Moses Serugo
31 August 2008
opinion
I cannot say I am quite the exhibitionist. In fact I am so conscious about my flabby body I keep it covered up most of the time and shower with the bathroom lights out.
So when the invitation came through from Multichoice Uganda to go spend a night in the Big Brother Africa house, I resolved not to have a bath that night especially after part of my consent to travel to South Africa included agreeing to have the footage from my stay to be used as Endemol, the show's producers, so wished. My experience in the house was both scary and unnerving.
Clifton Kawanga (Malawi), Teldah Mawarire (Zimbabwe), Maureen Odubeng (Botswana), Jean Sutherland (Namibia), Magnus Mahenge (Tanzania), Serraz Neto (Angola), Moses Serugo (Uganda), Brenda okoth (Kenya), Kofi Darko (Ghana) and MCTrevor Ewalya (Zambia).
There were 10 of us: six males, four females - all journalists from the participating countries. The South African media had had their sneak preview a week earlier, while the Nigerian representative missed out owing to SA visa issues.
It was while in the house that I realised the pressure that comes with representing one's country at such an arena. Your character becomes the slide rule on which a stranger can judge your national trait however inaccurate this formula may be.
I mostly came off as the quiet introverted type who, like the Biblical Moses, was not quite the talker. The consensus after my 24-hours in the house was that I would have been the first evictee and rightly so. I was beginning to miss TV, the internet, my cell-phone and my iPod an hour after the doors were shut behind us.
Kenya had a feisty young lady representing the youthful energy of her publication The Nairobi Star and her nation's aggressive streak. Kenyans have been known not to be polite and she couldn't emphasise the under-representation from 2003's Alex Holi and 2007's Jeff Anthony enough. She must be happy about this year's Sheila. Tanzania had a portly middle-aged man who did not gel quite well with us younger types.
Zambia had a loud charming father of three who quickly established himself as the house's alpha male, while Ghana had a clean-cut metro-sexual male who liked to wear his country's flag on most of his apparel - including his low-slung white underwear-revealing denim pants. His ultra-nationalism had him carry his flag at the launch.
Zimbabwe had a loud-mouthed chubby lady that did not reflect the derelict situation in her country. Fact is, the Western TV networks are showing only one side to the 11m+% inflation in Mugabe's land. Botswana and Namibia both had ladies that could easily outdo a chimney at spewing smoke.
The Namibian was the only white lady in the group, a middle-aged dominatrix who acted like she wrote the rule book on how Big Brother should be covered, always bragging about her "super" columns and how her paper continued to cover last year's show into December long after Richard had been awarded his dollars. It was understandable why Big Brother was the stabilising factor in her life after nicotine. She only spoke about her nephews and no children of her own.
The Angolan -a male - mostly had us on translation owing to his Lusaphone background but we patiently listened every time he wanted to contribute to the range of subjects being discussed. The Malawian was another quiet type, one who felt uncomfortable speaking because the Zimbabwean took issue with his replacing Ls with Rs, much like the Runyakitara speakers here.
Since grasping names was a little tricky, the easy way out was to call every one by their country's president's name. That would have been all right save for the passing of Zambia's president that had us call the Zambian Late Mwanawasa. I humoured the group a bit when I told them some tax payers now referred to PAYE (pay as you earn) as Pay As Yoweri Eats.
The house itself looks like it was picked out of the Alice in Wonderland storybook. What else can one say about a painting depicting an elephant trying to balance atop books while a monkey cheekily sits on its back? It has no windows and do not be flattered by the numerous mirrors.
Behind them is a camera walkway running across the perimeter of the house on which five handheld cameras are mounted on rails. I must say Big Brother's greenery décor was lost on me. An artificial grass turf for a lounge carpet and plastic vines creeping off the lounge walls and ceiling is a little too imaginative.
Luckily for the housemates, they do not have to compete for oxygen since plants are said to inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide at night. Fancy furniture makes the kitchen look futuristic and shiny cutlery hangs off the walls. Kabelo was spot on during last Sunday's launch show in saying that those rolls of toilet paper are to ensure a steady supply of tissue for 91 days. You cannot help but ponder at the humour in adorning non-functional clocks on the bathroom's yellow walls.
The females beat us to the boys' bedroom, leaving us to settle for their room that had blue fluffy padded walls and feathery adornments that made it look like a drag queen's paradise. The house mostly comes off as a kindergarten play area and it could be that Biggie wants the housemates to connect with their childish self.
Must explain why the housemates quickly slipped into playing kwepena (dodge ball) on their first day. Big Brother's fraternising was in the form of calling us "media mates" in his booming voice as he summoned us one by one into the diary room, where he asked for our impressions of the house. It felt so much like God's voice telling Moses to remove his sandals. Speaking into a mirror takes some getting used to when one is not singing along to their favourite song.
Living in such a confined space with little else to do is a recipe for boredom and apart from the steady supply of alcohol to help break the ice, tasks are integral to the show to keep housemates busy. No sooner had we popped the bubbly than Biggie handed us our first task - a treasure hunt that had us searching for clues underneath mushroom-shaped cushions in the garden, a cheese grater hanging from the ceiling, behind a mirrored door and in a bathtub that yielded a box of savoury chocolates.
The second task was challenging; an impromptu fashion show whose shaky ramp was constructed atop the garden swimming pool. The Ghanaian quickly became the star of the runway thanks to his impeccable dress sense, while the Botswana lady was chided for not being a team player.
Biggie's reward was a garden barbeque that had us eating finger-licking meats with pap, which is posho or ugali in these parts. The presence of cameras rotating like robotic eyes had most of us changing into night wear underneath the cozy duvets, although the boys did not catch much sleep because of a snoring "media mate."
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
