Another Landmark
It is my birthday yet again and Im grateful to God for the years I have accumulated on this side of heaven. At 6.27am my mother called followed by my granny in her 80s, to say 'Happy Birthday'. I was well and truly touched for that was the first call ever to receive from my 'agogo'. I ended up speaking to these two great women at the same time!!
For once I'm in formal dress just to stress the importance of the day. All praise be to God for I look back and appreciate how blessed, victorious I am in Him, the Ancient of Days.
The things I have done, achieved, the places I have been to, the gifts I have...I give glory to God. Sometimes I have felt like giving up, only for the Lord to show up and reassure me that He is still with me! I thank God for all these years and the experiences, the valleys and the mountain-tops!
On a mundane note I still get fascinated with how women especially want to know how old I am!! I also wonder how women particularly estimate my age to be. Wow!
Here is my birthday portrait, shot at my home in Manja.
God bless and encourage you today and may you live to proclaim the faithfulness of Jehova.
Learning From Others...
One of the lessons my grandmothers now in her 80s, taught me repetetively was that I should always learn from the mistakes made by my peers whether at school, in the village or at the work place.
I think about that 'doctrine' and wonder how some folks seem never to pay heed to errors committed by others.
Look here! The 'sin' that sent the formidable partnership of the MCP and the UDF into political wilderness in the pre and post-2009 general elections was their abuse of parliamentary majority and being overbearing to the point of holding Malawi to ransome. Before that it was resistance of the MCP government to change, and the UDF's penchant for imposition of office bearers and too much lust for power that proved their undoing.
Now, one would expect the present government to learn from these clear-cut examples of how others lost it. Alas, the regime seems to have stuffed its ears and closed its eyes to realities on the ground.
Judging from popular opinion in the minibuses, the market places, discussion forums, and phone-in shows on radios, the majority of Malawians are against the Bill aiming at changing the country's flag. The government says it consulted, but evidently it was a staged process mainly involving chiefs who could not give contrary views as they 'work with government of the day'. Political analyst Noel Mbowera of Mzuzu University was recently quoted by MIJ FM as querying how on earth there could be such opposition to the Bill if indeed government (or MPs) consulted the masses!
My simple advice to government is please listen to the people, don't force on the citizenry things they do not want, lest you find that by ignoring the dissenting voices you had engaged in a self-destruction mode or had a embraced a 'death-wish' that similarly estroyed your predecessors.
On a personal note, I am back in Blantyre and gaining weight again after the 'boot camp' of Lilongwe. I don't like the look of my tummy!
