Its funny how as human beings we are always quick to judge others even when we really don’t know the people we are passing judgements on.

If you are middle-aged man, say in your 40s and your wife dies from some illness someone will definitely whisper at your wife’s funeral that you have killed her with the Aids virus. “Poor woman, she was so innocent. Angomubwelesela matenda.” It beats me how they know that it was you that brought the Aids virus or if indeed your wife died from the virus.

You are 25, a woman and with no boyfriend people will start talking. By the time you reach 30 people will have concluded that you are not getting married because you can’t have children or else you are a very difficult woman and no man can stand you.

If you are a man, you reach 30 and you are still single your mom will definitely start sending girls your way or small delegations to sit down with you. You reach 35 and you are still single theories will start going around: you are dead down there, you are too stingy you can’t look after a woman or you are gay.

If you are a woman and you like to have a little fun at night, maybe you even take a bottle or two you will surely get the “whore” label.

Unfortunately for women, the “whore” label comes once too often: you talk openly about sex then you are surely a loose woman, you are fashion conscious someone will scream when you are walking down the street “hule iwe.”

You start getting fat, whether you are male or female, someone will definitely say “akunenepa nako,” that is, implying that you are HIV positive and the virus is making you fat.

On the other hand, if you start losing weight don’t expect that people will think you have joined some fitness regime, people will still say that you are HIV positive only that this time kakuondesa.

If three of your children die one after another for whatever reason, someone somewhere will definitely say mwawakhwimila (whatever is the English equivalent).

And talking about witchcraft, it is mainly old women who get the “witch” label. It’s like it’s a sin to live a long and full life because someone out there will accuse you of teaching children witchcraft or of nourishing your old body with flesh from the young generation.

If you are a single woman and you can afford a house in the suburbs and drive a nice car people will say you have a rich sugar daddy nicely tucked up somewhere.

If you are a good man, you love your wife and you help her around the house someone will say you must be under petticoat government or wadyesedwa mankhwala.

I know as human beings it really feels good when we talk about others and sometimes we really can’t help but join in a discussion of why so and so is still not married at 38. But seriously does life have to be that way?

Should we always make assumptions about others and make judgements about other people when we really don’t know what’s going on in their lives.

Maybe its time we became more tolerant and learn to accept that people choose to lead different lives. We should not always condemn others because they have chosen not to be like everybody else.

And sometimes it’s important to realize that things can happen in our lives that are beyond our control. Maybe the children of your neighbour keep on dying not because their parents are turning them into black magic zombies but because they are born with some inherent fatal disease.