The revolution

By Crystal Okusa

It is almost seven o’clock in the evening when yours truly and other media personalities from around the continent — Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia, Botswana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi — walk into what used to be an empty warehouse.

The warehouse, at the Sasani Studios in Rand burg, Johannesburg, has been given a make over in keeping with the ‘revolution’ theme of Big Brother Africa 4 (BBA4).

K’naan storms the stage singing his single ‘Waving the flag’ as flags from the different 14 countries are rised on the podium. A huge screen shows the contestants riding through the street of Rand burg on Ducati motorcycles as they head towards Sasani studios.

IK introduces the contestants to the audience one by one, starting with the 31-year old Itai Makumbe from Zimababwe. Dressed in simple jeans and T-shirt, Itai runs to the stage in excitement as he brushes hands with the BBA fans standing around the podium. "I’m the best choice and I’ll not let you down!" he assures his country. As the rest of the contestants are being introduced, I notice the outfits, they are all wearing maroon berets, cream T-shirts and maroon trousers to match the berets in all their pictures shown on the screen. If I didn’t know better I would say they were part of some revolutionary guerrilla squad. Their outfits are part of the ‘revolution’ theme of this year’s Big Brother.

I also notice that all the contestants are men and majority unemployed. It even gets more intriguing when Kenya’s second representative Jeremy Ndirangu, 22, a music and creative director is introduced after, 34-year-old Edward Muthusi.

When the second Ugandan contestant 27-year-old Phil, is introduced after the first Ugandan contestant had entered the house and I begin to wonder what to expect in this year’s revolutionised BBA4.

Testosterone only

Slowly the number of contestants climbs to nine — no lfemale contsetants have been spotted. Murmurs of how boring the show would be without lady like banter, intimate scenes and back stabbing in the house can be heard.

More housemates join in from Ethiopia- Yekob 27, Nigeria- Kevin, 27, Mozambique- Leonel, 23, Ghana- Wayoe, 34- (who gets his country flag thrown to him from the crowd), Botswana- Kaone and South Africa- Quinn, 21. With two new countries represented the number of contestants is raised from 12 to 14. And they are still all male.

Big Brother’s tricks

Just when I think the surprises are over, IK shocks the audience by introducing two twins from Namibia, Erastus and Edward Moongo, 33, to play a trick in the house for three weeks. Edward will go into the house now but Erastus will be placed in isolation for three weeks after which he will be secretly swapped with Edward. If one house-mate finds out then he or she will be sworn to

Angola, Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi are not represented in the house by the time IK wraps up the contestants list. He chooses not to answer the questions from the crowd and instead directs us to the events taking place in the house. The contestants are meeting four celebrity house guests Nigerian actor Tuvi James, Tanzanian actor Steve Kanumba, South African V entertainment presenter Nonhle Thema and South African TV personality Khanyi Mbau who are to spend 24 hours with the housemates.

The media-mates

Three days earlier, we the media personalities, given the name media mates got a chance to spend a night in the BBA house. We were given the very same treatment the housemates get. At a point we were each called to the diary room to answer questions about the attitude of the house and who we thought would be troublesome.

We were closed off from any form of communication from the outside world and Big Brother gave us tasks such as untying ourselves from a huge knot of ropes and sack racing. With no time reference, we use the sun to know what time to cook. We wrote our shopping list on a black board that was taken to the diary room. A few hours later we picked our shopping from the same room.

We also have to sleep in a unisex room. The guys had to come in after the girls had all changed and gotten under covers. In the morning we were shocked to wake up to babies crying, cows mowing, clucking chicken, and hooting cars. It was a Big Brother gimmick used to wake contestants from different environments.

We were then instructed to change into track-suits for some morning exercise before having breakfast.

After breakfast, Big brother called me to the diary room

"Hello Crsytal"

He tells me to ask the media mates to pack their bags and put them under the wish tree then called in later asking to write our wishes and hang them on the wish tree and leave the house. Later, we were given a sneak preview of what the previous BBA winners did with the $100,000; Richard from Tanzania started a production company, Ricardo from Angola bought a house and Cherise from Zambia, now living in the UK, has started an international kids fund in Zambia. The show ende,d promising surprises every week as the show continued.

Ladies on the way

Although IK did not promise it to the audience, word has it that the ladies will be in the house by next weekend. The first nominations take place tomorrow . This year’s show will feature a unisex bedroom, new cameras added to 40 and 100 microphones and cash prize that ranging from $ 100,000-$200,000 (Sh7.5milliin-Sh15million) for the last man standing at the end of the 91 days.

With the revolution being the centre of this year’s BBA4 theme, the housemates were all put up for nominations this past Monday and are to nominate two people each.

This time the voting will be done to keep the contestant in the house instead of voting them out.

The contestants are also allowed to discuss the person they should vote in. Voters are eligible to win $1000 (Sh75000) and a PVR for voting.