The work of South African costumer and puppet maker Macdonald Mfolo caught our eye after a recent interview with Another Africa highlighted the large scale puppets he created as part of the collaborative fashion and photography exhibition NOT x Chris Saunders. The cross-cultural project fuses the work of South African artisans and designers together with that of Jenny Lai, a New York-based experimental womenswear designer, and Chris Saunders, a photojournalist living and working in Johannesburg. The exhibition puts a spotlight on the social and cultural climates that creatives from New York and South Africa find themselves inhabiting while showcasing the viability of global collaborations in this digital age.
Macdonald Mfolo and Jenny Lai constructing a puppet head. (Pic: Chris Saunders)
Mfolo, who is based in the Orange Farm township and picked up his puppet-making skills a few years ago as part of the production crew on the Pale Ya Rona Carnival, primarily works as a costume designer for the Pantsula dance group Real Action Pantsula. His full-bodied puppets are put together using papier-mâché and re-purposed materials such as discarded cement bags salvaged from construction sites and plastic bottles from a nearby recycling depot. Mfolo’s collaboration with Lai takes the vibrant Pantsula aesthetic and blends it with Lai’s avant-garde apparel for a surreal visual experience captured through Saunders’ lens and channeled through the movements of South African performance artist Manthe Ribane, who wears the puppet suits.
Manthe Ribane models a Macdonald Mfolo creation. (Pic: Chris Saunders)
Though his puppet-making work currently exists only within the sphere of performance, Mfolo’s goals are and always have been community-oriented. “I want to create a skills college,” he told Another Africa. “I think skills development needs to be more emphasised in South Africa. We export a lot of things instead of creating them here.” In 2005, he established Farmland Production, a free workshop-based initiative that aims to empower local women and youth by teaching basic sewing skills that would help the community to become more self-sufficient. In addition to this, Mfolo’s organisation produces uniforms for local schools, and spearheads talent showcases and dance competitions. Read the full interview to learn more about the emerging designer.
NOT x Chris Saunders will be on display at Wallplay in New York City beginning September 10th.
Jennifer Sefa-Boakye for okayafrica, ablog dedicated to bringing you the latest from Africa‘s New Wave.
Two years ago, a floating school in Lagos’s ‘floating’ slum of Makoko was labelled as ‘illegal’ by authorities who then threatened to demolish it. This year the school, which is the brainchild of Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi, was nominated for the London-based Design Museum’s Design of the Year award.
The Makoko Floating School was built for the Makoko water community in Lagos. (Pic: NLÉ / Iwan Baan)
Adeyemi is the founder of NLE, a design and architecture company focused on creating sustainable buildings in developing regions. His innovative design came about after he had had several discussions with Makoko residents about how to resolve the environmental issues – such as flooding – that concerned the local community. He and his team came up with a prototype for a floating building, which is now the Makoko Floating School.
“There are hundreds if not thousands of Makokos all over Africa,” Adeyemi says. “We cannot simply displace this population; it’s important to think about how to develop them, how to create enabling environments for them to thrive, to improve the sanitation conditions, to provide the infrastructure, schools and hospitals to make it a healthy place.
“My belief is that in developing Africa we need to find solutions that can be developed by the grassroots, through the grassroots, and achieve the same level of significance as we have on the high-end projects.”
Read more about the construction of Makoko Floating School
Now, in a new documentary series by Al Jazeera that looks at unconventional pioneers in the architecture industry, Adeyemi’s floating school is brought to life in the episode “Working On Water”, directed by award-winning South African filmmaker Riaan Hendricks. Launched on August 18, the six-part Rebel Architecture series will air every Monday through to September 22.
Dynamic Africa is a curated multimedia blog focused on all facets of African cultures, African history, and the lives and experiences of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora – past and present. Visit the blog and connect with the curator, Funke Makinwa, on Twitter.
When she was 10 years old, Chido Govera was offered a way out. A relative walked many miles to see her and said: “You know, I see that you’re suffering and I would like to help you. The only way I can help you is my husband has a friend and he’s around 40, he’s been struggling to find someone to marry and he thinks if you marry him, it would be a chance of escaping all this poverty and abuse. So you should come and meet him next Wednesday.”
Other girls in Govera’s position in rural Zimbabwe might have acquiesced. She never knew her father and lost her mother to Aids when she was seven. She was left to care for her grandmother, who was virtually blind, and her five-year-old brother. She would often wake up at 4am, search for firewood, walk at least a mile to fetch water, work in a field, attend school and go to bed hungry. She was also physically abused by members of her extended family.
When it all became too much, aged nine, she dropped out of school, abandoning her mother’s dream for her of boarding school and studying in America. “It was tough,” she recalls. “I remember I cried many days after that and I used to watch other kids going to school that I used to run around with, and it was painful. But it was more painful to go to school and spend the whole time thinking about what’s going to happen when I get home. Getting back home to watch the hungry faces of my granny and little brother. It was unbearable.”
So when next Wednesday came, the young girl with few prospects was expected to meet the man 30 years her senior who would become her husband and provider. “The reason why I was supposed to find it attractive to marry him was because he had two sisters that were going to South Africa to buy clothing and coming back to Zimbabwe.”
She chose a different path: “I did not go because I realised if I got married, then I was leaving my grandmother and my little brother alone and I wouldn’t be able to help them any more.
“When I was eight years old I’d told myself, ‘I want to help other young orphans so they do not have to experience what I was experiencing.’ I thought, ‘If I get married, am I achieving that or not?’ And it was clear that was not the way to go. I didn’t go to meet the guy and my relative told me, ‘I tried to help you, you turned that down and from now on you’re pretty much on your own.'”
Green fingers Today things looks very different for Chido Govera. At 28 she is a successful farmer, campaigner and educator with her own foundation, The Future of Hope. She has trained nearly 1 000 people in communities in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania and South Africa. Her work has reached schools and communities in India, Aboriginals in Australia and entrepreneurs in the US and around Europe. The key to this one-woman revolution is mushrooms.
A year after turning down the stranger’s marriage proposal, Govera was among 15 orphan girls in Zimbabwe invited to receive training in mushroom cultivation, supported by the Belgian environmental entrepreneur Gunter Pauli. She had been accustomed to harvesting mushrooms in the bush but this was different: “My grandmother was so knowledgeable that even when she couldn’t see any more she could smell which mushrooms were edible, inedible, poisonous … But to grow them was very strange.”
The group received bags of waste mixed with spores and learned how to manage a mushroom house. In less than a week, mushrooms were growing. When Govera took her first taste of one, it came as a shock. “They were completely different from mushrooms gathered from the forest,” she laughs. “It was a bit like eating a snail. It had sliminess to it and the crunchiness of a snail.”
Soon the group was producing enough to sell, earning money to buy food and pay for the school fees of orphans including Govera’s brother. “You realise that if you can work, you can actually get there step by step, you can put food on your plate,” Govera says. “In this case it was converting waste into food, creating food for the community, but also doing something that no one else in that community was doing. We were unique in that time, doing something that was highly scientific without having studied at all. In my case I’d only done five years of primary-level education. It was like magic.”
The girls’ success made them attractive marriage material and of the 15 taking part, 13 quickly fulfilled society’s expectations by finding husbands. Again, Govera did not. Instead, from the age of 12 to 16, she was to be found in a university laboratory taking advanced studies in what she describes as both the art and science of mushroom cultivation. She continued to hone her expertise during spells in Colombia, Serbia and China.
And in Pauli, she discovered the father figure that had always been missing in her life, most notably when she was being abused and had no one to turn to. “One of my biggest dreams, of course, never having met my father, was to actually have a father.
“The lady who was teaching us in the laboratory sent a message to Gunter Pauli saying, ‘You know what Gunter, we have a girl who’s got green fingers, mushroom fingers, and unlike the others she doesn’t want to get married.’ Then he says, ‘Well, what does she want?’ He was told she needs a father and that’s how he became my daddy.”
‘We are not what happened to us’ As Govera travels the developing world teaching mushroom farming to women and orphans, she is also pioneering new techniques, for example growing mushrooms from coffee grounds for commercial use.
Otherwise she divides her time principally between South Africa and Zimbabwe, a country many still associate with 90-year-old president Robert Mugabe’s authoritarian regime and its ruinous economic policies. “I don’t think I would be doing what I’m doing now in Zimbabwe if I didn’t believe there is a possibility for a change,” she says.
“I strongly believe that, regardless of what is happening in politics – not just in Zimbabwe but in many different parts of the world – if we want to change things, we will need to go to the grassroots and teach them to stand up for themselves, because if we can empower them beyond being a victim of a political situation, then we are making change happen.
“The reason why I go into communities, select groups of young orphans, empower those and bring them back into the communities to inspire change there is because we need to change the way change is viewed. People say politicians or the grownups or the successful ones are going to change things in the country, but I think everyone has a part to contribute.”
Zimbabwe’s politicians are sometimes accused of being imprisoned in the past. This is not something Govera herself could be accused of as she looks back on that 10-year-old who, one Wednesday, decided to take the road less travelled.
“I learned to redefine myself regardless of what happened to me when I was a kid,” she reflects. “I’ve been able to reclaim myself. This is something that’s required for every individual. We are not what happened to us.
“From those experiences there’s some kind of lesson that inspires me to do what I do now, but I’m not back in the moment when I was 10. I’ve dealt with that. I just look at the future with a new hope. I’m 100% sure that I am not going to be one of those women who say, ‘Things are the way they are because I grew up as an orphan.'”
An MSF medical worker feeds a child at an MSF facility in Kailahun on August 15 2014. Kailahun along with Kenama district is at the epicentre of the world’s worst Ebola outbreak. (Pic: AFP)
Hawa Idrisa was visiting her father-in-law in an Ebola ward in eastern Sierra Leone when his drip snapped out and his atrophying veins spurted thin, uncoagulated blood into her eyes and mouth.
She had been carrying her infant daughter Helen but luckily she had laid the child down, otherwise the baby would almost certainly be dead by now.
A single droplet of blood smaller than a full stop can carry up to 100 million particles of the deadly Ebola virus, yet one is enough to end a human life.
“The blood got all over me, and people were running away. So I took a bucket of chlorine and poured it over myself,” Hawa said.
She returned home to forget her ordeal, but a week later she began experiencing fever and headaches, the early symptoms of the Ebola.
Her 12-month-old mercifully tested negative, but her husband Nallo was infected and he and Hawa checked into the Doctors Without Borders’ (MSF) treatment facility in the eastern district of Kailahun.
Hawa spent four weeks drifting between life and death at the centre, in the district capital Kailahan city, a trading post of 30 000 in the Kissi triangle linking to Liberia and Sierra Leone.
“I didn’t know what was happening to me. I didn’t even know where I was. I don’t remember anything from that time,” she told AFP of the ordeal she survived.
Ebola kills more than half of the people it infects, putrifying their insides in the worst cases until their vital organs seep from their bodies.
It is highly infectious but not particularly contagious, meaning that once you are exposed, your chances of escaping the fever are extremely low, although it can only be passed on through bodily fluids.
The good news is that when patients are caught early enough, given paracetamol for their fevers, kept rehydrated and nourished, their chances of survival increase dramatically.
Hawa proudly shows off a certificate saying she has recovered fully, and she is preparing to return home.
“I know there is nothing wrong with my daughter, but my mind and heart will be at the centre with my husband,” she says.
Hardest-hit districts Already more than 2 100 people have been infected across four west African countries, and 1 145 people have died, dwarfing previous Ebola outbreaks.
The epidemic is perhaps worst of all in Sierra Leone, which has registered 810 cases, more than any other country.
A sign warning of the dangers of Ebola outside a government hospital in Freetown on August 13 2014. (Pic: AFP)
The hardest-hit districts, Kailahun and the diamond trading hub of Kenema next door, have been sealed off to ordinary members of the public.
Around a million people in the two districts are in effective lockdown, and locals say soaring food prices are pushing the region towards a crisis.
Local doctors and nurses are fighting not just the disease, but also the distrust of locals who fear modern medical practices.
Relatives have been known to snatch infected loved-ones from clinics to die in their own villages, exacerbating the spread of the virus.
They have even attacked treatment centres – as armed men did in neighbouring Liberia at the weekend – convinced that Ebola is a Western conspiracy against traditional African communities and that foreign healthworkers are in on the secret.
Some 1 500 police and soldiers have been deployed to prevent raids, but they are powerless faced with the suspicion and fear of poorly educated traditional communities.
Many tribespeople at the epicentre of the outbreak either don’t know how to prevent and treat Ebola or do not believe it exists at all.
This, says MSF, is where the survivors come in.
Survivors returning home Ella Watson-Stryker (34), a health promoter with the aid agency, is part of a team taking Hawa and other survivors home to their villages.
She will gather their neighbours and family members around, answer their questions about the virus and try to reassure them that Hawa poses no danger.
“This is very exciting for us. It’s also really beneficial to the overall response to the outbreak because when survivors go home, they can explain about their stay at the centre.
“They give people hope that it is possible to survive and it really builds trust between the community and MSF,” she says.
Watson-Stryker also says that when survivors go back to their communities, people begin to understand that treatment centres are not just “a place where people go to die”.
They are surprised to learn that patients are fed, given unlimited soft drinks, access to toilets, showers and medicine, and that their families are encouraged to visit.
“We try to assuage the fears of the community, because there are a lot of rumours out there, that as soon as you come to the treatment centre you will just be left to die.”
Back at the MSF centre, Nallo enthuses about his future with Hawa and their baby girl, despite remaining in grave danger in the high risk area.
“At first people thought that when they got here, they were going to have all their blood removed and they would die,” he says.
“They have been giving me drugs and I am much better, so when I get back to my community I will tell people that if it ever happens that they get Ebola we advise them to come here.”
Africans have long used technology developed abroad, but now a Kenyan cash transfer network which bypasses banks is being adopted in Europe.
The M-Pesa mobile money transfer system which allows clients to send cash with their telephones has transformed how business is done in east Africa, and is now spreading to Romania.
“From east Africa to eastern Europe, that’s quite phenomenal when you think about it,” Michael Joseph, who heads Vodafone’s Mobile Money business, told AFP in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
“I think that this is something the rest of the world can look at, to say that there are ideas that can emanate out of the developing world, and take it to the developed world.”
M-Pesa – or “mobile money” in east Africa’s Swahili language – was introduced in Kenya in 2007 by Safari.com, the country’s largest mobile telecommunications company, in partnership with British giant Vodafone.
(Pic: AFP)
Since then the service has grown exponentially, with about $40-billion flowing through the service in Kenya alone.
Part of daily life In Kenya, the system has become a part of daily life, with more than 18-million customers, and is used by almost two-thirds of the population with more than eight million transactions daily.
The network allows customers to bypass the traditional banking system, using an application available on the simplest of mobile phones to pay utility bills, buy a drink in a bar, or send cash to family and friends.
Romania is the latest nation Vodafone is tapping, with its first European launch last March.
For Michi Carstoiu, an engineer in the capital Bucharest, M-Pesa complements established online payment services.
“Most importantly, I save time – plus I think the transaction fees are smaller,” Carstoiu told AFP, shortly after activating his mobile phone account at one of the 1 000 outlets already open.
The number of distribution points is expected to triple by the end of the year.
“Everyone has a mobile phone, and it is very simple to send and receive money or make payments,” he added.
Users can charge up their phones by paying in cash at mobile-money agency points, and often at one of the points where they are doing a transaction.
Similarly they can withdraw cash against mobile-money credits at an agency, or when settling a bill, much in the same way as customers in Europe can obtain cash at some supermarkets when using bank cash cards.
Agents are often found in the form of shops or street kiosks.
The outstanding credit can be sent via a special text message to others for a small transaction fee.
African countries using the system include Egypt, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania, and it has also been rolled out in India.
A savings version has been set up as well, allowing those without access to formal banking systems to earn interest on their savings.
The scheme has largely succeeded in Kenya because it meets the needs of millions of people without a bank account who would otherwise operate strictly within a cash economy.
They benefit from a network of M-Pesa agents spread across the country.
Romanians reliant on cash Officials said that Romania was chosen as the European launchpad because many people in the eastern European country still rely on cash.
“The majority of people in Romania have at least one mobile device, but more than one third of the population do not have access to conventional banking,” Joseph said.
He is targeting seven million potential Romanian customers who operate in cash alone, and the company aims to reach 300 000 customers by the year’s end.
More than $1.2 billion worth of person-to-person transactions are sent on the system each month worldwide, according to Vodafone.
In Kenya, transactions can be as small as a single cent or as much as $1 600, while in Romania up to $9 000 can be sent each day.
Moving beyond emerging markets means adapting to fresh challenges however.
The operator will face different regulatory environments, and consumers who already have access to a wide range of financial services.
For Kenyans, where the network is used for everything from paying for grocery shopping and restaurant tabs to sending cash to relatives in remote regions, the spread abroad has given some a sense of pride.
In a way, the M-Pesa system has taken banking full circle, back to the founding principles of Venetian banking when money changers began keeping ledgers of credits and debits for traders who did not want to carry gold and silver with them.
These money dealers set up networks of correspondents, or agents, who ran parallel ledgers, enabling traders who otherwise had no “banking” system, to settle accounts, paying in or drawing out cash only when necessary.
“Technology that started out in Kenya is being exported to Europe,” said 24-year-old Rhoda Kibuchi, who runs an M-Pesa outlet in Nairobi. “It’s good news.”
