February 13 2025
Greetings from the Munda wa Chitedze Farm, where I relocated from the hustle and bustle of your city. Peace, and only peace reigns here.
Disclaimers are difficult for those who want nothing but the truth. I must say nsima is one of the major causes for poverty. See, the disclaimer comes this way: Whether or not I do look forward to another session of making mbamu from a ‘cross’ of the unleavened mgaiwa dough is immaterial. I am here to say the truth, nothing but the truth and my biases don’t matter. Forget whether I am full on Nsima or the other way around that I have to establish this
Remember, since May last year, when I relocated to the farm, I have always told you, Dear Diary, that our major food and cash crop is Chitedze. Somewhere on the way, we heard some Balaka villagers were on a Chitedze diet, not by design like those of us on the farm, but because they can’t afford maize. People in the academia must really look into the scientific and nutritious benefits of crops like Chitedze.
Right now, we are into one of the worst food, read maize, crises we ever faced. Look, the price of maize is soaring by the day. A bag of maize flour at the supermarket is as high as a Boeing spare part!
Gone are the days when villagers around the farm could go about having communal dishes under the mango tree where the only difference between the have and have nots was ndiwo. And in their belief of sharing, that what is mine is also yours, chidyerano ruled the day.
The funeral dieters, thanks to Jika Nkolokosa for this term, in those days used to know which funerals to attend and which ones to avoid. Nsima was a determining factor. Today, Nsima is mostly reserved for akunjira and the dieters only pray for leftovers.
Nsima has been mighty. Nsima, like a politician, has imposed on us its exaggerated importance. Its self aggrandisement and inflated view of it’s ego has led us to say: We went to bed on an empty stomach, we only had rice and Irish potatoes!
Dear Diary, do you remember the story about this other football player who could not make it in Belgium or thereabouts because there was no nsima? How could he survive on escargots, as the French call snails, nkhono, their beloved delicacy?
You see, Nsima is addictive. It is this nsima addiction that is keeping us poor.
Figure this, the economists will rightly tell you that nsima contributes about 40 percent of the inflation here. Maize is the greatest factor in the consumer pricing index bundled with others like groceries, transportation and housing?
Ceteris paribus, all things being equal, Nsima makes high inflation a reality in Malawi.
So you see, with the maize scarcity, it is obvious there will be sharp rises in inflation. As Bakili Muluzi will crudely tell you, inflation ndi kanyama kamene kamachititsa kuti zinthu zikwere. The arithmetic is simple: Maize scarcity leads to high food prices which results in rise in the inflation and subsequently a rise in goods and services, which leads to abject poverty.
Dear Diary, the nsima addiction leads us to forget about investment. You compare your children’s school fees to a bag of maize. When the number of bags is way too much, you would rather send them to something cheaper and eat Nsima.
Nsimanomics is easy to come by on the macro level, not only in the microeconomic sense where you have to grapple with inflation and such unnecessary jargon.
The basic fact is that we mostly work and ply on trade to go to bed on a full stomach, and wake up to answer the call of nature with a full heart early in the morning. Nsima is involved in this ritual.
Nsima makes us poorer because it is on it that most vendors peg their price on. The kaunjika seller will price his shirts in accordance with the price of maize. So will the minibus conductor. The dobadoba at immigration and road traffic will not be left behind.
So, people will choose improper schools for nsima, they would rather go naked for nsima and mbamu will lead them to forsake essential services for nsima. If you take all this literally, nsima addiction is ruling your head, Dear Diary.
The thing about poverty is that it makes you forget your ethos and pathos. Knowing that maize is scarce, religious and political charlatans sway the poor in food for their own good.
Around the Munda wa Chitedze Farm, one aspirant is cooking a big pot of phala every morning. The gates are open and the hungry are getting cup-fulls. He is getting popular by the day. Politics of the stomach.
