Malawi poor? Welcome to Senga Bay
Adolf Hitler’s right hand man and information-cum-propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, is often credited with having said that a lie repeated frequently becomes the truth.
Listen. Because of frequent repetition some Malawians believe Escom lies that our electricity power outages are a result of dwindling levels of water in Lake Malawi when historical facts indicate that, after eating away farmland, homes and graveyards the lake is now simply receding to where it was some one hundred years ago. If we may ask: why was power available between 2012 and 2014?
Because of frequent repetition Christians believe that Judas Iscariot is a villain that betrayed Jesus the Christ forgetting that without this betrayal and eventual hanging God’s plan for Jesus would not have been fulfilled. Because of frequent repetition Muslims believe Muhammad was God’s last Prophet. Because of frequent repetition Rastafarians believe that Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia was a reincarnation of Jesus the Christ and, therefore, God.
Repetition is powerful. Repetition can be good. Repetition makes messages stick in people’s brains. Repetition can also be bad and deleterious. Surely, because of frequent repetition many Malawians also believe this great federal republic is poor. But hold your breath and fasten your seatbelts.
As an exceptional clique, we, Abiti Joyce Befu, MG 66, Alhajj Mufti Jean-Philippe LePoisson, SC-RTD, the Most Paramount Native Authority Mandela and I, the Mohashoi, have vowed not to flow with the current. So, last week we decided to prove Malawi’s detractors wrong by driving our refurbished VW Amailoko to Senga Bay in Salima.
We arrived at the famous Livingstonia Sunbirdinho Beach Hotel around three o’clock in the afternoon. We were thirsty despite having swallowed nearly two litres of Pimples Natural Spring Water each as we drove from Cashgate City to Senga Bay. As if pulled by some natural force we all drifted to the bar where we met an old friend who welcomed us appropriately, the Mangoni way. I asked for fantakoko on the rocks, Abiti, the Most Paramount Native Authority Mandela, and the Alhajj settled for cold 64 Cousins, a rosy wine that is currently selling like hot pork.
“Long time, big man, Mohashoi,” someone said patting me on the right shoulder. I quickly turned and offered my left hand in greeting.
“So, the left hand greeting has become a trend?” Bentry, the man who had patted me on the right shoulder asked.
“I only did so because I was holding something precious in my right hand!” I responded as I lifted my glass of fantakoko.
“I met a few former schoolmates at Silver Sands and Blue Waters, they all greeted me with the left hand!” Bentry said, offering a round of drinks and beckoning me to walk with him to the beach.
What I saw made me turn back to the bar immediately and call the rest of the Bottom Up team. And we saw it for ourselves. The lake was so calm you could hear voices from as far as Cape Maclear. The beach was littered with partying families. Children were jumping castles. Some you men were playing beach soccer. Some young women, the diaper generation mothers, were playing volleyball. Others had hired boats to zigzag the lake waters.
Suddenly Dan Lupanga’s song, Sweetest Banana, started blaring from the giant speakers that had been erected near the eastern rocky side of the beach. And people were up dancing and repeating the lines: “Sumandikwani-tsakwanitsa, sweetest Banana!.”
“So, this is the country the world calls poor?” Alhajj asked, mouth agape.
Answered Bentry: “Poverty is a frequently repeated stereotyping and a profiling of otherness. It is also a result of repeated self-denigration. One is as poor as one believes oneself to be.”
“Malawians should stop believing in any poverty discourse that puts them at the bottom of the mud pail. This is not a poor country!” Jean-Philippe advised. n
