No one in Mandla Maseko’s family has ever stepped outside South Africa, but the young township DJ is set to rocket into space next year.
From the dusty district of Mabopane, near Pretoria, 25-year-old Maseko has landed a coveted seat to fly 103-kilometres into space in 2015, after winning a competition organised by a US-based space academy.
He beat off a million other entrants from 75 countries to be selected as one of 23 people who will travel on an hour-long sub-orbital trip on the Lynx Mark II spaceship.
The former civil engineering student – who was forced to put his studies on hold because he could not pay the fees – will experience zero gravity and a journey that normally comes with a $100 000 price tag.
Unless a rich black African books a tourist space ticket and blasts off before next year, Maseko will become the first black African to enter space.
Mandla Maseko. (Pic: AFP)
The “typical township boy”, who still lives at home with his parents and four siblings, was named one of the winners on December 5, only a few hours after the death of the country’s first black president, Nelson Mandela.
He said he immediately thought of such “firsts”, not only Mandela but also Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States.
In his exhilaration, he also imagined a conversation with Mandela.
“I have run the race and completed the course, now here is the torch’, ” Maseko thought the president would have told him. ” ‘Continue running the race and here’s the title to go with it, go be the first black South African to space’.”
His improbable journey from a middle-class township to the thermosphere began with a leap from a wall.
The initial entry requirement for the competitors was to submit a photograph of themselves jumping from any height.
His first choice was the roof of his parents’ three-bedroom house but his mother Ouma said “no”, fearing it was too high and that he would break his legs.
He settled for the house’s two-metre perimeter wall and a friend captured the feat using a mobile phone.
The picture has helped propel Maseko, who works part-time as a DJ at parties, to new heights.
He finally secured his seat on the rocket after gruelling physical and aptitude tests in the contest organised by AXE Apollo Space Academy and sponsored by Unilever and space tourism firm Space Expedition Corporation (SXC).
It was a dream come true for a man from a humble background.
His family says they never doubted the one-time altar boy at a local Anglican church, who now sings with a local township gospel choir, would be a high-flier.
“While I was pregnant with Mandla, I knew I was going to give birth to a star,” said Maseko’s mother.
His 18-year-old sister Mhlophe agrees: “I don’t know what comes after space. I’m sure if there was something he would go.”
Born to a school cleaner and an auto tool maker in Soshanguve township near Pretoria, Maseko has neighbours high-fiving him for putting South Africa’s townships on the “galactic map”.
His long-term plans are to study aeronautical engineering and qualify as a space mission specialist with the ultimate dream of planting the South African flag on the moon.
South Africa’s Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom sees Maseko “as a role model to the future generation of space professionals and enthusiasts”.
His experience could not have come at a better time “when Africa is gearing up its space ambitions” as host to the world’s biggest and most powerful radio astronomy telescope, said Hanekom.
The director of that project, Bernie Fanaroff, also hailed young Maseko as an ambassador for science.
“Anything that raises the profile of science up there must be good because it brings to the attention of young people what they can achieve in science and engineering.”
Curious young neighbours often stop Maseko’s 13-year-old sister Mantombi on her way home from school and ask, “What is space? what is space?”
“A very unique place,” she tells them. “Space is a very special place.”
Maseko spent a week at the Kennedy Space Academy in Florida where he skydived and undertook air combat and G-force training.
While there he met and posed for pictures with US astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who was the second man ever to set foot on the moon after Neil Armstrong as part of the 1969 Apollo 11 space mission.
For Maseko, the encounter was magical.
“This is how it feels to be out in space,” he recalls thinking. – Sapa-AFP
The party had just started when the gunshot pierced the music. Instantly the men scattered, knowing what it meant: a police raid.
They had gathered in a hotel in the northern Nigerian state of Bauchi, renting out almost a whole floor for a surprise birthday party. But in the minaret-dotted city, where sharia in theory requires gay men to be stoned to death, such stolen moments are fraught. Someone had tipped off the Hisbah – the religious police.
As officials stormed in on that night in 2007, John (not his real name) felt numb with fear. He ran to a room, switched off the lights and crawled under the bed. “They checked room by room. They opened the door and flashed a flashlight, but they thought it was empty.” They arrested 18 others.
A week later, John went to Friday prayers at the mosque. He prayed for 18 of his friends who faced sodomy charges in a sharia court. He prayed for their lawyer, who was forced to sneak into the first hearing via a side door as a mob threatened to stone him for defending “gay marriage”. He prayed for strength to do what he had decided to do next.
“That incident really gave us the courage to start doing something. We couldn’t hide any more,” recalls John. And so, in one of the most conservative states in Nigeria, he started holding underground meetings with other gay people. They supported each other when neighbours accused them of being “demons”. Sometimes money was pooled together to pay bail or buy condoms, handed out to those who couldn’t afford them. Mainly, though, they helped each other cross the lonely horizon of living each day in denial, finding solace in mutual acceptance.
For years, they gathered in secret. But last week Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, signed the same-sex marriage (prohibition) bill, unleashing a wave of homophobia that threatens to sweep away seven years spent building a fragile haven. The far-reaching law targets not only homosexuals but also those who support their rights, or who fail to report gay people. At least 40 arrests last week swelled the number of those incarcerated to almost 200 across Nigeria, rights groups told the Observer.
One by one, John and his friends fled the city.
“More than 90% of Nigerians are opposed to same-sex marriage. So, the law is in line with our cultural and religious beliefs as a people,” said Reuben Abati, the presidential spokesperson. The president’s approval ratings soared after months of dismal news about corruption, political violence and a radical Islamist insurgency in the north.
Nigeria is one of 78 countries worldwide where homosexuality is illegal, according to UNAids. (Pic: Reuters)
From his location in hiding, John thinks about what to do next. “I’m not comfortable here at all. I cannot stay here doing nothing.”
In a hotel room in the capital, Abuja, two women in hijabs are visiting Dorothy Aken’ova to buy goods considered contraband: sex toys. Providing a rare place where society women feel comfortable enough to buy roleplay lingerie without being judged is just one way Aken’ova tries to liberate her sexually repressed country. Another is hiring lawyers to defend men or women arrested for being gay.
The mother of three has filled her week with phone calls, trying to find lawyers willing to represent those in detention. One man was arrested after his landlord said it was suspicious he shared a flat with another man.
“The lawyers who accept these jobs will charge the skin on your bum. But then the cost of armed guards to accompany them isn’t cheap,” Aken’ova sighs, before telling the two giggling women the price for bottles of massage oil.
Money – sometimes out of Aken’ova’s own pocket – is no longer the biggest problem. Simply persuading someone to take up cases is much harder, with many fearing they will be targeted by association. “As soon as I mention gender minority rights, people ask me: ‘Are you a lesbian?’ You can tell they’re willing to immediately dissociate with you if you answer in the affirmative,” says Aken’ova, whose quick smile blossoms as brightly as the tattooed flower on her right biceps.
Such reactions are common across Africa, where populist bills have cracked down on homosexuality, often tightening colonial-era laws. International pressure against such moves has fuelled anti-gay sentiment, with leaders using anger at perceived western interference as an escape valve. The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, last week said gay people were the product of “random breeding” in the west when “nature goes wrong”, but blocked an anti-gay bill after months of pressure from international donors. Unlike Uganda, about half of whose budget is supplied by western donors, Nigeria is flush with petrodollars and can defy such pressure.
For campaigners, the problem starts with the title of the bill. “People read it and think: OK, I agree with this. They don’t question what else is inside that bill,” says Aken’ova, who has never heard of anyone campaigning for gay marriage. “It’s not [just] anti-gay people; it’s anti-people.”
Last year, a lawmaker said of the bill: “You have a right to your sexual preference but by trying to turn it into marriage do you realise you could be infringing on the human rights of the other person who finds it repulsive?”
So far, they haven’t been the victims. Last week Ibrahim Marafaa, a 47-year-old teacher who was arrested before the bill was signed, was publicly flogged and fined 5 000 naira (£20) after “confessing to his abnormality”.
“If he feels an injustice has been done, he has the right to appeal within 30 days,” said Alhassan Zakaria, the sharia lawyer who oversaw the whipping.
Down south, too, floggings aren’t uncommon. Lagos-based rights worker Olumide Makanjuola recounts how a friend of his agreed to be flogged in a bid to “whip the devil out of him”. “He just wanted to stop being the subject of hatred,” Makanjuola says, very softly.
Immaculately dressed and dreadlocked, he talks energetically, at incredible speed, despite several nights awake fielding dozens of phone calls.
Earlier he spent an hour talking to family members to reassure them about his safety. Then two friends called to say they’re leaving the country. One, a doctor, asked if he could be prosecuted for treating gay patients.
Last year Makanjuola documented a case where four men suspected of being gay were publicly stripped, beaten, tied together and paraded naked in a south-western village. The police said they had no evidence of the incident, captured on camera by a jeering mob, but opened investigations to find out if the men were “sodomites”.
Makanjuola refuses to believe the mob’s anger was about homosexuality which, he says, was a scapegoat for their desperation in a country where mismanagement and corruption have left most people jobless and poor.
“They’re a clear example of people who are frustrated by the system. But they should be directing it at our leaders who are buying houses in London and Dubai using looted funds,” he says.
Others have little truck with that argument. “Being gay is due to lack of parental care,” says Abdullahi Sani, a policeman who took time off work to attend the lashing in Bauchi. “Twenty lashes is child’s play compared to the offence. The victim has ceased to be a normal human being. He has lost sight of God.”
It’s in this climate John has worked to forge his place in the world. And life was beginning to make sense, he says.
His goal was clear: to act as a point man in a quiet but growing underground movement. This despite his father sitting him down last month and telling him about a gay friend who had recently been beaten up, to stop “associating with that gay boy”.
“I’ll try but it’s not good to suddenly start avoiding a friend. He’s a human being,” John told him.
Once, his mother, who died last year, took him aside. “She told me: People will always talk. Forget about them. Just be careful and concentrate on your studies,” he recalls. “She loved me so much because I was the last-born son,” he says, his voice breaking.
John tries to remember that advice now, sometimes turning to Aken’ova as a mother figure. Earlier in the day he called her and said he wanted to return home. “Just stay where you are until things calm down,” she told him gently.
But the longing to be among his friends, including those released from jail, is unbearable. “I just want to be with them. Even if it’s just for 30 minutes.” Besides, he wants to get information to pass to the lawyer. He will return to the city under cover of nightfall. He will go to meet the parents of one of the jailed men, and help them with bail money. Do I think that’s a good idea?
Love can make you do crazy things, I say. “Yes,” he agrees despondently.
After a pause, he speaks again. “But if people can learn to hate, do you think they can learn to love?”
Sixty years after Humphrey Bogart steered her through crocodile infested waters, the African Queen is back plying the Nile.
Lovingly restored, the boat is operated by Cam McLeay, a New Zealand adventurer and Nile enthusiast, and took its first passengers for a ride in December.
“The African Queen belongs on the Nile. So it is so important to have the boat back home over 60 years after the film was made,” McLeay told AFP.
Cam McLeay stands on his boat with his colleagues on the shores of the River Nile in Jinja, Uganda. He bought the boat, made it functional and will use it to offer cruises on the river Nile in Jinja. (Pic: AFP)
In 1950 Bogart and Katherine Hepburn flew into Uganda together with a huge team from Hollywood to shoot the movie of the same name.
The film told the story of a prim missionary and a gruff adventurer, the captain of the African Queen – two totally different characters – who in true silver screen fashion end up falling in love despite the odds.
Hepburn wrote a frothy account of the making of the African Queen, which was shot between Uganda and neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, subtitled “How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Houston and almost lost my mind”.
Based on a 1934 novel by C.S. Forester, the movie was set during World War I in German-occupied east Africa.
“There were actually two of these boats, one of them was in Congo and this is the Nile’s African Queen,” explained McLeay, who recounts his love affair with the Nile.
“I’m very attached to the Nile. I’ve travelled the full length of the river, from the Mediterranean to the source in Nyungwe,” the father of three recounted. “I’ve been up and down the river for 16 years.”
Back in the 1990s he set up a rafting company in Uganda’s Jinja area, and then had an eco-lodge built on an island in the river.
McLeay says he wants his projects to be sustainable – from both an economic and an environmental point of view.
He then started thinking about a river boat to do trips and sundowner cruises for tourists, showcasing the scenery and the very varied birdlife.
“Just on this section here, we have over 100 species of birds. It’s just beautiful to be on the river here at the sunset on the Equator,” he told AFP.
McLeay learned of the existence of the African Queen when on holiday on Kenya’s island of Lamu, where traditional Arabic-style sailing dhows with lateen sails are common.
“I was looking for an authentic African boat to run on the Nile and I was thinking of buying a Swahili dhow,” he recounted.
“Then this hotel owner said: ‘Why don’t you buy the African Queen? She’s from Uganda!'”
A week later McLeay had gone to Nairobi and tracked down Yank Evans, a septuagenarian who explained how he had found the hull of the boat abandoned in northern Uganda’s Murchison Falls national park 20 years earlier and had done it up.
When he left Uganda for Kenya he brought the boat with him.
Another five years went by between the boat’s return to the banks of the Nile and the start of services on the river.
One of the challenges was to rebuild the steam engine, which was more than 100 years old.
In the movie, directed by John Huston and released in 1951, the boat was powered by a diesel engine that was made to look like a steam engine.
But when Evans restored it he decided to fit a real steam engine and had one airfreighted from Britain.
“When we got this boat, the boiler had been sitting around for a very long time,” explained Gavin Fahey, the African Queen’s captain and mechanic, adding that he had to strip down the engine and re-machine it.
McLeay explains that he has tried to recreate an atmosphere of times gone by on board his African Queen, the time when huge tracts of Africa were – for Western adventurers at least – still virgin territory waiting to be explored.
“Gavin wears the same kind of clothes as Humphrey Bogart. We have adopted the fez for the waiters, which is associated with the Sudan, where the Nile makes most of his journey,” McLeay said.
“And we are serving gin and tonics, like Humphrey Bogart drank in the movie.”
Keeping the engine fed with wood has virtually no environmental impact, McLeay says, since he is using wood left over from a construction project, and he has planted trees to ensure supply when that stock runs out.
“It’s probably more environmental friendly then a modern boat,” he says. – Sapa-AFP
Can you make a film from scratch in two days? Contestants in the 48 Hour Film Project recently held in Nairobi did just that. On Friday November 29, 200 budding filmmakers from across the capital were put into teams, made to choose a genre out of a hat, and got to work writing scripts, shooting and editing. They were also given a prop, a character, and a line of dialogue that had to be included in their film.
All of the films that were submitted on Sunday night screened to sold-out audiences at Century Cinemax, The Junction on December 11 and 12. With genres ranging from horror to thriller and romance, audience members were spoilt for choice as they got to cast their vote for “Best Film – Audience Choice”. That honour went to Dead Wrong.
With a booming economy in Nigeria and more black children than anywhere else in the world, Taofick Okoya was dismayed some years ago when he couldn’t find a black doll for his niece.
The 43-year-old spotted a gap in the market and with little competition from foreign firms such as Mattel Inc, the maker of Barbie, he set up his own business. He outsourced manufacturing of doll parts to low-cost China, assembled them onshore and added a twist – traditional Nigerian costumes.
Seven years on, Okoya sells between 6 000 and 9 000 of his “Queens of Africa” and “Naija Princesses” a month, and reckons he has 10-15 percent of a small but fast-growing market.
“I like it,” said five year-old Ifunanya Odiah, struggling to contain her excitement as she checked out one of Okoya’s dolls in a Lagos shopping mall. “It’s black, like me.”
Dolls dressed in local attire are arranged on a table at a workshop in Surulere district, in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos. (Pic: Reuters)
While multinational companies are flocking to African markets, Okoya’s experience suggests that, in some areas at least, there is still an opportunity for domestic businesses to establish themselves by using local knowledge to tap a growing, diverse and increasingly sophisticated middle class.
There’s no doubt about Nigeria’s economic potential. Economist Jim O’Neill has this year popularised it as one of the “MINT” countries – alongside Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey – that he sees as successors to the first wave of emerging markets he dubbed the Brics (Brazil, Russia and India and China).
With around 170-million people, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country by far, and its economy is growing at about 7 percent, vying with South Africa as the continent’s largest.
Several multinational firms have been here for years. Drinks group Diageo, for example, now sells more Guinness in Nigeria than in the beer’s traditional home market of Ireland. South African grocer Shoprite has seven profitable stores in Nigeria and plans to roll out hundreds.
While Western economies struggle, the appeal of emerging markets for toymakers is clear. Between 2006 and 2011, developed countries saw toy sales grow just 1 percent a year, versus 13 percent in emerging markets, according to Euromonitor data.
But in Nigeria, basic goods aside, consumerism is in its infancy, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs.
“When it comes to sectors like spirits or beer, or even cement, all the international players are already there,” said Andy Gboka, London-based equity analyst at Exotix LLP Partners.
“Other sectors, such as toys or less-developed industries, provide a huge potential for local companies.”
Tailored to local tastes Mattel, the world’s largest toy company, has been selling black dolls for decades, but said its presence in sub-Saharan Africa was “very limited”. Furthermore, the firm does not “have any plans for expansion into this region to share at this time,” according to spokesperson Alan Hilowitz.
There are good reasons for foreign companies to be cautious.
While Nigeria sees thousands of births every day, two thirds of children are born into families unable to afford anything off the shelves of most toy shops.
Multinationals also cite poor infrastructure and corrupt port authorities as reasons for steering clear.
South Africa’s Woolworths pulled out of Nigeria last year, blaming supply chain problems, though analysts said it also misread the local clothes market.
The longer companies such as Mattel wait, however, the more time Okoya has to build his business and shape consumer tastes.
At a small factory in Lagos’ Surulere suburb, his workers stitch brightly patterned West African fabrics into miniature dresses and “geles” – traditional head gear.
Nigeria’s three largest ethnic groups of Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa are represented in the “Queens of Africa” range so far, highlighting the growing sophistication of consumers – and the need to tailor products to local tastes.
The dolls go for between 1 300 Nigerian naira to the special edition 3500 naira ($22), while cheaper “Naija Princesses” sell for 500 to 1 000 naira apiece. Okoya makes a profit margin of about one third, and as well as selling at home, is increasingly shipping to the United States and Europe.
He plans dolls from other African ethnic groups, and is in talks with South Africa’s Game, owned by Massmart, a part of Wal-Mart, to sell to 70 shops across Africa.
Like Barbies, Okoya’s dolls are slim, despite the fact that most of Africa abhors the Western ideal of stick-thin models.
Okoya said his early templates were larger bodied, and the kids didn’t like them. But he still hopes to change that.
“For now, we have to hide behind the ‘normal’ doll. Once we’ve built the brand, we can make dolls with bigger bodies.”
