Want Aids money refunded? Ask APM

We are here in Edundu, Mzimba, drinking what all great  bottom-up men and women drink during these festive last days in the year when the Jesusians, also known as Christians, celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten son, according to the Holy Bible.  December is also the month during which followers of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) celebrate the ascension of the prophet to heaven to talk to God, one-on-one, according to the Holy Qu’ran.   Why Jesus was born, some say came down to earth in human form, and the Prophet Muhammad went to heaven in the same month of December, is too complex for us, bottom-up Malawians to understand.
However, for most average bottom up citizens of this great Federal Republic, December is a month when people till the land, tend crops, and retire from herding livestock. December is also the month when people die, virtually like ants. Everywhere, we have been in the Kingdom of Mzimba, people are busy burying relatives, neighbours, friends or sons and daughters, who, due to lack of opportunities in this region, which some overzealous secessionists have already named Republic of Nyika, were forced to work and build their lives in Lilongwe, Blantyre and elsewhere out of this continent. Everywhere we have been, zinyifwa pela.  Some of our scheduled meetings with chiefs and fellow bottom up citizens have been postponed because of nyifwa here, and nyifwa there, everyday without let up. Why this happens in December is also too complex for us, Edunduans to understand.
But, we, the bottom-up expedition, being what and who we are, have still found moments to go out and enjoy ourselves a little, particularly after one nyifwa has been interred in the belly of the earth.  As ecclesiasts and stoics, we believe in living for today and enjoying ourselves as much as possible because all is vanity. Politics is vanity. Religion is vanity. Hunger is vanity. Marriage is vanity. Divorce is vanity. Luck is vanity. Misfortune is vanity. Failure is vanity. Success is vanity.  Sadness is vanity. So is happiness. Birth is vanity. Existence, call it life, is vanity. Even death itself is vanity. All is vanity, says our fellow Jewish Ecclesiast.
Our people, the stoic bottom-up ethnic grouping, the minibus-riding majority, the fishing and farming ‘massive’, believe that one person’s misfortune is another’s luck. In short, life is not as complex as we want it to be.
We, the human race, enjoy perceptions. We perceived ourselves as superior to other animals. We kill and eat fellow animals so that we continue to live, but when one of our kind is killed and eaten by a living thing that also seeks to live, we get angry. We even hunt down that killer until we kill it. We should kill. Nobody else should. We should eat. Nobody else should. We are God’s supreme creatures, so do we perceive ourselves. We don’t want to believe that in the sustenance of life, we are no better than earthworms, mosquitoes, jiggers, pigs, goats, dogs, and even lions.  We all have to contribute to the food web by being killed and eaten.
However, listen carefully. Our experience is that among animals of the same race, like humans and wild animals, superiority is not vanity. Superiority among animals of the same race is not vanity. It is real.  Being superior means eating more, drinking more, and talking more without making sense about solutions to current problems. Superiority comes through holding power. Those who hold power also hold the keys to the life expectations of others.  Our beloved late president, Ngwazi Bingu wa Mutharika, once challenged that no one on earth could be independent from one’s appointing authority. He was referring to the arrest of President Bakili Muluzi by the Anticorruption Bureau in 2008.  The Director of the ACB then naively told the citizens of this great federal republic that the bureau was independent and could effect arrests as and when it deemed fit.
“So, if any person wants BEAM and Mulhakho wa Alhomwe to refund the Aids money they ‘looted’ from the National Aids Commission, that person or group of persons should ask President Peter Arthur Mutharika to intervene because if he uses his power to direct that the money be paid back, his wife’s charity and Mulhakho wa Alhomwe will behave,” one Edunduan concluded as he passed the calabash of uMqombothi to Native Authority Mandela.