I get woken up in the morning by the singing of birds that have built their nests in some cavities in the walls of the house. There are about two or three bird species living in the vicinity of the home.

Living at Kongwe Mission in Dowa and later at Nkhoma mission, on the eastern fringes of Lilongwe District, I had the opportunity to hear many more birds produce many different sounds when I grew up. There are some bird species that one simply does not see in the cities. Even in rural environments some birds have disappeared because we have not looked after the environment as well as we ought to have done.

One of the species that are hardly found in urban areas is the pigeon (njiwa). I grew up hearing the singing of two different sub species of pigeons. Locals inserted human words into the singing of one of the sub species. The words went “Nkhuku, nkhuku n’chitsiru, nkhuku…” (The chicken is a fool). As a boy, this pigeon chant did not mean much to me.

A little while later when I advanced a little in age, the words in the pigeon chant began to make sense. The locals had envisaged a pigeon which flew from the wild and came across the domesticated chicken which had everything done for. It (the chicken) could not construct its own shelter and had to live in shelters constructed by its owners; it could not find its own food and had to be fed; just about everything had to be done for the poor chicken.

As a result, the chicken had become a pampered bird. Perhaps more significantly, it never developed the ability to fly as it never felt pressed to flee from danger. Yes, it had wings but they were only ornamental as they could not flap well enough to achieve flight. By contrast the pigeon did everything for itself – it made its own shelter, found its own food and could fly like one possessed. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart a Nigerian proverb is provided, which goes “Eneka the bird said, ‘since men have learnt to shoot without missing, I have learnt to fly without perching’”. The pigeon can easily make a similar claim since, unlike the chicken, it flies with undivided resolve, especially when it is threatened.

The chicken has evolved into a spoilt bird species. It has indeed become foolish as it totally depends on human beings for all its provisions. Does that not speak of our situation in Africa? We are almost totally dependent on people from other parts of the world for our provisions. I have mentioned it  a number of times that during my youth just about everything I came across that was made, was made in England – clothes, thread, razor blades, toys, motor cars, the list is endless. Ford Anglia, Cortina and Consair were popular car brands then, as were Zephyr and Vauxhall and Land Rover. All these were British cars. There were French cars too – Peugeot and Renault – as well as German – Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen. Even trucks were mostly British – Tames Trader, Ford, Leyland, Bedford.  Later, the “made in” phrase began to appear with different endings – Japan, Hong Kong, and later still India.

Today, the typical African will wear clothes tailored in Thailand, use a cell-phone assembled in China, a laptop made in South Korea and drive a Japanese vehicle. When they get sick they will probably take drugs made in India. In the meantime, they will be enjoying TV broadcasts appearing on Japanese plasma screens coming via an American satellite.

While the rest of the world has learnt to fly with technology, we, like the chicken, have not developed the ability to fly. A project known as Mars One enlisted people who expressed interest to go on a one way trip to Mars. Many people from around the world put up their names for consideration. None of them was from Africa. It is difficult to tell whether it was for fear of losing their lives in space or just being techno-phobic. But one thing that is certain is that not many Africans would comfortably articulate anything about space. When the subject comes up, they simply withdraw. I can visualise some people reading the opening paragraphs, which talk about birds, with relative ease and literally losing interest when the article turns to space.

We need not be helpless like the chicken. We can search within our education system and identify the technological gaps that need to be sealed to make us a technology led economy and become self reliant on a number of manufactured things.

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