Category: Lifestyle

Lights out for movie houses in Libya

Movie posters are seen inside the Omar al-Mokhtar cinema, also known as Paradise, the only cinema still showing movies in the Libyan capital Tripoli on August 26 2015. (Pic: AFP)

The Libyan capital once boasted grand movie houses that packed in smartly dressed couples for a special night out, but how times have changed.

Today, the sole major cinema left in Tripoli is a men-only zone stripped of glamour, offering a diet of violence-packed films and blunt warnings that women are not welcome.

And the city’s old epithet, “Mermaid of the Mediterranean”, jars sharply with what has become a mainly Islamist-run capital of a country plagued by conflict and political chaos.

The rot started even before the 2011 revolution that ousted longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, and has since seen movie houses bolt their doors one after the other.

Today’s lone silver screen is the Omar al-Khayyam, where a sign tells women to stay away: “Access is formally banned because there are people who indulge in acts contrary to customs and religion.”

Films full of blood and violence like “Scarface” and “Die Hard” pass muster with the militias that have controlled the city since August 2014, driving Libya’s elected parliament and internationally recognised government to take refuge in the far east of the country.

It was not always so, Tripoli residents insist, recalling the city’s former cultural diversity.

In the pre-Kadhafi glory days for cinema-goers, there were no less than 20 movie theatres — and some live on in the memory of locals.

‘Elegant and majestic’

“In the 1960s, we used to live near the Arena Giardino (outdoor cinema) and all I had to do was lean on the window on the second floor to watch the films,” said Abdelmonem Sbeta, a geologist and active member of a post-Kadhafi civil society group.

“Cinema was the reward at the end of the week, but we all had to get dressed to the hilt. That was the rule for everyone, for Muslim and Jewish Libyans, Italians, Europeans and Americans.”

“My best memories of cinemas in Tripoli go back to 1974 when my parents took me to watch ‘The Tamarind Seed’ (a British-US film with Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif).

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a beautiful theatre, not even in Europe,” said Karima Leguel, an Anglo-Libyan who was an impressionable nine-year-old at the time, now a mother-of-two.

“Everything was so elegant and majestic: the velvet seats, the decorated curtains and the precious wood-panelling.”

In 1969, the bloodless coup which overthrew Libya’s monarchy and brought Colonel Kadhafi to power swept away the old order.

Under his rule, the cinema was seen as both frivolous and superfluous. Businesses were nationalised and foreign movies were equivalent to a “cultural invasion”.

“Tripoli without cinemas was the beginning of the end for us because it was on a par with the decline of Libya,” said Leguel.

‘Bruce Lee was our hero’

The Royal cinema, renamed Al-Shaab (The People) during Kadhafi’s initial drive toward his brand of Arab nationalism in the North African state, used to stand near Martyrs’ Square in downtown Tripoli. Now it is empty, waiting to be converted into a parking lot.

“For people in the area, the cinema was all we had for distraction,” recalled Mohamed Kamel, owner of a busy local coffee shop.

“When we were children, we would wait eagerly to go see an Indian or karate movie. Bruce Lee was our hero,” he said, harking back to the days of Kadhafi’s Libya when such movies were all that were on offer — driving many to DVDs and satellite channels.

Others, like 39-year-old graphic artist Wael Garamalli, have less fond memories.

“I went to a cinema on December 24 Street in the 80s to see a karate movie. I felt so uncomfortable, it was like being locked up with a bunch of yobs. Nothing like the audiences of my parents’ time.”

But for Leguel, whatever the films on offer, “a city without cinemas is inconceivable”.

In a country whose troubles appear far from over, geologist Sbeta, meanwhile, remains optimistic.

“No one can take away this city’s joie de vivre, its elegance and its desire to move forward,” he said. “It’s part of the DNA in all of us in Tripoli.”

9 years ago

Gorillas not guerrillas: Tourism hope in troubled Congo

Mountain gorillas in the Virunga National Park, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, August 1, 2015. (AFP)

Tourists perch perilously on a volcano’s edge as swirling smoke belches from the fiery cauldron of lava below, the latest unlikely visitors holidaying in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.

Below, sounding like a roaring sea, spurts of molten rock fly high into the air, as one of the world’s largest lava lakes and most active volcanos puts on its mesmerising show.

Eastern DRC has been mired for decades in rebel battles, but such sights are helping bring tourists back to Virunga National Park, which reopened last year after the battle lines shifted in its favour.

Surrounding misty forests in green hills of the vast park — stretching for 7 800 square kilometres — are home to a quarter of the world’s critically endangered mountain gorillas.

The tourists are vital: the income they bring funds the park’s survival.

“The frontlines, they were down there,” one porter says, peering down from the volcano through the jungles towards the lights of the lakeside city of Goma, some 20 kilometres southwards, referring to a rebel force who briefly took control in late 2012.

Nyiragongo, a 3 470 metre peak and a steep and stiff five-hour hike from lush rain forests, is part of a chain of volcanoes in one of the world’s most active regions.

Tourism ‘vital’ to Virunga’s future

“Holiday on Mount Doom,” said Fabian, a teenage Belgian tourist visiting with his mother, referring to the volcano in the fantasy world of British author JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings epic.

“Some things can only be believed by seeing,” he added quietly, peering down from the cliff’s edge in hushed awe at the raging fire below, the night sky turned red from the glowing lava.

The tourist industry in the region — needed to keep the Unesco world heritage site running and its animal inhabitants safe — collapsed in 2012.

Militia forces remain active, and Virunga’s chief warden Emmanuel de Merode was himself wounded by gunmen by 2014.

But the well-trained and armed guides say it is now safe, and visitors are coming back. For tourists, an hour with a gorilla family costs $400, while a night on the volcano costs $250.

Tourism revenue is “vital” to the future of Virunga, helping to benefit some four million people in and around the vast park, as well as “peace and prosperity” in general, said Merode.

It gives people an alternative income than cutting down the forests for charcoal, and a motivation to protect the park.

“Every tourist that visits Virunga is contributing,” Merode said.

In 2011, more than 3 000 visitors came to Virunga, but violence forced the park shut the next year, and only fully reopening in late 2014.

Tourist numbers have bounced back, with almost 3 000 visiting already so far this year, bringing in much needed revenues to pay rangers.

A total of 16 tourists can hike up the mountain a day — on a recent trip in torrential rain and hail storms up the peak, a dozen tourists took part, with nationalities including Americans, Belgians, British and Israelis.

The last major eruption in 2002 saw fast flowing lava devastate the Goma, covering the city of around a million in a river of molten rock flowing as fast as 100 kilometres an hour.

Oscar-nominated 2014 documentary Virunga — which showed the efforts to protect Africa’s oldest national park from war, poachers and oil companies — has also brought back tourists.

‘I saw how the Earth was born’

“We saw the film, and said, we have to see that,” said Jacques, a Belgian businessman working in Congo, after trekking into the steamy jungles to see the gorillas, the symbol of the park.

Rangers communicate with the gorillas, exchanging heavy grunts to reassure the groups, including the massive male “silverback” weighing an estimated 160 kilos.

“With each person coming to visit Virunga, there is a little bit more hope that things will get better,” said Mélanie Gouby, a French investigative journalist, whose work to expose oil company expansion into the park is a key part of the film.

“It’s wonderful that so many tourists have come back in such a short time after the end of the conflict — to hear that the documentary is part of the reason why they are coming to Virunga is both incredibly exciting and humbling,” Gouby added.

As night falls and temperatures drop below freezing, the warmth from the molten lava warms the hands of the tourists, dangling their legs over the sheer drop into the crater, watching plate tectonics in action.

“I saw how the Earth was born,” one entry from an American couple read in the park’s visitor’s book. “How often can you climb a mountain and come back with an understanding of how we are all here?” – By Peter Martell

9 years ago

South African black doll breaks the mould in high style

Maite Makgoba, the founder of Childish Trading and Manufacturing (AFP)

She is black and trendy, and young South African girls are learning to love her.

Meet Momppy Mpoppy, who is a step ahead of other black dolls across Africa who are often dressed in traditional ethnic clothes.

Decked out in the latest fashions and sporting an impressive Afro, complete with a tiara, Momppy could play her own small part in changing the way that black children look at themselves.

Maite Makgoba, founder of Childish Trading and Manufacturing, said she started her small business after realising that black dolls available on the market “did not appeal to children”.

“They were frumpy and unattractive, some in traditional attire. That is not the reality of today,” said the 26-year-old entrepreneur.

The dolls are assembled in China, but the real work starts in Makgoba’s tiny workspace in downtown Johannesburg, where they are styled and packaged before they are sent to independent distributors.

Inside the two-room warehouse, miniature pieces of clothing are sewn and pressed by hand. Appearance is everything.

Eye-catching ballerina skirts, denim pants and “on trend” jumpsuits with bright high heels are some of the items in Momppy Mpoppy’s impressive wardrobe.

Among the different Mpoppy outfits are “Denim Dungaree Delicious”, “Rockstar Tutu”, “Mohawk Fro” and “Seshweshwe Fabolous” — with each doll costing R180 rand.

To complete the experience, the company also makes matching clothes for girls who own the doll.

“This is more than just a business, we are creating awareness, that our dark skin and thick Afro hair are pretty as they are,” said Makgoba.

“We want kids to see beauty in Mpoppy, to see themselves while playing with her.

“Dolls are often white, people in magazines are white, even in a country like South Africa where the majority are black.

“Black children are confronted with growing up in a world that does not represent them, everything is skewed towards whiteness.”

Body image
Makgoba admits that the fledging company which she started in 2013 faces a stiff competition from established toy brands, but she was encouraged by the “overwhelming response” from buyers.

“Parents and children have quickly taken to the doll. But we still need to convince large retailers to sell our brand,” she said, declining to reveal exact sales numbers.

Nokuthula Maseko, a 30-year-old mother of two, said her children had “fallen in love with the unusual doll” after she came across it on social media — the company’s biggest marketing tool.

“I like the fact that the doll looks like my kids, in a world where the standards of beauty are often liked to Caucasian features,” said Maseko.

“The kids love the doll.”

“This is a big social movement … it can help prevent body image insecurity among children,” she added.

But the Johannesburg mother said she was not in a hurry to throw away her kid’s white dolls.

“At school they play with their white friends, so this is my idea of maintaining that realism, so that they are aware of different races and not that everything is just white and only looks a certain way,” she said.

Black dolls are not new, but the African market has for a long time been flooded with white dolls, creating an image of porcelain skin perfection with long shiny tresses.

The iconic 57-year-old Barbie range has dominated global sales, selling over one million a week globally — including a selection of black dolls.

It’s a tough challenge to build a brand name for start-up companies like Makgoba’s and others such as Queen of Africa, a popular black doll from Nigeria who is kitted out in ethnic attire.

According to Johannesburg child psychologist Melita Heyns, toys have a long-term influence on children.

“It’s not just entertainment … dolls are a big part of a girl child’s life, it’s important that such toys help build a child’s character and self-esteem,” said Heyns.

Mpoppy’s creators plan to export to neighbouring African countries, changing young mindsets one doll at a time. – By Sibongile Khumalo

9 years ago

Pilgrims cast prayers to the skies from Algeria mountain peak

Pilgrims climb the Azro Nethor peak in the Djurdjura Mountain rangeto reach “el-Jammaa Oufella” (the upstairs mosque). (Pic: AFP)

Determined to rise high enough for their prayers to be heard, climbers defy the stifling summer heat to conquer a summit in Algeria’s northern Kabylie region.

They are women desperate for children, youth seeking jobs, and the sick hoping for a cure.

At the heart of this restive Berber-speaking region, Azro Nethor – the zenith prayer rock – towers at 1 884 metres above sea level, at the end of a steep path in the Atlas Mountains, an exhausting, giddy climb up the rocky mountain side.

Thousands of people climb the peak every year to perform prayers hoping “the saints” will answer their pleas. (Pic: AFP)

On the rock’s summit sits El-Jammaa Oufella (The Mosque at the Top), a small, stark place of worship. Inside, slim candles light the alcoves in its white walls.

For three successive Fridays each August, thousands of people from across Kabylie, and even from the capital Algiers, flock to the mountain peak, wheezing in the suffocating heat, for a pilgrimage rooted in a belief in the powers of holy men.

Islam does not recognise any intermediaries between God and men, but the cult of holy figures remains deeply rooted in Algeria, despite orthodox Muslims fighting to curb the practice.

Before the Bamiyan Buddhas were blown up in Afghanistan in 2001 and the Timbuktu mausoleums destroyed in Mali a decade later, armed Islamist groups in the 1990s destroyed many of the holy sanctuaries that dot the Algerian landscape.

Miracle men

Across the North African country, there is hardly a town or village that does not have at least one mausoleum, like that of Sidi Abderrahman, Algiers’ patron saint.

A pilgrim lights a candle inside the mosque. (Pic: AFP)

Azro Nethor is named after a legend passed down over the centuries. It says that an elderly wise man topped the mountain peak just as the sun reached its zenith and died there as he finished his midday prayer.

The wise man, said to have received God’s blessing, has since made endless apparitions in the villages dotted along these mountain crests.

His blessing has saved numerous local residents from grief, according to the legend, and once even a plate of couscous that hurtled all the way down the mountain without losing a single grain.

Since, a giant plate of couscous has been offered up to visitors at each pilgrimage, with dozens of sheep slaughtered for the occasion. Pilgrims quench their thirst at a spring said to have purifying properties.

At the foot of the mountain, in the shade of a tent, faith healers offer hope to those who have come to consult them.

Couples, young women and children place their head under a piece of fabric to hear a prayer.

“Next year, you will come back here with a husband on your arm and in two years’ time you will return with a child,” one healer promises a young woman, whose face bursts into a smile.

“I have been coming here since I was 20,” says a woman in her 70s who has made the journey from Larbaa Nath Irahen, some 50 kilometres from the sanctuary.

“The first time, I prayed for a husband, then to have children – and then for peace,” she says, referring to a civil war between the state and Islamist insurgents that abated in the late 1990s.

“The saints heard my prayers and they were all granted, which is why I always come back,” she says, her face beaming.

Prayers cast across the sea

Women make up the majority of those who come to climb the mountain, some launching calls to children snatched up by lives abroad, convinced that their voice will travel across the mountains and the nearby Mediterranean Sea.

A pilgrim lights a candle inside the mosque. (Pic: AFP)

Three years ago, 62-year-old doctor Mohamed came with his ailing mother, who was desperate for news from a child living in Italy. Her plea rose up to the skies and her son came home within days.

But it was the doctor who had begged his younger brother to make the journey, he says.

“My mother died relieved, convinced that her cry had reached Italy,” he recounts on his latest visit to the mountain, choking with emotion.

Like the doctor, youth huddling in groups nearby do not believe in these tall tales either. Many here say the annual pilgrimages were actually established as a pretext for match-making.

“The legend was made up by a feminist before his time, in revolt at the fate of young women in these mountains,” one explains.

“They were prisoners inside their fathers’ homes and had little chance of marrying outside their tribe’s circle. With the start of the legend, they could finally come to Azro Nethor where they could be seen by men from other villages and increase their chances of marrying,” he says.

“Today, we also come hoping to meet someone nice.”

9 years ago

Ivorians ignore ban on skin-lightening creams

Skin whitening products for sale at a boutique at the Marche de Marcory in Abidjan. (Pic: AFP)

At just 26, Fatou’s skin is marbled from layer on layer of whitening cream. Some even call her a “salamander” woman after the little reptile with light spots and translucent skin.

But nothing can stop the hairdresser in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital Abidjan from using the skin-lightening cream in her quest for a paler complexion.

“I love light skin,” Fatou said. “I can’t stop.”

Many Ivorian women – as well as more and more men – are using creams with dangerous chemicals for depigmentation, despite government attempts to stop the practice.

In late April, Côte d’Ivoire banned whitening creams because of the negative health effects associated with them, ranging from white spots and acne to cancer.

If applied liberally, the cosmetics can also cause high blood pressure and diabetes, according to Professor Elidje Ekra, a dermatologist at Abidjan’s Treichville university hospital.

The banned products include creams containing mercury, certain steroids, vitamin A, or with hydroquinone levels above two percent.

Hydroquinone is often used in black and white photography and is banned as a skin-lightening ingredient in Europe as it is considered a potential carcinogen.

The dangers don’t seem to deter consumers, though.

Pressure from men

While no official statistics are available, “tchatchos” – or those with lightened skin, often recognisable by their darker knuckles and elbows — are omnipresent in Abidjan.

Businesses continue to sell the whitening products, because they know people will continue to buy them despite the risks.

“We know that our lightening products are dangerous,” an executive for an Ivorian cosmetic company said, adding that a ban would be counterproductive.

“It would push consumers to make their own products, which would be even worse.

“At least we know the composition.”

Some women say that it’s societal pressure – particularly from men – that forces them to lighten their skin.

“It’s men that push women to become lighter,” said Marie-Grace Amani, who has been whitening her skin for the past four years.

Côte d’Ivoire’s Health Minister Raymonde Goudou Coffie agrees.

Ivorian men “love women who shine in the night”, she told AFP. “They bring light and glow in the bedroom.”

Measure still an ’empty shell’

Three months after the new law was introduced – which could entail a fine of 50 000 to 350 000 CFA francs (US$83 to $585) for violators – salons are still advertising their lightening products.

Whitening soaps with names like “Glow and White” and “Body White” leave little doubt as to their intended use.

“After raising awareness, we will move to the next phase of removing products from the market,” Coffie said.

A national evaluation and marketing authorisation committee has been set up to ensure implementation of the measures, but one of the biggest fights could be against cultural beauty standards.

Lightened faces continue to proliferate on billboards in Abidjan, with the featured models flaunting fair skin.

Ekra says that while it’s a great initiative, the text is still an “empty shell”.

“We see women on national television who use the corrosive products,” said Ekra.

“Do those that enforce the measure even respect it?”

If people want to lighten their skin, experts say they’ll always find a way to do it.

“We tell people it’s not good for their health, but if they find something good there… we cannot forbid someone to do what they wish,” said Paul Aristide Kadia, who sells the products.

The practice is not only present in Côte d’Ivoire but widespread elsewhere in Africa, as well as in large parts of Asia.

In nearby Senegal, people mobilised against skin lightening in 2013, but failed to get a ban on products.