24 hours in Big Brother Africa House
JUNE 1, 2013
Legend has it that the housemates of Big Brother Africa are blindfolded whenever they are taken to the location where the house is. They are also said to be blindfolded whenever they are taken out of the house after being evicted. By so doing, they are prevented from knowing where the house is located.
Since Big Brother obviously forgot to blindfold I and the 24 journalists he hosted in his house on Friday, May 24, I have to start my story by revealing the general location of the house.
Big Brother Africa house is in a studio complex in the heart of Johannesburg. The grand edifice houses state of the art video and audio equipment. It is a very serene and quiet area of the town close to a place called Wynberg.
For those who are already housemates, there are enough amenities to provide a very comfortable and stress-free life indoors for the next three months. But after spending a whole day in the house, I came to the conclusion that I cannot be a Big Brother housemate, not for all the $300,000 in the world! This sentiment was shared by almost all the journalists who were my fellow housemates.
Our trip to the house started on Friday morning at 9am. The driver picked up the journalists lodged at Garden Court Hotel, Sandton to the location of Big Brother House. There, we were introduced to other journalists who worked mostly in South Africa as well as the crew from Multichoice, South Africa.
A random selection divided the journalists into two houses – Diamond, signified by yellow tags and Ruby which had red tags. However, before being allowed into the houses, journalists were asked to leave anything that could link them to the outside world behind. Items like cell phones, cameras, digital recorders, notebooks, even pieces of papers and biros were left behind in cellophane bags with the owners’ names stapled on them.
We were also kitted with windbreakers, gloves, shawls and hats to prepare us for the freezing temperature at 11 degrees centigrade.
The moment we entered the house, we realised our mistake, but it was too late for regrets. The doors had already been shut and we were locked in, away from our phones and other means of reaching out to friends and loved ones. “I have just died!” Mandla, an eccentric and talkative journalist from an African country, groaned.
The house stared right back at us as we stared at it. Simply furnished, it looked lonely, except for suspended black balls with eyes embedded in the centre. These balls were attached to the walls in the living room, more found their way upstairs to the bedroom where wooden beds lay side by side, arranged in a hostel fashion. There were small boxes painted yellow in the bedroom, while some miniature yellow and white humans chased one another across the surface of wooden black wall cabinets in the living room.
There were cameras everywhere, in the toilets, in the bathrooms and outside where a deliciously warm Jacuzzi waited to embrace whoever would brave the cold and go for a dip.
After taking note of the details of the house, we all swooped on the most appealing section of the room – the dining. In the refrigerators were assorted wines, juices and every type of food stuff and condiments one could imagine. For those of us who loved to eat, this was indeed a haven inside this ‘hell’. We immediately went to work, popping bottles of champagne, feasting on the bananas, the apples, oranges and other fruits.
Aminata, a radio programme producer from Sierra Leone, had this natural tendency to cook and grill and feed all housemates. We just relaxed and allowed her to do what seemed to us like her own way of coping with the dreary situation we were all thrown into.
While she cooked, we shared jokes and had an interesting discussion.h Sharon, a journalist from Botswana, entertained us with stories about the antics of her country’s president, Ian Khama. According to her, the bachelor, who is over 50, has contributed to the lack of nightlife in Botswana.
“By 2am, everybody is asleep. You can be arrested if you are seen around the street at that time. Alcohol is very expensive because he has placed a ban on its sale, the reason being that the former president who happened to be his father was an alcoholic and he died from too much drinking,” she said.
At the end of the session, so much had been said about the Botswanan president that I started nursing a desire to see the man. Not too long ago, according to Sharon, the man wandered into a tiger’s cage and came out with three nail marks on his face, inflicted by a tiger.
I also discovered during our interaction that pop stars like D’banj, P-Square, Tuface, Davido, Basket mouth and many others had gained demigod status in countries like Uganda, Namibia, Zambia, Ethiopia and South Africa. Journalists from these countries knew all the lyrics from songs of these Nigerian pop icons by heart. Sharon told me that an interview with Patience Ozokwor in her paper would give it a huge sale.
We also reviewed our stay in the house and most of the housemates agreed that the house is not a place they can spend more than one night.
“My father insists I call him every day. I cannot imagine what would happen to him if I were to become a housemate,” Lorato, a journalist from South Africa, said.
Mathew, my colleague from the Nation Newspapers in Nigeria, had been complaining of headache earlier in the day, while we lounged around the dining table, cooking and eating, Mathew dosed off on the settee in the living room. My heart went out to him and I was relieved that he could sleep, the sleep would do him good, I thought. Then Big Brother’s voice rang out, breaking my reverie, “This is Big Brother, Mathew, please come to the diary room,” the voice boomed, rousing Mathew from his sleep.
When he emerged from the diary room, he was vague, refused to talk at first and then changed his mind and started saying things I later discovered to be lies about his encounter with Big Brother. Eventually, the voice started calling the journalists one after the other, each of them came out of the diary room looking suspiciously quiet or telling more lies.
Then Big Brother called me into the diary room, and said, “Oboho, please turn and face the camera.”
The next statement took me by surprise. “Please nominate two housemates for eviction and give reasons why you think they should be evicted.”
I was dazed at first. We had been told earlier that this was just a fun trip, no nominations, no evictions and no transmission of our time in the house. I did not even know the names of half of the journalists by heart, except of course, Munya, head of house and Mandla, our talkative colleague. I mentioned the two names immediately, Munya first, then Mandla.
“What reasons do you have for nominating them?” Big Brother queried.
I did a mental recollection of some of the reasons previous housemates had given for nominating themselves. Most of them always said the ones they nominated were strong contenders and by removing them, they stood a chance of winning the price. As a quick way of escape, I blurted out, “Munya is a strong contender, if he is evicted, I will stand a better chance in the house.”
“What about Mandla, what reason do you have for nominating him?” he asked. “I nominate Mandla for the same reason,” I replied lamely.
“Oboho, you cannot give the same reasons for nominating two people, you have to have a different reason for nominating Mandla. I nominate Mandla because he is too obnoxious and he is always in my space,” I replied, betraying Mandla, the guy who was very fond of me and loved to tell everybody that I was his wife.
“It is important that you keep this conversation secret and you do not reveal it to the rest of the housemates,” Big brother dismissed me with a warning.
Munya was the first person to be evicted, followed by Mandla, then Sharon and Faith. Later, I told Munya that I was the one who nominated him for eviction. The South African took it to heart and sulked throughout the remaining period of the Friday programme. When we met again at the launch on Sunday evening, I had to pinch his cheeks and tell him that we all knew that it was a joke. He laughed then and gave me a bear hug.
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