Reading Time: 3 minutes “Good evening, Madam, chocolate made in Ivory Coast, 200 francs,” calls out a vendor to a lady pedestrian, toting an ice cooler and sporting a printed T-shirt. This is in Abidjan, the commercial city of Cote d’Ivoire. Up until nearly two decades ago, Cote d’Ivoire used to grow and export cocoa but never really enjoyed the […]

Reading Time: 3 minutes “Oh Jill, Oh Jill, Oh Jill! Don’t mess with Jill” was a constant vibe on MBC Radio in the 1980s.  Broadcasters like Davies Mussa, Patrick Khoza, Gerald Nyamacharenga and others would constantly play the mellifluous reggae piece on Malawi’s sole radio station, alongside other reggae great hits by Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Toots, Bunny Wailer

Reading Time: 3 minutes The rivalry between political parties often reaches fever pitch, with each one fiercely vying for the ultimate prize: governing power. Desperate to secure the mandate to lead, parties will go to great lengths and often find themselves engaging in all manner of untoward pursuits. Governance seems to be a highly profitable venture. The intense, cutthroat

Reading Time: 3 minutes The area west of Chileka Road, extending from Mwaiwathu Private Hospital to the fence marking the boundary between the mission and G4 Security Company is home to many significant institutions. These include the Blantyre Synod Head Office, the historic St. Michael & All Angels Church, the Henry Henderson Institute (HHI) Primary School, the Phoenix Nursery and

Reading Time: 3 minutes Getting into the Chichiri Shopping Mall is a refreshing experience these days, thanks to the restricted entry to the premises made possible by the recent installation of a fee paying parking system. In days gone by, securing a parking space at the mall proved to be a formidable challenge, as unrestricted access permitted anyone and

Reading Time: 3 minutes A friend mine, a locomotive driver, called me one morning last month. He and several of his colleagues were on a train, testing the recently restored railway section between Balaka and Salima. This section, like many others in the country, had descended into a deplorable state of neglect and disrepair. When I was a boy,

Reading Time: 3 minutes This nation confronts numerous challenges, leaving many people bereft of hope regarding their standard of living. Some have dubbed it “Bagamoyo”, alluding to a notorious slave trading centre from the previous century, where captives from this country were transported and sold to eager purchasers. Unlike its neighbours, Malawi has not been endowed with precious minerals,

Reading Time: 3 minutes A few years ago, an individual stated in one of the WhatsApp forums to which I was affiliated that it was retrogressive for the Road Traffic Directorate to require trainee drivers to get tested in manual transmission vehicles. His contention rested upon the premise that assessing individuals with manual vehicles proved futile for those destined

Reading Time: 3 minutes Tucked away in the serene environs of the Shire Valley is a project of gigantic proportions. It takes a physical visit to the facility to appreciate the vastness of the Shire Valley Transformation Programme. Those who just hear about it through the media or other secondary sources think it is comparable in scale to the

Reading Time: 3 minutes In 2016, a friend of mine fell victim to an egregious trespass at his home in Manja Township, Blantyre, under the shroud of night. Villains, with nefarious intent, breached his vehicle, absconding with sundry and possessions, among them the car battery. In a display of sacrilege, they even took away some. Bibles. Thus did my