Lessons from Cyclone Freddy

 Moya,

We have listened and hearkened to the many requests that propose that the State of our Estate report to your good selves at the Heaven Times should henceforth be weekly. Our leader of delegation, the Most Genuine Professor Dr Abiti Joyce Befu, MG 66 and MEGA- 1 agrees with the requests. And if our leader has agreed, who are we to contradict her? Our delegation is not a liberal democracy because liberal democrats are out to spend and destroy what great dictatorships, like our delegation, build.

Moya, our ears are sharp and perceptive. Already we can hear protestations around us and from up yonder, in the Kingdom beyond the Eagle Nebula, the Pillars of Creation. We maintain that here on earth, we only know of civilizations built by strong, no nonsense leaders, dictators, and damaged by liberal democrats and their ever-protesting, mostly lazy, citizens. The Kings of Europe and Asia built or designed Europe to the standard it is today. South Africa, Saudi Arabia, France,

India, China and others were not built by democrats. Was they?

When African strong men and women came up and started building Africa, our enemies, our hitherto colonisers, teamed up and sponsored teams to depose and destroy what our strong men and women had started building. Today, we are back to zero. Some even dare say that we are worse off than at independence.

Moya, we are sad to report that in the past two weeks, Malawi has been in mourning. Cyclone Freddy did to the Southern Region what no other cyclone and napolo have done since the Phalombe disaster of 1991. Entire families and households were swept away to their death. Homes, bridges, roads, and other infrastructure collapsed.

Cyclone Freddy was monitored for some time and in Malawi our department of disaster management affairs (DODMA) was prepared, according to our standards.

All clusters were mobilized and deployed but Freddy was too strong to face.

Moya, we have learned from Freddy that no one is fully protected from the devastation cyclones like Freddy bring. Not DODMA, which has no budget of its own. Not politicians who think like ostriches vis-à-vis potential weather-related disasters. Not citizens who continue defying experts, with the blessing of politicians, and continue to build where the experts warn against living.

Moya, Malawi is still a very, no, extremely fatalistic society. Authorities warn against building in the electricity wayleaves, road reserves and along riverbanks but, again with the blessing of our politicians, we defy all the expert advice and go ahead to build where we should not. Reason? Wakufa sadziwika or waliyose watifwenge.

Moya, Freddy has also taught us about political opportunism. Political leaders were all in Southern Region, some flanked by dark-goggled unarmed body guards, wearing cotton-padded body armour. All the politicians were in the South so as to be seen to care. All of them walked up and down, body guards behind them and photographers ahead. High choreographed.

Two of these politicians forgot that despite calls from many well-meaning nationals and internationals to turn DODMA into a full government ministry so that it could get adequate resources, their administrations did nothing from 1994 to 2019. Nothing we can remember and we remember every little thing our government does. Everything. We mean every good thing.

Moya, one of these two men spent time blame the devastation caused by Freddy on the people who did not vote for him, indirectly meaning with him in power there would be no Cyclone Freddy or that no one would have died and suffered when Freddy struck. The second, Moya, is youngish politician who retired from frontline politics to concentrate on commerce only to retire from his voluntary retirement.

His followers still call him Baby; not Bae. He, too, was there shedding small tears blaming the present government for under preparation. Whether he knew or not what DODMA had already done, only Jah Rastafari.

Moya, there is a Seer in Lilongwe. He says, his god, has told him that soon a heavy earthquake will hit Malawi, killing three million people, from Tanzania and through Karonga, Nkhata Bay, Nkhotakota, Salima, Machinga, Mangochi, and Blantyre to Mozambique.

No, Moya, he has not mentioned Lilongwe, where he lives because, as Peter Tosh sang, “everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die!”

Prophet Shepherd Bushiri, decided to spend part his largesse on helping the people of Mulanje who have been seriously affected by the cyclone. He hired a helicopter to ferry food stuffs to otherwise unreachable areas.

However, social media there report that the people targeted for the food distribution have rejected Bushiri’s ‘blood’ food, preferring to starve unto their death.

What’s blood food? We don’t understand it either, Moya, and that is the state of our estate this week. n