THIS IS LIFE

Tales from the Hood I remember attending a burial at Chingwere and y'all know that attending a burial at that cemetery is enough to make you cry when you look at the state of affairs, anyway i digress. So tenze kumalilo yaba neighbour and for some reason there was no church service yet she went to church every Sunday. Oh i remember she hadnt remitted sufficient funds for the church book offering anyway her family could not afford to pay the arrears hence the church would not accept her as a member worthy of a funeral church service. Fast Foward, at the cemetery one of the relatives came with a Charismatic Pastor form a church that was not mentioned who preached the word in such convincing tones. The message was just right and from the looks of things every one was somehow touched as even the most hyper hoodlums quietened down and paid attention to the sermon. As we were all getting carried away with the sermon and entering the second heaven in spirit the pastor

My neighbour Chris was a bachelor who really liked lifting weights and intimidating everyone from the hood. He generally minded his own business and with a decent 6 pack and a step that said get out of my way he saw a lot of girls in the hood trying their luck with him. He generally turned them down and everyone assumed he must have had a hottie where he worked although no one ever really saw her. One gloomy February Night around 21 hours, Chris came home with company. Being my closest neighbour, i could here the merry music playing in his bachelor pad punctuated from time to time by some soft feminine laughter. As Chris shared his house with another guy I could tell that there were two ladies and three men in the house based on the voices i heard above the music. I continued reading my book the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. As you know when I get hold of a Dan Brown book i can hardly put it down until i get to the end. The noise of their arrival had slightly disturbed me but after some t

By Susan Mwape Farmers in Malawi have been introduced to a new way of acquiring agriculture information - interactive voice recording tool. The National Agriculture Development Committee introduced an interactive voice recording tool that enables farmers to access information on agriculture services. A joint team of Agriculture experts called the National Agriculture Content Development Committee (NACDC) begun a process of content development for farmers through Interactive Voice Recording (IVR). The Idea was to aggregate content onto one platform where farmers could find information covering extension services such as acquisition of seeds, crop harvest and marketing. Deputy Chief of Party, Strengthening Agriculture and Nutrition Extension. Dr. Clodina Chowa informed delegates at the INGENAES global symposium of the joint effort by Agriculture sector partners in Malawi managing the process. Dr. Chowa narrated how Agriculture and Nutrition partners have joined forces and b

By Susan Mwape AFGHANISTAN’S dry lands are slowly turning greener for many families living in conflicts zones with the introduction of kitchen gardens – a concept aimed at enhancing nutrition and small-holder farming. The University of Maryland has over the past 5 years been engaged in a program aimed at building technical and teaching capacity to the Afghanistan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock. The program dubbed “Afghanistan Agriculture Extension Project” is led by a consortium of five Universities based in the United States of America. The project targets 27 provinces and 193 districts of Afghanistan with the aim is to delivering effective and sustainable extension services to Afghan farmers. The project seeks to improve rural household food security and enhance agriculture-based income generation, improve nutritional status of target rural households and enhance support for women in the agricultural sector.  AAEP activities are implemented in partn

So today I was drawn to a memory of some of the shenanigans from the hood. It was a hot October Day in the 90s. The country was faced with a drought and there was no water in the hood we walked far to find water mostly to the industrial area, old and young we were forced to carry whatever container we could to come back home with water as anything made a difference. On that material day, there was a drizzle of water from the hood communal tap and word spread like wild fire that there was some water at the tap we all congregated at the tap and stood in line praying that the water does not run out and everyone gets a chance to draw atleast some drinking water. The hood is divided into sections and each section has about 20 households, at times when there were water blues representatives of a household represented their respective section regardless of whether they were in line or not. After weeks of not seeing water, tempers would easily flare at the tap. While we all sat an

Today i had a recollection of the scariest day of nmy hood life. It all begun one morning when my mom got upset with me for not washing the dishes. I hated and still hate doing dishes simply because growing up as the youngest of two sister meant i got to do the dishes. I got to eat the wing part of the chicken (am not sure how i still love wings), I got to eat the top, head of the maize cob and many other things i just hated everything especially domestication. oh but i digress am talking about the scariest day of my life. Mom had a way of making you uncomfortable if you didn't do your chores she made sure she did every chore you should have done till you felt ridiculous and if you tried to do anything else she told you to leave it. Being a weekend i decided to go behind our house and chat with my neighbor, Amake Danny. Amake Danny was a fun woman who was married to a young man we grew up with in the hood called Mudala. He was one of the very first people who embraced the pr

Today I just realised the month of April is coming to an end this week and here I am wondering where the time went and what I have tangibly accomplished well that’s a tale for another day but for now am going to a reflection on the month of April in th hood. 1 st April has always been a fun day for me as back as I can remember I always tried to make sure I managed to successfully fooled someone so much so that they would always remember. I would do it to my sister, brothers, friends even took a chance on the parents lol! But the “mother of all fools or even foolings as we called them was in 2011” . It was a very rainy year and that April, the streets in the hood were still waterlogged. I pulled a few tricks fooling everyone I could but was not satisfied with what I had accomplished I thought about my grandparents.  My grandparents too lived in the hood! There house was only 5 minutes away and I decided to take fools day to them. Before I share what transpired you need to