Begin the count
You and many others possibly never liked the inside of a mathematics classroom. I had a friend whose phobia for anything mathematical remains a puzzle to this day. His advice on how to avoid mathematics or anything mathematical was factual, insightful and possibly well informed. It was from a point of experience but after years later, his obsession with numbers is hysterical. He loves to count and his recall of historical facts, often caught in the counting game is amazing. I had a good lecture a couple of days ago on the 51 years of our independence by this once “math-phobiac”. Recalling the days, I said remember “51” is maths and a number, with polite sarcasm.
Like many kids of my generation, born and bred in the village, I never had an opportunity for kindergarten. You, however, cannot discount the benefits of early childhood learning. Those of us trained at home, like kids that had the joy of kindergarten and its packed lunch learned one thing in common though. We learned how to count. The counting usually started from one and went up to 10, then even higher.
With age, we counted even more numbers. Funny it is that today we keep counting. Mathematics or not, we all can count. In rare circumstances, does one fail to, but still can see a number or someone will make aware. Today, if you are 51, like this republic, your counting should be very good. It gets better with age, just like Likoma wine.
Just think of the fictitious “bawo” champion if you have played this game. Like in modern game of soccer, it requires tactics, often in how you read the numbers and outdo the opponent. Of course, it is a commonsense game but the skill is shown when you “takata” and recover to win the game. Call it parking the bus. Behind the lines you have all the “coaches” telling you which move is best just like in the punditry world, we comment on substance and trivia about how Malawi should be or should have been. The number 51 can resonate painfully or sweetly depending on circumstance. Some hard facts about “51” include big “kachere” trees disguised as classrooms or rampant open defecation in fast vanishing forests. I am not an expert on trivia, I can let those that regularly hold opinions on these do so, I just like to think how one counts numbers.
This week a lot of counting has been going on. For example, on Monday, we counted 51 years of independence from the British that now ask us to pay some good kwachas in visa fees to visit their country to taste their famous peanut, fish and chips. For some, they counted millions of kwacha spent on celebrations. Others counted the number of foreign dignitaries that visited, including my distant cousins, William Ruto, Vice-President of Kenya and Edgar Chagwa Lungu, President of Zambia. The World Bank also produced a report that had our nation gross national income (GNI) ranked the lowest, some numbers worthy the count. Other countries like Kenya and Bangladesh moved up the development rank as middle-income countries. It is all counting, the difference being the count.
A couple of weeks I go, I listened to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief in one of Asia’s capital. I was interested in his gospel as a believer in counting mathematics, especially my own pieces of silver. I did not like what I counted as I realised the count of fragile States included God-fearing countries, including the republic I hold to my heart. To myself, I said there is no way a country that is rich in faith should be considered fragile. It’s an insult and works of enemies that still thrive in the explorer’s era that make you believe David Livingstone discovered Lake Malawi yet on his arrival there, he found people living around the lake including fish.
To be a fragile State means many things. While coming from war might be one of them, it includes being unable or struggles to provide basic services such as education, health and security to citizens. Poverty is rampant while thieves are glorified and marvel in sickening opulence. It might include any of these, if not even more.
Fragility in the science world, poorly informed but proud with it, is akin to a fresh pith of corn soaked in a highly concentrated saline solution. You use it to demonstrate the process of diffusion, how fluids towards an area of high chemical concentration. This is just science, but psychologically it can as well mean that the psyche of average citizens or businesses is being quickly programmed to believe there are short cuts to getting financial resources, including easy taxpayer’s money. Maybe this is the replica of a diffusion that is sweeping our minds. It leads to a collapse of a viable State and requires a massive downpour of fresh water to regain its turgidity. Maybe one day this turgidity can let the leaves ooze some water and ensure some prosperity for all.
Today, I stop counting 50 or 51. Instead, I begin counting one. Like President Peter Mutharika, I hold the notion that maybe it is time to shake our psyche and build a nation that the small gods we worship, call a fragile State while we call it home. Individuals pay bribes, for example, to get public service. It is our own citizens that created the mighty 10 percent that is a norm in public procurement.
It is in us that we think our jobs, whether public or private are opportunities to extort bribes or offer mediocre services as long as we get our pay cheque. It is not foreigners that decide whether our hospitals should have more qualified staff and are well-stocked with vital medicines, but ourselves. We, as citizens, are not concerned whether all children go to decent public schools as long as mine are fine. Like one said, we all end up in this country. Others as criminals, white collar and violent ones and the privileged ones.
In getting out the current mess, I totally agree that each one of us requires some mindset change. Otherwise 50 years is gone and this year I simply counted one, and next year will be two to a second 50 years. Simple maths. Enjoy the counting.
