Rebuilding Malawi.

After doing all the stuff I wanted to do in Mzuzu, I have to go back home to Mzimba. I know there is a national bus company bus passing Mzimba by 11am. It must be available around 9am. So I find it, but a minibus caller is telling people not to get in but to get a minibus. Even the conductor tells me not to get in at the time. Now the question is: do I have no right to get home through a bus of my choice and get there seated like everybody else traveling in these buses? There are minibuses but they are adamant to their ways as well, you get in and come out with your suit torn out from the chair modifications, you have to argue with conductors on being seated like a pack of animals. And what of the cost? Who wants to spend more when the can spend less? The bus is a comfortable choice. But if I have to go home standing in preference for those going to lilongwe when there are many seats empty just because the minibus has to make a business, no! I travel my journey and should not be pushed too much from what I chose to travel in. For in most cases, my journeys are long, with many stops under a compressed timelines. So, a little detour or departure from plan is very costly indeed.

How about rebuilding the public transport system?

One of the responsibilities of the government is to provide transportation infrastructure to its people.

Private minibus and bus owners, have their own interest first at heart than that of the government and its citizens. In most cases, this has left big holes of a population which is yet unserved from the services taken up by the private sector and not fully provided by the by the government. This is the case not only in the transport sector but also in the other sectors as well. Shall we go on like this?

Looking back at organizations like the law commission, the electoral commission, the human rights commission, civil service commission, etc, how about a commission to look into issues of transport.

The bus depot is a public infrastructure it is best regulated by government. If the depot is supposed to ensure that there is a bus at a particular time going to a particular place and there is no private bus at that particular time, the bus depot is supposed to select one bus among the many private buses in good condition and assign it on that trip. In this way, private public partnership is beneficial.

If there might be other buses that travel at there own time to their own destination, then they can do with people choosing when to get in or through which bus.

This system can go down even to minibuses.

This can then allows the government to reduce risks and other complications buy partnering partnering with minibuses or buses that follow the government guidelines for public transport. Things like, unmodified minibus seats, all people seated and no one standing. Leaving within expected times.

Because the malawian public has for long wanted such a service and no one has managed to fully provide it since the desolution of shire bus lines, then they will be more than happy to use transportation that follow these guidelines as government might have wished to enforce during operation dongosolo.

Such a reform can also go through other sectors where the government partners with providers that satisfy these conditions at any level even if it means a contractual agreement so that no population is left unreached on the duties and services the government is expected to perform and are currently unreached due to the preferences of private service providers.

The road rehabilitation has worked very well with the government working with private contractors. Other sectors can learn from there.

Knowledge Sharing and ICT Development

I have been a member of ICTAM mailing list for a while. ICT Association of Malawi. There is a national wide population with interest in issues of IT, from education, health, students, and within the ICT profession itself.

Why do we exist?

There are people who are very gifted in these issues of ICT. But without the opportunity for use of their knowledge, the knowledge, gets lost, without the rest of the nation benefiting from their gift.

Look Professor Mhango of Mzuzu University just at the time he was knowledge was supposed to benefit the nation, he dies. Do we know the big things he has done out there which we Malawians could highly benefit. Do we know these people after such an achievement really want to look at what the young graduates have to say and share their knowledge with them? We do not have such a platform in Malawi recently. For where someone might make many mistakes indeed being a beginner, there is no tolerance to encourage contributions where mistakes are easy to make.

ICTAM mailing list used to be such a vibrant place for sharing knowledge. Who knows how many were learning? Who knows how many young people were being encouraged to contribute or even go on their personal it projects by just being part of the ICT community sharing ideas and jokes, without expecting hash treatment as perhaps I have experienced from ictam mailing list for an issue I really needed its help anyway.

No other list is as this vibrant for they all seem to expect such reaction from a mailing list.

Do you remember Boster how you encouraged me to join the list? It is possible to have entry level and other people are encouraged in the adhoc manner, and talent is spotted and is encouraged to participate in higher level again with clear goals and guidelines for development of ICT in Malawi.

Otherwise, much knowledge gets to waste not having benefited the rest of nation like Professor Mhango dying so early perhaps.

Are we willing to change?

The beginning: A thought.

It seems to me, if God created men to live on earth, and blessed them to be fruitful and fill the earth, he must have had it even in the beginning that we human beings will not live on earth forever.

We would then have a way of leaving earth at some point.

Eden, the home of the beginning, was still filled with everything man would require to receive at the appointed time. Look, He cannot put something good for man and have him die when he eats it. Unless in an appointed time, when man is ready, he would eat it.

The garden of the Eden was a smaller place within the whole earth. And the whole earth was to be filled with humanity.

Evil came and cheated humanity to death. Jesus speaks of a parable of wheat and weeds in comparison.

While, evil might be punished for 4 generations, the blessings stay for a thousand. Why the righteous lives long, is to pass their good to the coming generations. The sinful die early, for the consequences of their evil be seen in the generations they have lived and the story about it be told as a lesson to the generations that come so that the proceeding generations. Are able to survive in the righteousness that remains.

Evil had multiplied itself on the earth to a great extent that God wanted to destroy it all. He decided to limit their age to 120 years. For a person reaches 30 years and marry and bear children. If he has sinned and teaches his children to sin(for maybe in his life time he has not sin the consequence of his sin) the children may see the consequence. If they may doubt and still sin, the third generation may see the consequence of the sin the fourth will learn from all these and conclude without mistake the sinful action is not worth repeating. Thus generation curses are broken off.

Even early if in the generations after the first sin if the children leave in righteousness, God blesses that generation and blesses them from the sin that cursed the previous generation.

How can we found ourselves under curses? Because of things we do and we do not the difference between good and evil.

To live a righteous life is worthwhile to the personal life for it serves us from the curses that would indeed make our lives short.

The curses are like traps set up in the path of humanity to bring them to death. Righteousness is like ways which we can live to avoid these traps set up in our paths.

Where do we know these ways? From Him who loved us so much to send his Son. So that whoever might believe in Him maybe saved. For Jesus lived a righteous life from birth to death without sin. He was able to do away with death.

He says for to learn and through Him be saved:

John 15:1-17 NIV

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

Only in being in Him and Him in us, can we passover the death that destroys humanity. There is no short cut and there is no cheating.

But in truth admitting our failures and letting God lead us to salvation. Which is but the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

For, true worshipers of God worship him in truth and in Spirit. In truth, by being truthful about their weakness and sins they have committed, and be willing to be obedient. In Spirit, for the Holy Spirit alone can teach us how to present ourselves before God.

I listened through the Book of Leviticus the other night and was very challenged and feared at all the laws I have broken. I almost felt like, I should not read further for the sins I commit are many and its difficult for this body of mine to obey them all. For I will called to account for the sins I have committed knowing they are sins.

But on the other hand, I hoped God will take me through slowly and be gracious for I am but trying to Live according to His will. For because ignorance again, people perish.

God's grace teach and help us through.

I wonder about the copyright implications of copying and pasting verses in such a way.

What's the best way to preach God's word, if not to present it as He says it?

I can only comment my reflections on it depending on the wisdom I have learned from it but the word is the same and will remain so as God presented it. Better then to put it as it comes from God.

The Beginning.

Genesis 1:1-31 NIV

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. And God said, "Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. And God said, "Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Rebirthing m-hi.org

So, m-hi.org has survived 3 years on nothing but the initial investment that renewed the domain, and an Airtel daily which after applying for a job and chatting on Facebook, twitting some thots aloud, there was still a little more data to make a post if need arises.

At the end of a day, a change of K20 in terms of airtime or cash to quench the thirst for a talk or to by some fruit after a meal. In particular, it would buy three banana's on the street which are quench the thirst and fill the stomach during all the miles in wanderland.

I am now home, thinking of building up my settlement. Heavens doors are opening up, I believe things will be ok again.

Somebody said, omwa tea azamwanso. I can't believe less for while a storm may endure for a night, joy comes in the morning.

God does not forget His Children completely, and gives them all the blessings for the lost time.

I have hope. I have faith in the goodness, love and mercy of God.

In Him, I have my being. For he gives me joy when I am expected to be sad. He gives me peace in the midst of all the pains.

While day after day, I have endured much tribulation seemingly without end, he gives me grace and peace to survive the pain and in the midst of it all exceeding laughter to cure the sorrow.

Happy birthday, m-hi.org!

It is a good day.

Kondwani C. Hara.

A Program Called Earth

/**
Inspired by Ecclesiastes 1:1-11:
Vanity of all vanities, all is vanity! Cried the frustrated preacher, the son of David, King in Jerusalem.
**/

For all days on earth from the beginning to the end,

New person is born.

While person is alive,

Bug: devil kills person.

Person chose life or death.

If person chose life, person lives.
Else If person chose death, person lives not.

If person lives

Issues of Health

I went to Mzimba District Hospital, normally you would find long queues. This day, I found the place empty with a lady in the out-patient department who clearly seemed to have been working and had just finished. The time was around 2:30pm. If they had gone out for lunch and come back at 1:30pm, a lady would sit in out of the examination room if there was a big crowd waiting to see a doctor. But then an empty opd at 2:30pm just means the crowd was gone in one hour!

That's a big improvement worth noting.

Now, one problem I noticed. When you record medical records in a medical diary, the past ailments influence the doctors decision on subsequent diagnosis. And usually this diagnosis is wrong and to the disadvantage of the patient.

Look, several diseases have very common symptoms some of these would be found in people who have chronic illnesses and some without chronic illnesses but under an infection or some other short-term disease.

But because he has had several illnesses with symptoms seemingly leading to chronic illness, it takes one doctor to make a wrong diagnosis and it will then be difficult for the rest of the doctors to change this diagnosis.

There is this say of medications to chronic illnesses that once started you cannot stop them. And once you stop them you are treated with a worse kind of stigma by your family members especially making your life worse that you would want to stop the medication. A kind of slavery to a medication. I don't like this.

How many chronic diseases exist? I think very few. Why not study these in detail so that you are able to rule out a wrong diagnosis? There is such information in vast amounts on wrong diagnoses. If to this day, I managed to break a chronic medication, its because I studied these in detail, looked at my personal experience and even had a full medical review.

After being prayed for by many preachers, trying various ways to get well and be off this medication which was now becoming more destructive than the illness itself, I resolved to just yield and go on with the medication. But if I was to take this for life, then I had to understand the illness I had. For all the while, nobody had told me for they thought being a disease of the mind, I cannot understand, yet from all the treatment I was getting, and the symptoms I was expected to have, there was no connection. I was more suffering from the side effects from the medication themselves than the disease and every time I went for a medical review, I was being asked only about these side effects than any symptom that was supposed to be my illness.

It made the appearance of me not having the symptoms of the illness due to the medication I was taking.

What if, I as a patient chose not to take this medication for life? Why should I have no choice on what treatment I can get? Why destroy my life earlier with side effects of the medication? What if I decided to die earlier anyway than suffer a chronic disease on top of that, side effects of the medication? It's my choice. Who suffers with my death? Me. For the rest of my relatives and society have already ruled out my ever being importance in the society.

I become like a living dummy, a statue, or a picture on the wall. Everybody takes a glance and passes by without a care. Who can miss it anyway if this statue fell down and was destroyed? None, it will just create more space for more important people. That's all it is to them.

Does anyone like being in a place and be treated as though he does not exist? I am very sure none.

I wouldn't either. So best, of my disease to die faster than die a slow painful death due to the side effects, than with the disease itself. Because 99.9% I am wrongly diagnosed, I have 0.1% living to my life expectation on medication and 99.9% living to my life expectation without medication.

Do you know what my life expectation is? Do you know how many years I will live? You don't. Only God knows. Did not God create me? Did He not raise the dead? Even raised up Jesus to eternity? He can raise me too from death to life and everything in between and today, healthwise, death is very far from me. Beyond a horizon. But who knows my roof can fall down and kill me even now as I write.

Of some reason due to all the political impasses some body just decide to drop a bomb over my roof as in Libya?

So my life expectation is with the range of seconds from now and 120 years. And maybe more if God wills. Do not limit my life expectation by putting me on a medication that limits my life without my acknowledgment.

It matters not whether you think I have the disease of the mind. For the mind suffers no disease but that which a body can suffer. If the body has malaria, the mind too has malaria, yet I just think and reason like everybody else. The only disease of the mind in which within this body I don't think is death. For even a person in a comma, has a well function mind though unresponsive for one reason or another. For when he does come out of comma, he is just like anyone else.

So, there is need to reconsider the way doctors have been making decisions on these chronic diseases.

I would like to study these and see what I can find out about each of these diseases for each seem to have some little and simple detail which medical research seems to have neglected for a long time indeed.

As I said, on my twitter, there have been very few innovations in the recent years. I would put the blame to the way education is delivered generation to another.

People like Isaac Newton and the rest of inventors had a very different style of learning altogether than what we have nowadays.

Maybe in mass education, we end up wanting everybody to be like everybody else according to someone else decision. More like Soldiers who are not supposed to think or question but obey an order as a master gives it.

That's bad.

Communication Breakdown: Reloaded(Airtel and TNM bundled)

So, I bought a tnm data bundle to use on my Nokia Booklet 3G. My plan is to put my tnm simcard on the booklet and my airtel simcard to remain on my HTC Legend. Not that TNM tariffs are any better, for Airtel's tariffs aren't good either and there isn't any good one yet. I have tried Access, they are not yet in Mzimba. And for MTL, I need a land line. I am wondering how easy will that be to get.

So, I bought me a TNM data bundle and I was not able to use it. I used the remaining units after activating the bundle but not the bundle itself. If I put the simcard on my HTC, I was able to use the bundle. Instead of just wasting the data bundle which I had bought to use on my Booklet, I decided to tether it through my HTC. But then, I can do that with any Netbook. So it will be useless for TNM to expect me to connect to the internet the complicated way. They might just as well make my use easier and user friendly. I am at least a computer engineer I can find my way around. But what about the ordinary user who is the majority of their customers? They would rather go for an easier choice that have to struggle with configurations, and call center that doesn't understand or attend to what I really want and on top of that, cuts me off before helping me get my problem resolved. Airtel isn't much different, so yeah, a bunch frustrating service providers who don't seem to listen to what their customers want? Spend the millions you spend on migolomigolo or pokopoko and the rest  of them on giving me a real good service. I will be happy and I am sure you will get all the profit you want.
If you don't have expertise to fix your problems, I would be more than happy to pocket one of your 3 million Kwachas fixing your problems that make your customers unhappy to use your service and give you the required profit than give them away freely on my blog.

I just topped up with a K100 to activate my Airtel daily which costs K80 and I get a response of insufficient funds. I could blow that on phone calls but that's a 3 minutes talk which really like a drop of water on a thirsty tongue in a desert. I used to speak more than this long before Airtel. To think of the 56% slash, I don't remember it being effected. If people have not been complaining, they were being really rewarded for the airtime they have bought activating the data or voice bundles. And now the rewardz service, has been down and under maintenance for more than one whole month.

I think you guys are really taking us for granted.

This World of Ours

"The Race Is on for Libya's Oil, With Britain and France Both Staking a Claim" - commondreams.org(http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/09/01-8#.TmDPz2LnAHs.twitter)

Of course, NATO and its allies goes on plundering world over looting and looting and looting. Almost blind to its actions and look how greedily it deeps its hands in the oil. Almost like, caught red handed.

CAUGHT RED HANDED

Blood is red and so is oil. I wonder why US especially drains its oil in the seas of its backyard and goes shed blood of others out there?

Oh, let's go on a race and create cars that will run on water. Oil sheds too much innocent blood!
Oh, let's harness the sun and drive our cars with it for when the water is gone, we will die of thirst and shed more innocent blood.
I hope the sun won't run cold too soon.

This world of ours is full of greedy hands caught red handed dipping themselves in oil and blood.

God save our World!