Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

While we were on location in Mtendere, Lusaka, Zambia, a tweaked out guy came up to the crew and asked them to deliver a message to Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. The entire clip is only 54 seconds long. It’s funny as heck. Here we were in one of the poorest sections of Lusaka where hardly anyone had a television, virtually no one had a computer and many folks didn’t even seem to have electricity and this guy seemed to know all about the U.S. Rapper, 50 Cent. He wanted us to let him know that 50 Cent had messed everyone up and that he was going to come to America and get him for what he had done. We posted this video. In less than three days, it had over a thousand hits. A thousand hits. Just goes to show, people just love to laugh.

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Way back in April of 2005, I did a blogpost about a Johnny Chung Lee’s $14 Steadicam. Lee gave the full instructions for how to build his poor-man’s steadicam using pieces and parts that could be picked up at any hardware store. It is the steadicam that Jacob built to take to Zambia. We used it there and left it behind with the Zambian National Arts Council. For the mechanically challenged, chronically lazy, or only moderately-poor filmmaker, Lee even offered a fully built version for only $39.95. A great little tool that was most useful.

So, earlier this month, I’m at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, meeting with students and going over their interactive media projects. One group is working on a Nintendo-based tool that teaches high school students the slope-intercept formula in a game format in preparation for the exit examination. While talking with them, we got onto the idea of full-immersion gaming. One of the students was really excited about this fellow from Carnegie Mellon University who was developing immersion techniques using the Wii Remote. I started digging around and discover that this immersion innovator is the $14 Steadicam guy, Johnny Chung Lee. The YouTube video sure got my imagination going.

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Before Sally Hayfron Mugabe died, her husband had already begun a relationship with his secretary Grace Marufu. Grace was 40 years younger than Mugabe and, unlike Sally, was mercenary and materialistic. To open the way for himself, Mugabe sent Grace’s husband and son on a permanent diplomatic mission to China. Ultimately, Grace and Robert had three children, two boys and one girl. While Zimbabwe struggles under horrific inflation rates, as the life expectancy drops by decades, as the unemployment rate nears 80%, Grace Marufu Mugabe is notorious for her lavish spending sprees in Europe. Sally loved her African heritage and always dressed in traditional clothing. Grace is one of the nouveau riche, insulated in a cocoon of her own self-gratification. Could these two women possibly be more different?

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Inter-library loan finally located a copy of the biography of Sally Hayfron Mugabe. We have been trying to find anything on the first wife of Robert Mugabe and have been quite unsuccessful. There just isn’t much written material out there. I found a 16-page booklet that the Yale University Library would not lend out. The book they’ve located was written by ZANU-PF, the Zimbabwean political party of Comrade Robert Mugabe so I am anticipating that it is not going to be all that revelatory. Sally was born in Ghana, the third daughter of a well-to-do family, she was named by and for her grandmother. Ghana was the first African nation to achieve independence (in 1957). Zimbabwe was one of the last. Born in 1931, Sally died in 1992 of kidney failure. Her only son died at the age of four from cerebral malaria. Everything I read about her (non-propaganda) indicates she was an amazing woman — compassionate, caring, gentle, generous — how did she end up married to the despotic Mugabe and how could she live with herself knowing how he was? Since the book that is coming was written by Mugabe’s political party, I’m not expecting remarkable insights.

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UPDATE: I’ve gotten several emails and comments saying this mansion is not Mugabe’s … the funny thing is that I’ve been told it’s really in Singapore … another one says South Africa … the most recent one says it’s Versailles. Everyone has an opinion about whose mansion it really is and they’re all adamant that they’re right. So, I dug around and found several newspaper articles with an aerial view of Mugabe’s mansion. I got a copy of the Andrew Meldrum (a journalist who lived in Zimbabwe for over twenty years) memoir WHERE WE HAVE HOPE to discern more about the Mugabe Mansion (dubbed Graceland by many since it was built for wife, Grace Marufu). I read Alec Russell’s BIG MEN, LITTLE PEOPLE and I got a copy of a book published by ZANU-PF entitled SALLY MUGABE, WOMAN WITH A MISSION. What I can conclusively say is that the image above does appear to be the aerial view of Mugabe’s Mansion and the photos below may (or may not) be of his mansion but they certainly COULD be given the size and opulence of the structure outside of Harare.

ORIGINAL POST: Supposedly, the opulent mansion to the right is the home of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. Located near the national capital of Harare, the mansion is an affront to many because of the desperate lives led by the majority of Zimbabweans. They currently have the highest inflation rate in the world. The life expectancy for all the citizens has dropped by decades under Mugabe’s despotic rule. Today, we met a woman who had been born in South Africa and raised in Zimbabwe. She and her family left Zimbabwe shortly after Mugube’s rise to power. A lovely woman with a smooth voice and generous heart, she graciously gave her voice talents for a sequence of the film. Ultimately, we ended up talking about all of the south African nations. We talked about Sally Mugabe, the early years following independence and the succession of majority rule. We enjoyed the African art and furnishings in their home. We talked about the art of the Ndebele and their feud with the Shona. An afternoon meeting literate and learned people is always enlightening. Spending the following days exploring those ideas with colleagues or partners and seeing where those discoveries can lead is a creative joy. I don’t know if it is the contrast of my life with the life of the average Zimbabwean’s that has me feeling so grateful this evening. Maybe it’s the joy of preparing the Zambian film for its screening in Lusaka. I guess I don’t need to know. All I really want is to be present as present as possible to the gifts of my life … and there are many! And, unlike Comrade Mugabe, I didn’t need to destroy anyone to have them.

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