Every time she visits, the Princess of Africa is blown away by the love, respect and order she finds in Japan. 

FORBES AFRICA meets singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and humanitarian Yvonne Chaka Chaka, fondly called the ‘Princess of Africa’, in her home office in the wealthy suburb of Bryanston in the north of Johannesburg in South Africa.
Framed pictures of her travels and accolades as a musician and humanitarian adorn the walls.
On her desk are a stack of magazines, some of them in Japanese.
One of the covers has Chaka Chaka posing with a mic in one hand, the other held out.
The cover line reads: ‘We love Japan. Hold my hand and we will walk together’.
<blockquote>“I love the Japanese so much and they really love me back,” says Chaka Chaka glancing at the magazine. And she has traveled to Japan too many times to count.</blockquote>
But nothing beats the first time she visited the country.
Ten years ago, she was invited to attend the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).
Traveling from the City of Gold, Johannesburg, to high-tech Tokyo, she could immediately tell she had entered brand-new territory.
The language, the food, the cultures were so different.
“Japan is just too nice. There are so many people but it is so clean,” says Chaka Chaka.
“I remember my first time when one of the organizations that we worked with, wanted me to go to a place called Kamaishi, where there was an earthquake and I agreed and said that’s fine,” she says.
Little did she know it was going to be a trip she would never forget. She traveled with her humanitarian advisor.
“They said we were going on a train. Ah I was so angry. I said, ‘what! I don’t get in a train’.”
Chaka Chaka prefers road travel but she nevertheless obliged.
“So we got to the station and I saw people with suitcases and I don’t like carrying suitcases. So we did and we got onto the platform and it’s just packed and packed.
“The station there is like the airport, it’s massive but with more people on the trains. It’s like hundreds of platforms and ‘I’m like, I don’t want to be here’.”
They were about to board the Shinkansen, Japan’s high-speed railway, which is a bullet train. 
To her surprise, it exceeded her expectations.
“We got into the train and the order!” she now exclaims.
“There’s so much order it hurts.”
“When the train comes, it stops right here and people queue, there’s no chaos.”
Chaka Chaka watched in awe as everyone waited in a line.
“Arigato gozaimasu [thank you],” she hears some of the staff say to the passengers and bow in respect.
“You know that bending, it shows the love and respect. Everything is just respect, order, cleanliness and meticulous. The Japanese are so meticulous and there’s a lot that we can learn,” says the singer.
During her trip, she also visited Kumamoto which is a city on the Japanese island of Kyushu. They were just recovering from heavy rainfall that had caused floods and landslides.

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“Families were staying in makeshift houses and parents brought their kids to a place where I was talking. And it was so amazing. These kids were like three-year-olds and four-year-olds and they would leave their shoes and you would see hundreds of shoes packed nicely,” she says.
“They are taught from such a young age… and they don’t take what’s not theirs.”
“I had the chance to sit with the advisor of the prime minister and I was asking them, ‘how do you get things so much in order?’ And they said, ‘you know, we teach kids from school. When children finish at school they clean the classes’.”
The famous African was also impressed by the recycling bins available throughout the towns, a bin for every kind of waste.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2018/09/28/executive-travel-wajes-south-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Executive Travel: Waje’s South Africa</a>
“That one is for paper, that one is for bottles and that one is for this… And I was feeling so bad because I had finished and I threw in a bottle of water in the wrong bin,” she recalls, laughing.
“There’s a lot we can learn from just loving ourselves, respecting ourselves, respecting time and respecting culture. The Japanese still abide by their culture, you know. I mean they wear their kimonos with love,” she says.
She also had the chance to wear her own kimono, which she enjoyed.
That first trip gave her so much insight she frequently visited Japan.
The one place she often visits is Kamaishi to support children affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that tore the city apart.
She has even been given the title of ambassador to Kamaishi City.
Her last visit in March was to Masaka, a central region in Japan, where she was with a Japanese NGO for children called Ashinaga. Her next trip will be in March next year and she is already looking forward to it.
As a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Chaka Chaka has the opportunity to travel to numerous countries, but it’s clearly the land of the rising sun that has marked many a new dawn for the Princess of Africa.

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Executive Travel: Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s Japan

The Nigerian vocalist and agri-preneur on everything from Obama to Mandela and being inspired by nature in South Africa.

On a cold July evening in Johannesburg, Nigeria’s leading vocalist, simply known as Waje, emerges on stage to thunderous applause from a packed room of 200 Africans. They have been selected from across the continent by former American President Barack Obama for the inaugural 2018 Obama Foundation Leaders: Africa Program.
Waje delivers a flawless note-for-note rendition of her trademark performance, which has won her accolades across Africa and secured her a place as one of the celebrity coaches on the The Voice Nigeria talent show unearthing undiscovered vocalists competing for the final prize.
Singing in near operatic fashion, her powerful vocals energize the room in South Africa, turning the night celebrating leadership into an impromptu concert.
For Waje, this performance was significant on two fronts.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2018/08/23/executive-travel-kwestas-senegal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Executive Travel: Kwesta’s Senegal</a>
As a member of the ONE Campaign, an international advocacy organization of more than nine million around the world taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease, she has been a fierce activist in Nigeria, lending her voice to fight for better health. Through her work with the ONE Campaign, she is using advocacy and pop culture to drive that narrative and that is what brings her to Johannesburg tonight, to share the successes of the program.
The second reason for her trip, however, is a lot less selfless.
“My favorite destination at the moment is South Africa because I headlined the Africa Day Concert here and two years ago, I did something with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and I immediately fell in love with the country. I feel it has always taken something from me and I always feel like I am bringing something to the table, so that is why I love South Africa,” says Waje.
Amongst her favorite cities are Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg.
“I love the weather in South Africa; it is not always too hot. I love that it is Africa but it can compete with anywhere in the world. I think the culture here is deep and rich and I like that no matter how advanced they are with technology, you can still tell a South African either by the way they dress or their accessories. There is still something very African about them.”
Outside her advocacy work, which is her main attraction to the region, it is the warm reception she receives here that has also led to the place becoming a home from home.
<div id="attachment_37271" style="width: 211px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37271" class="size-medium wp-image-37271" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-148715146-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="201" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-148715146-201x300.jpg 201w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-148715146-300x448.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-148715146-600x896.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-148715146-768x1147.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-148715146-686x1024.jpg 686w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-148715146.jpg 1371w" sizes="(max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px" />Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Southern Africa, Africa</div>
“I get more of an ovation outside Nigeria so I enjoy performing more outside Nigeria in places like South Africa because it also teaches me to treat myself a little bit more. But I get more when I am here and I think people here love Nigeria a lot so they embrace me, embrace my style and embrace my music so I actually enjoy it.”
This July trip is special to the soulful crooner because it comes at a time when, according to Waje, there is a movement of young leaders from all over the continent drawing from each other’s energy to build the future.
“There is just something magical about this place and its ability to galvanize the younger generation. I think Mandela was the catalyst of that movement and that spirit still lives on. Many times people say young people are the future but the truth is we are the now, we need to start now. We can see the president of France who is so young and the things he is looking to achieve means all young people should start looking forward and making that happen wherever they are,” she says.
It seems Obama also shares her love for South Africa. The first convening of his cohort is in Johannesburg over a five-day period where leaders learn a range of skills-building and leadership concepts to help them impact their communities.
For Waje, her platform drives her to achieve more.
“The glitz and glam is great and people loving your music is great but then what? You have to go into the hearts of people by actually doing stuff for them; that is where true success comes from,” she says.
Traveling has become somewhat of a therapeutic experience for her. As a creative, it helps her overcome writers’ block that affects most songwriters. In addition, her travels have also unlocked new entrepreneurial pursuits.
<div id="attachment_37272" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37272" class="wp-image-37272 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-171579753-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-171579753-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-171579753-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-171579753-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-171579753-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GettyImages-171579753.jpg 1654w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />Multicolored lighting on Nelson Mandela Bridge in Johannesburg city.</div>
“Travel is good because when you travel, you pick bits and pieces of different cultures, which will help you. For a long time, outside of being a musician, I always thought about agriculture but I did not know how I was going to do it. One of the reasons I started my agriculture business was because I realized that nature was something I enjoyed and I did not realize that until I traveled to South Africa,” says Waje.
Her voice has taken her to places far and near where she has performed before kings and presidents. Many may call her lucky but she does not believe in coincidences. It is all part of life’s grand design according to Waje.
A design, which brings everybody together with a common purpose, and for her, that purpose is being a voice for the less fortunate. Luckily, her travels have helped amplify her message.

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Executive Travel: Waje’s South Africa

The South African musician on how he finds culture and creative inspiration in the West African country.

Last summer, South African rapper and songwriter Senzo Vilakazi, who was in FORBES AFRICA’s Under 30 list in 2018, and better known by his stage name Kwesta, swapped his microphone for a notebook and pen 10,000 kilometers from his country of birth.
He was in Senegal on business, but recorded his thoughts in prose and memory.
“Then I just ended up staying for a couple of days because of the richness of the place,” says Kwesta.
He was captivated by the history of the West African country, and Gorée, a small island located away from the main harbor of Dakar, where slaves used to pass on their way to America.
Kwesta, who has traveled the world and performed in numerous African countries, was astounded by how much of its culture the island had managed to preserve years after slavery was abolished.
<blockquote>“I was really in love with how they have preserved their past. It is not like any other place that I have been to,” he says.</blockquote>
As soon as he landed, he was struck by the history of the island.
“It has a certain warmth; as soon as you go into it, it is almost certain that you can feel the lives that were lost there. It is a very difficult space to describe, a very inspirational and a very creative space. The people there are [so much into] culture preservation it is crazy,” says Kwesta.
On his short break, he went on a cruise ship, and visited the famous fort known as Slave House, which even former South African president Nelson Mandela once visited. The fort housed African slaves en route to the west.
“Six million slaves died there and over 20 million were shipped through the island,” says Kwesta on the facts gleaned from his trip.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2018/07/10/executive-travel-ola-orekunrins-india/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Executive travel: Ola Orekunrin’s India</a>
The imagery of slavery has stayed with him.
“They are just so proud [citizens]! They try to teach you about their culture. That is what I found quite interesting compared to South Africans because people here are very much westernised. I wish I could be able to bring back that pride and culture [they have],” observes Kwesta.
“Even as rappers, I always feel like we are trying to imitate the American style of rapping,” he says.
He also noticed the stark contrast of the landscape – the hospitality sector on one side and shanty towns on the other.
“When I was in my hotel, I could basically see the richness of their vegetation and on the other end, I could see their low-cost houses, which was such a weird thing to observe, because you could see the difference in the economies.”
Who would have thought the rapper’s favorite travel destination would be right here in Africa.

Youth Day Celebration concert in South Africa

Executive Travel: Kwesta’s Senegal

For Nigeria’s high-flying doctor, Ola Orekunrin, being a part of the booming global air ambulance services industry presents opportunities to save lives as well as visit places she hasn’t seen before.
Orekunrin, a medical doctor and helicopter pilot, is the founder of Flying Doctors, an air ambulance service launched in Lagos to transport patients from areas with low levels of healthcare to those with well-appointed facilities offering better medical aid.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/30-under-30/2011/11/01/flying-doctor-shoots-stars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Flying Doctor Shoots For The Stars</a>
Over the years, the demand for her organization’s services has risen due to the healthcare challenges Nigeria faces. And there are many. On top of the list is the burden of infectious diseases like malaria and tuberculosis, followed by non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. The country has a high rate of trauma-related incidents such as accidents and violence.
According to national statistics, Nigeria has the highest number of deaths from road traffic accidents in the world.
For Orekunrin, her business presents an opportunity to fulfil her desire to serve. The motivation for the launch of her company, Flying Doctors, was the loss of her sister, who had tragically died for want of urgent care.
Today, Flying Doctors swiftly moves patients from across the African continent to some of the best healthcare destinations, saving thousands of lives in the process. The job means Orekunrin is constantly on the go.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2018/03/23/magda-wierzyckas-india/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Magda Wierzycka’s India</a>
With so much time away from home and in the air, Orekunrin has become somewhat of an expert when it comes to the most exciting destinations to visit both for business and leisure on the African continent – and beyond.
“My favorite destination in the world right now is India,” she says.
“It is a place I spend a lot of time because we have a huge Indian diaspora in Nigeria and when they get sick, they usually request to be flown back home. So I have had a lot of experience with India. I think India is in the process of cracking healthcare. For example, they take the best medical students from the whole of India and put them in one hospital. This means the [number] of procedures that get done there are a lot and the advanced medicine that is practised there is equivalent or better than what you get in some first world countries,” she says.
But that is not the only reason Orekunrin is in love with the subcontinent.
“It is such a vast country that moving from state to state, you can find different types of productivity everywhere. In places like Bengaluru, everybody is running a startup and it’s like the Silicon Valley of India. You go to a place like Goa and that is like a beach resort and you go to Kerala and it is completely different like a spa resort with some sort of Indian medicine being practised and infused with conventional medicine. So it is an incredible country where you can find so much variety, culture, language, tribes and so many successful people coexisting together and identifying as Indians. I think that is another lesson that Nigerians can learn.”
Her favorite past-time in the country is getting her eyebrows threaded and going to remote oil and gas exploration sites.
<div id="attachment_36663" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36663" class="wp-image-36663 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GettyImages-547676927-1024x677.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="677" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GettyImages-547676927-1024x677.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GettyImages-547676927-300x198.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GettyImages-547676927-600x397.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GettyImages-547676927-768x508.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GettyImages-547676927.jpg 1902w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Ola Orekunrin moves from state to state in India exploring cultures and languages. Photo provided.</div>
“The companies there inspire me because I think about their [the companies’] history in terms of growing from a sole proprietorship to eventually growing into the biggest businesses in the world. It makes me think about Nigerian businesses; I run my own business but I also invest in other businesses as well,” says Orekunrin.
Within West Africa, Orekunrin’s favorite destination is Cape Verde. The country is particularly interesting for medical evacuations because it is made up of remote islands and the influx of tourists to that destination means medical logistics are in very high demand.
“It is four hours away from Nigeria and is a fusion of a lot of cultures; from South America, to Africa and European cultures all in one. I visit it frequently most of the time for work. I also really love the different food. I was born and brought up in England but always had a craving for Africa. My connection to Cape Verde is the closeness to Nigeria but also some of the similarities we share in terms of the food and the culture and the music and that is a strong connection.”
In the next few years, Orekunrin is hoping to grow her medical business into a pan-African player. She continues to look forward to the travel it will entail. For Orekunrin, the air ambulance business is all about saving lives. And being at the right place at the right time – for sick patients in need.

Executive travel: Ola Orekunrin’s India

Tourists in Soweto, the township southwest of Johannesburg in South Africa, now have more options for staying in the same neighbourhood that was once home to two Nobel laureates, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Here, through accommodation app Airbnb, locals are increasingly turning entrepreneurs throwing open their homes for visitors wanting to savor Kasi life. As many as 20 Soweto homes are listed hosts on the Airbnb search engine – and the list is growing.
Take Nelson Tiko Mashele, a 33-year-old born and bred in Soweto, who founded Vilakazi Backpackers on the famous Orlando West street with his father, and which is located five minutes from the homes of Mandela and Tutu, and 10 minutes from the Hector Pieterson memorial.
Mashele is one of the youngest Airbnb hosts in Soweto, and his establishment one of the newest in the area. He says 70% of his guests are locals, the rest international, and business is looking good.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/06/sharing-economy-400000-guests-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Sharing Economy: 400,000 Guests At Home</a>
The day we visit, we are ushered into his spotless living room. A coffee table in the middle of the foyer is laden with sightseeing pamphlets. Hip hop music is playing in the background. The seven-bedroom house is well-appointed and Mashele charges R299 ($25) a night.
<div id="attachment_35881" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35881" class="wp-image-35881 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />A room at the Vilakazi Backpackers costs R299 ($25) a night. Photo by Karen Mwendera.</div>
That’s not a bad bargain for the local life that his guests, who he says are mostly from America, Germany, Brazil and France, want to experience.
According to Airbnb, most guests choose to live like locals. Mashele says they would rather walk to tourist destinations and buy local food from the outlets on the famous Vilakazi Street.
One of Mashele’s partners is Soweto Outdoor Adventures run by Kgomotso Pooe, also his long-time friend. Their collaborations offer his guests quad-bike tours, paddling and boating rides, trips to Orlando Towers and indulging in local cuisine such as magwenyas (deep-fried dough balls) with atchar and white liver and kota (half loaf of bread filled with curry), ending the day with a shisanyama (meat cooked over an open fire).
On the opposite side, in Orlando East, is a bed-and-breakfast in operation for over 16 years. TDJ’s BnB is a home-owned business catering for local and international visitors. Their aim this year is to start using the Airbnb services to help increase their profits.
“We are looking forward to getting new guests from all over the world,” says TDJ’s manager Nomthandazo Ntshingila.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sometime-in-africa/2012/08/01/staying-in-hotels/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Staying In Hotels</a>
She says joining Airbnb will give her an edge moving her numbers higher than the average 30 visitors she receives per month. Currently, a room at TDJ’s costs R454 ($38) a night.
For a more authentic experience, tourists can taste African beer brewed at the guest house. Another hotspot guests can visit is Sakhumzi, a Sowetan shisanyama restaurant and bar.
A key difference between Mashele’s and Ntshingila’s businesses is that the former has Wi-Fi on site allowing him to stay active on social media.
“One of the requirements to host with Airbnb was to offer Wi-Fi services to potential clients. We then got Wi-Fi before listing on the app,” says Ntshingila.
Hosts need to be constantly connected to an online platform and keep the most updated information on their availability and business.
The accommodation hosting platform tells FORBES AFRICA they are working on refining their offerings and making “regular updates to ensure people get exactly what they are looking for”. It’s clear that for the app to take off in townships like Soweto, homeowners need to be empowered with technology.
Airbnb says it’s planning to invest $1 million from 2018 to 2020 to promote and support community-led tourism projects in Africa. The project aims to support training in hospitality and technology for township residents.
Indeed, such investments will also help upskill those living in less-developed areas within Soweto such as Kliptown and Pimville, and as a result, reduce the barriers for entrepreneurs wishing to rent out their homes and bring in precious tourism dollars, much-needed in today’s difficult times.

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Living Like Mandela

Magda Wierzycka, CEO of Sygnia Asset Management, is known for her leadership style, her controversial Twitter feed and her no-nonsense take on politics and business.
She also loves to travel.
For over a decade, she and her husband bundled their two sons up four times a year and whisked them away: to the steamy Amazon, over rocky seas to Antarctica (“the glaciers are the most amazing things one could ever see in a lifetime”) and even the last refuge of the strange and wonderful; the Galapagos Islands (“I’d go back in a flash”).
They’ve visited over 80 countries together, including Wierzycka’s birthplace, Poland, which she describes brusquely as “not a mainstream tourist destination”. Compared to the descriptions of her other trips, it’s clear Poland is not a country of happy memories for her; in 1981, her family escaped the communist regime and found refuge in South Africa.
Many of the moments Wierzycka plans for her children are a foil to the experiences she had growing up. Their trips are also crucial parent-child bonding time, especially with Wierzycka working demanding hours as a CEO.
She says in a telephonic interview with FORBES AFRICA: “When you’re traveling with kids and then taking them to exotic locations, it means they are very reliant on you. If you go to a beach they couldn’t care less. They’re on their iPads or phones most of the time. But if you travel, they have nowhere to go except where you’re going. So they have to have every meal with you, they have to interact, there are a lot of things to discover: you hike, you canoe; which means you spend a lot of time together.”
The family’s five-week trek across India was one of their more significant and meaningful trips, with the bulk of their adventure taking place across The Golden Triangle, comprising New Delhi, Agra and Jaipur; the most visited tourist spots in northern India.
It’s named &#8216;golden&#8217; for the cultural and historical richness of each city. The Wierzycka family started their 2013 trip in New Delhi with their then 13- and 15-year-old sons.
“The first time we were thrown into India, and the very first thing we did which petrified the living daylights out of us – you couldn’t have had greater exposure to anything – we did a bicycle tour of New Delhi… There were monkeys and there were cows and the four of us on bicycles. I just remember being petrified of absolutely everything about it,” she laughs at the memory.
“It was kind of the most bizarre thing we’ve ever done and in hindsight, a very dangerous thing, because you were thrown into chaos, absolute chaos.”
But it wasn’t the chaos that made India memorable for Wierzycka. It was traveling from temple to temple, and consciously demystifying religion for her children.
“I was brought up very strict Roman Catholic, and I had only had my kind of ‘aha!’ moment when I learned the truth at the age of 12 or 13, when suddenly instead of thinking of Jesus Christ as a God, I read a book which portrayed him as a man, and prophet, and I just thought I don&#8217;t want my kids to grow up to the age of 12 to realize [only then] that there is more than one religion. I never wanted them to have that moment I had,” she explains.
<div id="attachment_35663" style="width: 291px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35663" class=" wp-image-35663" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Magda-Wierzycka-with-her-sons-in-front-of-the-Taj-Mahal-in-Agra-India-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="281" height="422" />Magda Wierzycka with her sons in front of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India (Photo supplied)</div>
After this experience in her teens, shaking away institutionalized thinking was a pressing priority for her as a mother; the one way she had done that, years before, was by taking her children to Vietnam to see the other side of the famous war.
“If you’ve ever been to India, you learn that there is a religion about everything. [India] is effectively a way of learning where religion originates from, and it’s kind of demystifying religion for everybody.
“[I noticed that] all religions started in the same way: it might have been thousands of years ago, but it always started with someone who had a particular vision or theory and then created a following around a particular concept. [My sons] have a deep understanding of different cultures and different religions, and a very high level of religious tolerance. The only thing we don’t tolerate in my house is intolerance! You don’t have this kind of religious intolerance.
“Because coming back from Poland, growing up in Poland, there was only one religion – and that was Roman Catholic. There was no such concept as not believing – we had to go to church every Sunday, we had to go to confession, and God was always looking over you…
“And so… giving [my children] diversity was essential to me. First of all, that they grow up in a completely tolerant household that stretches across every boundary&#8230;”
Wierzycka’s disillusionment with the indoctrination of her youth drives much of her excursion planning.
“I think all of our trips have been a way to show them the reason ‘why’. All our trips have had that built into them, whether that is looking at museums, or going to Cambodia and looking at the Khmer Rouge regime and looking at the atrocities committed. I want my children to learn not to take things at face value. Analyze things.”
Now, with one child in Columbia University and the other hopefully headed to Harvard, family trips are going to be harder to coordinate, but they’re not going to stop. Their next destination? Alaska.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2018/03/02/cosmas-madukas-japan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Cosmas Maduka&#8217;s Japan</a>

Magda Wierzycka’s India

I arrive in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, and it’s not as warm as most South Africans know it to be. But the weather is not going to dampen my spirits or stop me and my colleague, Lubabalo Mashiqana, from scouring the coastal city of Durban for stories.
Landing at King Shaka International Airport, hungry, I phone a friend, Thomokazi Bunjana, who we call Tom. I know her from Soweto in Johannesburg, where I reside, although she now lives in Durban.
We ask her to direct us, and our first stop is Chicken Licken, a South African fast-food fried chicken outlet in town. Our hunger sated, we bid her goodbye, and drive 40kms north in our ever-beeping Renault Clio 4 to Ballito, a holiday town located in the province, to what will be our lodging for the next two nights.
The next morning, it’s pouring – a rarity for sunny Durban. I am surprised but mostly worried about whether I will get to do justice to a story idea I had on rickshaws, the two-wheeled passenger cart only found in Durban.
The rain does not deter our mission. We have breakfast, take a shower and drive to the KZNSA Gallery to meet photographer Niamh Walsh-Vorster, the co-founder of award-winning online e-zine, Ja. I expect to see a much older, white European lady. Walsh-Vorster is young, African and accomplished. She had started Ja. with friend and writer Dave Mann in 2014.
<div id="attachment_35551" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35551" class=" wp-image-35551" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Ja-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Ja magazines (Photo supplied)</div>
She says they are endeavoring to shift the power dynamics in editorship “because it can be problematic”.
“As much as we do the admin and organizing and have the vision for it, we cannot run without contributors and the creatives that still believe in the ethos of it,” says Walsh-Vorster.
They would rather call themselves the Ja. Team, and the idea is to get writers and photographers who may not find it easy to be published elsewhere. So the team created a platform to generate such opportunities, not just for Durbanites, but all Africans.
The interview is over and I ask Walsh-Vorster for other newsmakers and story ideas in Durban. She suggests Gcina Shange, a choreographer who also teaches young girls to express themselves through dance, and who agrees to meet me later in the afternoon.
Walsh-Vorster hugs me goodbye. Walking back to the car, I am still worried: “Will the rickshaws be at the beach in this weather?” It was midday, grey, and still drizzling.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2018/01/19/african-penguins-day/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The African Penguin&#8217;s Day Out</a>
I call Tom and ask her to take us to the rickshaws at the Umhlanga beach front. On arrival, I see white car guards. This sight is unusual in Johannesburg. I have never ever had a white man direct me to park the car. I handed him the R2 for the service like I would in Johannesburg.
We head out and see the subjects, the rickshaws. I take out my camera and start shooting. I approach one of the rickshaw drivers and he tells me I need to pay for the interview, the picture and the ride. I think fast on my feet. I use the weather to my advantage – business is not good for the day. I approach an idle rickshaw and offer to pay R50 ($3.6) for the ride and a quick interview, knowing I am going to be able to shoot pictures. Seemingly shy, Nkosinathi Dlamini, the driver, offers to talk.
“My father taught me how to ride; I couldn’t get a job so I came to work as a rickshaw driver. We make around R600 ($43) a day during holiday season and on a bad day, you can go home with R0,” he laughs.
Suddenly, the sky clears and customers come near. Dlamini gets impatient and wants to take my colleague Mashiqana for the ride so he can return for more riders. I could see Mashiqana was having the time of his life riding the rickshaw.
In the end, for a small fee, I managed to get him a ride, got a few words out of Dlamini for my story and a defining picture of my Durban experience.
Time was on our side, as we strolled to the shops for a six-pack for the after-work hours.
It is now time to meet Shange at The Playhouse Company, a theater house in town. Parking is a nightmare here because of all the municipal buildings in the area. I finally find one less than a kilometer away from the venue. I rush assuming I am late.
“Hi,” trills Shange. “I thought you would be older.” We laugh.
<div id="attachment_35552" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35552" class=" wp-image-35552" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Gcina-Shange-e1520585733199-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Choreographer Gcina Shange (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Shange was born in a village in the south coast of Durban, and moved to the city as a teenager to finish high school. At the time, in 1997, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) dominated parts of KwaZulu-Natal and one had to mind what they said, she says.
She used to write poems and didn’t know there was a performer in her.
“The first poem I wrote was about education and this poem put me in a dangerous space in terms of the politics I didn’t understand at the time,” Shange recalls.
Her mother suggested she move to the township and that’s where she fell in love with theater. She never looked back, finding herself in Johannesburg writing scripts, acting and later dancing. She has since traveled across South Africa performing.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sometime-in-africa/2017/04/01/soweto-boy-afrikaner-haven/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Soweto Boy In An Afrikaner Haven</a>
The interview continues until closing time at the theater at 6PM when we are asked – rather rudely – to leave. The husky-voiced, dreadlocked Shange and I humbly stand up and thank them for letting us use the space although we aren’t happy about the situation. But life goes on.
Saddened, my colleague and I drive back to Ballito with my six in the boot to cheer me up on the last night of our assignment. I was done with work and had the freedom to indulge.
It’s Friday morning and the weather is better, I have enough time for a walk on the beach before breakfast. I am in my track pants and running shoes like I am off to the gym. Locals can tell I am not from the coast, but I don’t care.
After packing and breakfast, we drive back to the airport. We drive slowly but arrive early, and the only thought in my head is to return to the province on holiday with a girlfriend. The hustle and bustle of Johannesburg is not where I want to be.

A Slice Of Africa In Durban

Nigerian automobile entrepreneur Cosmas Maduka is unassuming and soft-spoken. His hallmark is a ‘Jesus is Lord’ brooch that he wears and has over the years become synonymous with his style. Maduka is President and Chairman of Coscharis Group, franchise holders of over eight automobile brands and one of the largest distributors of spare car parts in Nigeria.
The company also has interests in real estate, banking, technology, medical equipment, petrochemicals, elevators and agriculture. On average, the company sells more than 400 cars per month with prices around N150 million ($420,000) for the top end of its luxury fleet, which includes Rolls-Royce, BMW, Jaguar, Range Rover and Ford.
But the man who also holds the number two position in the ICT market in Nigeria through his brand, Coscharis Technologies Limited, and its pool of partners which includes HP, Microsoft and Lenovo, had to overcome some extreme difficulties to become the success story he is today.
Maduka lost his father at the age of four and had to fend for himself and his family selling bean cake (a local delicacy) on the streets. By the time he was seven, he was already working as an apprentice and continued for seven years without pay with the shop floor he was trading on doubling as his bed at night.
Today, with those dark days firmly behind him and an estimated net worth of $500 million, Maduka spends most of his time on the road, or in the air, building new partnerships for his various entrepreneurial pursuits. We chatted with him as he waited in the business class lounge at Murtala Muhammed International airport in Lagos for a flight to Bangkok, about what it is like to travel the globe and how certain cultures resonate with him more than others.
Life in Nigeria seems to be a constant whirlwind for you and your family. Where is your favorite destination to get away?
My favorite getaway location is Japan and there are a number of reasons. I have learned a lot of things from the Japanese and I see them as an inspiration. I went to Japan for the first time in 1979 and I was so impressed by the culture and courtesy of the people. It was strange for me to witness, even at the tollgate, that men who collect money from passengers, on behalf of the government, bow to as many vehicles as they collect money from. It was a big surprise for me because this was not their personal money but the level of dedication was amazing. That courtesy is seen everywhere you go, from the airport to the restaurant and that embodies the type of person I am. From the early 80s, I used to go to Japan for business and even after that, I would spend some more time moving around to see more of the culture and their way of life influenced me as a person and Coscharis as well.
What is it about their culture that has influenced the way you run your business?
If the Japanese are not happy about their boss, they actually over-deliver instead of other places where most people will cut back on their output or even go on strike or protest. I have never heard that employees in Japan have gone on strike even when they are angry. They are efficient with time and they always keep to their promise; that is why in my organization, I always under-promise and over-deliver.
What is your favorite airline to travel on?
It used to be KLM in the early days but, in the last 10 years, I travel with Emirates.
What is your favorite city to stay in?
I am mostly in three cities in Japan – Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.
What is your favorite hotel?
I usually stay at the Hotel Plaza Osaka and Imperial Hotel Tokyo. I look for a decent and clean hotel. I want to stay in a place where there is no smoking and the staff is warm and pleasant. The cleanliness in Japan is also very impressive.
What are your favorite activities in Japan?
I usually go to Japan for work but I have also been there on holiday with the family and sometimes I combine the two. I go to work in the morning and during the evening we go out for dinner. If I am in Tokyo, I like to take a walk after dinner around the ‘emperor park’. The park is very large and beautiful and it is around the castle where the emperor lived. I also visited Disneyland Tokyo with the family during one vacation and have also seen the famous Mt. Fuji which is an active volcano, as well as other rural areas. I have been to Kyoto where there is a lot of beautiful scenery and mountain areas to explore. I like to go during the springtime when you see the beautiful cherry blossoms. It is a really amazing sight and many people travel all over the world to watch this spectacle.
How much do you spend on your travels?
Japan is quite expensive. First class tickets to Tokyo are on average about $6,000. The country has efficient train systems, both the local and express trains, which can help you save some money on your travel. You will hardly find a hotel for $100; so on average you are looking at $200 a night unless you want to go very far out of the city. Depending on where you eat, the prices also vary. Most five-star hotels are averaging about $80 to $100.
What is your biggest takeaway from the Japanese culture?
I will be honest and admit that there is no way I will have my success story without the Japanese. Meeting the Japanese transformed my way of thinking. I started setting up my office model the way I see them set up their office model. I drew inspiration from them in many aspects of my business. I learned integrity from them. It is a way of living for them. Respect for time is paramount. If a Japanese man gives you an appointment for 10AM, by 9.30AM, he is in a restaurant next door to your office. They don’t come 15 minutes before or 10 minutes after. Once it is 10AM, they knock on your door. If he comes two minutes late, he apologizes for almost 10 minutes for being late because it is simply not accepted in the culture. They helped me learn the value of making a promise and keeping it and that has completely transformed the way I do business.
<h1>The Cost:</h1>
First-class air ticket from Lagos: $6,000
Hotel room per night: $200
Meal at a five-star hotel: From $80 to $100

Cosmas Maduka’s Japan

A few years ago, amid gale force winds in the Antarctic Peninsula, I was busy photographing Gentoo penguins who were calmly positioning themselves in a circle to avoid the sweeping ice particles, akin to rugby players during a huddle.
While most of my fellow travelers had scampered back to the ship from Port Lockroy, the first British base in Antarctica, I was snapping away until the last zodiac boat summoned me back to the ship. There was one other photographer more keen on shooting these birds than myself, who soon became a good friend for the rest of the journey. This person was a native of Cape Town, Lee Slabber, a famous landscape and wildlife photographer living in the beautiful suburb of Noordhoek. I accepted Slabber&#8217;s invitation to visit him in South Africa and one of the highlights of my visit was to photograph the African penguin along the coastline on False Bay near Cape Town.
All penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere, though it’s a common myth they all live in Antarctica. In fact, penguins can be found on every continent in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s also a myth that penguins can only live in cold climates. The Galapagos penguin, for example, lives on tropical islands at the equator. The secret to their survival is the presence of ocean currents from Antarctica, which push cooler waters northwards.
After photographing all the seven Antarctic species and three sub-Antarctic species, I was very keen on seeing the African penguin near the Cape. Waking up well before dawn, we drove to one of the secluded beaches in anticipation of seeing penguins wake up from their nests to go to sea. Slabber mentioned that sunrise photographs of the penguins, while challenging, gives a photographer the opportunity to see them not only go fishing in the sea but also watch them return.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/02/01/dont-see-travel-brochures/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: What You Don&#8217;t See In Travel Brochures</a>
It was a cold morning in May when the temperature was hovering around 13°C. We took up our positions near a boulder to see the spectacle unfold in front of us.
<div id="attachment_35020" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35020" class=" wp-image-35020" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Penguins-1-212x300.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="354" />(Photo by Ramdas Iyer)</div>
The sky was magical with spectral colors revealing themselves in the cool morning light. The penguins started stirring outside their nests and seemed to stretch on the boulders until a sufficient number of them gathered and slowly began making their way towards the water which was perhaps 25 meters away.
Crouching and crawling, I was trying to photograph them against this brilliant sky in the background. We followed them into the water by taking a circuitous path away from the bushes to avoid startling or trampling little ones. We perched ourselves in a location where boulders shielded us from the chilly winds, but not from the cold wet sand.
The steady march of these birds both in and out of the water made for some spectacular photography. A few males were courting their smaller female counterparts, with the male throwing its flipper over the shoulder of the female and shepherding her along the beach like how humans would do.
Penguins are, perhaps the most loved of birds. We’ve been fascinated by them for just about as long as we’ve known they existed. When penguins are on land, their actions appear to us so humorous and expressive we identify them with moods and actions similar to our own. In reality, penguins live in some of the harshest environments, exhibiting amazing survival skills very far from our prying eyes.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/26/will-elephants-left-2030/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Will There Be Any Elephants Left In 2030?</a>
After a good hour of spending time with them it was time for us to leave and not stress them anymore with our presence, despite the fact they adapted well to us. All along the southwestern coast of South Africa and parts of Namibia, penguins have colonies in small rocky islands allowing them to fish and breed. But over the centuries, these islands connected with the mainland thus exposing their vulnerabilities.
<div id="attachment_35021" style="width: 411px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35021" class=" wp-image-35021" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Penguins-2-e1516350071712-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="401" height="266" />(Photo by Ramdas Iyer)</div>
Today, the African penguin is considered a vulnerable animal and has been listed as ‘endangered’ by the IUCN. They are attacked from air, land and water. With sea surface temperatures rising, their food sources are further afar exposing their presence in water to seals and sharks. Aerial predators like Kelp Gulls plunder their eggs, while on land, cats, humans and lizards are doing their share. There is an approximate 2% decline in the African penguin population every year, mainly due to habitat disruption and competition for food from commercial fisheries.
Numerous South African wildlife organizations, such as the <a href="https://sanccob.co.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds</a> (SANCCOB), are dedicated to saving the African penguin. As one of 17 mega diverse countries in the world, South Africa’s penguin is a gift to this land from the southern oceans. If you have not seen and enjoyed their antics yet, it may be a visit long overdue to the beaches of the Cape.

The African Penguin’s Day Out

Crossing the Oshoek Border Post from South Africa to Swaziland, I was excited to be visiting the realm of Africa’s last absolute monarchy. Not realizing that it was the Easter weekend, I got caught standing alongside Swazis trying to re-enter their country for the holidays.
I also realized that I was entering a country with the highest incidence of HIV in Africa with a stabilized number reported at up to 30% of the population. While this is not the subject of this article, I must satisfy the curiosity of the reader nevertheless. Social scientists have determined that the itinerant workers with whom I was lining up were one of the major reasons for this scourge.
<div id="attachment_34571" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34571" class=" wp-image-34571" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Swazi-dance-e1512028782448-300x180.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="300" />Swazi women perform a traditional dance. (Photo by Ramdas Iyer)</div>
Being away from home and working in the mines and timber industries of South Africa, these men infect their many wives in a polygamous society, along with their girlfriends. In addition, traditions such as the inheritance of widows from a deceased brother, does not help HIV’s continuing spread.
The border crossing was smooth confirming my notion that the Swazis were a relaxed and nice people. Though lacking in size, this interesting country makes up for it with its rich culture. While the monarchy has its critics, the history of Swazi resistance to the British, Boers and the Zulus has fostered national pride. As a result, local culture is flourishing along with Christianity.
Many Swazis combine Christianity with indigenous beliefs, and religious freedoms are written into the country’s 2005 constitution. However in January, the education ministry instructed all head teachers to ensure that the syllabus would not mention any religion other than Christianity, including Islam and Judaism.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/03/professor-saved-african-rainforest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Professor Who Saved An African Rainforest</a>
Driving into Mbabane, the capital city, I found it to be an attractive and functional place perched in the cool highveld (4,000ft) of the Dlangeni Hills. Swaziland with its population of 1.5 million is a low middle income country where most citizens are ethnic Swazis. The official languages are both Swati and English.
Its ruler, King Mswati III, is one of the world’s last absolute monarchs, and a man who is not too keen on handing his throne over entirely to parliament. The Borgen Project, a nonprofit organization, reports that about half of <a href="http://borgenproject.org/poverty-hunger-swaziland/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Swazis</a> live in poverty. Forty percent of Swazis are unemployed and 70% of the workforce is employed in sustenance farming. But it’s not all bad news. Roads are well-paved and <a href="http://borgenproject.org/combating-rural-poverty-in-swaziland/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">far-reaching</a>. The literacy rate is over 91%, which might be expected when 8.3% of the GDP is spent on education; which is why I saw the entire city swarming with nicely-uniformed schoolchildren in the afternoon.
<div id="attachment_34572" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34572" class=" wp-image-34572" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Swazi-dance-1-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="375" />A drummer provides the beat for the traditional dance. (Photo by Ramdas Iyer)</div>
In order to find the old Swaziland, which has rapidly modernized itself, I went in search of old villages and cultural events. More than 70% of Swaziland’s population is of ethnic roots, which means that all the traditions and beliefs are upheld throughout the year and are evident in daily life through dress and other activities.
I soon arrived in Mantetenga Swazi Cultural Village, a living museum of old traditions and representing a classic Swazi lifestyle during the 1850s. The village is a large family homestead of 16 huts, each with its own specific purpose as well as kraals for cattle and goats, reed fences that serve as windbreaks and various other structures. The building material is strictly traditional: poles, grass, reeds, leather stripes, earth and dried cow dung. The adjacent 725-acre Mantenga Nature Reserve is made of a combination of middle and highveld habitat, and more than a third of the reserve is covered by eucalyptus (gum) forest. I explored the reserve by foot, with two walking trails leading up the mountain towards the summit of Sheba’s Breast, made famous by the book King Solomon’s Mines written by Sir Rider Haggard, a Victorian adventure writer in 1885. Birdlife in the reserve was good, with wildlife such as baboons, vervet monkeys, nyala, duiker and mongoose regularly seen.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/07/11/a-paradise-in-retreat/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Paradise In Retreat</a>
After visiting the village, I patiently waited for a large contingent of dancers to perform the Umhlanga followed by the Incwala dance. There are two main kinds of dances, each done by women and men respectively and done at most of the celebrations and gatherings throughout the year, but predominantly at the two most popular events: Umhlanga in August and Incwala in December. The spectacle I enjoyed seemed to be a hybrid version of both.
<div id="attachment_34573" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34573" class=" wp-image-34573" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Swazi-dance-2-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="375" />A man performs a traditional Swazi dance. (Photo by Ramdas Iyer)</div>
Umhlanga attracts thousands or women from near and far and once the entire group has concluded dancing and singing, different villages take center stage and put on a display as a sign of respect for the Queen mother. The different villages are distinguishable by their beaded outfits and jewelry. Even the king’s daughters are involved and distinguishable by the bright red feathers they wear in their hair. The king will usually pick his new wife from the crowd of dancers.
Incwala, which means first fruits, is probably the most important and significant of the two. Dancing plays a prominent role here as men gather at the Royal Kraal at Ludzidzini and dance for a few days. Known to be the most honorable on the Swazi events calendar, the Incwala dates are determined by the phases of the moon and begins with a journey to the Indian Ocean to collect water. The third day sees the men slaughter a bull with the fourth day welcoming the arrival of the king who dons his traditional dress and joins in on dances with the other men before returning to his hut to enjoy the first fruit of the season.
However, these aren’t the only dances in Swaziland; other events boast their own dances such as the Sibhaca dance performed by groups of men throughout the country at any opportunity. One cannot but appreciate this gentle land with its handsome men and women and their penchant for dance.

A Land Of Many Dances

The incessant rain was becoming too much to bear especially given the steep and slippery terrain, so I asked my naturalist guide Theo to find a place where we could rest.
I was in a pristine rainforest known as Ranomafana in the central highlands of Madagascar on a three-week trip in April to observe and photograph the natural history and geology of south central Madagascar. We sat protected by rain, beneath the eaves of a primitive cabin once used by a scientist who the local villagers considered “the mother of Ranomafana”.
That lady was none other than Dr. Patricia Chapple Wright, the world’s leading lemur expert, who’d spent time in these cabins in the mid 1980s while searching for extinct lemurs and in the process discovered two new species.
I had no knowledge of Wright, or the amazing work she had done for the conservation of this 145 square mile rainforest, which along with a 500 square mile buffer zone is home to many endangered species. Those include several species of lemur that she almost certainly saved from extinction. As a result of Wright’s determined efforts, Ranomafana National Park was created by her in 1986 and became a World Heritage Site for its unique biodiversity in 1992.
Lemurs are our primate cousins that never evolved into Homo sapiens but possess 90% of our DNA. They had been the least studied primates, since they are only found in Madagascar where they evolved for over 80 million years in relative isolation.
While in Madagascar, I had made up my mind to reach out to Wright and thank her for her yeoman service to science and conservation.
Upon my return to New Jersey, I emailed her lab in Stony Brook University, New York, where she is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Primatology.
In my letter, I expressed my sincere intent to meet her and perhaps interview her for FORBES WOMAN AFRICA. My letter to her was more successful than her own early efforts to meet the chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall, when as a young scientist she had naively attempted to write to Goodall in Tanzania.
She had simply addressed her mail to “Jane Goodall, Gombe Stream, Tanzania” and perhaps that mail still sits in a dead letter office in Tanzania.
To discover the real Patricia Chapple Wright I read up on her in every media source available. I watched the movie Madagascar: Island Of Lemurs narrated by Morgan Freeman that featured her.
The BBC series on Madagascar which showed her work with lemurs was a great supplement to my knowledge of the flora and fauna there. Her first book High Moon Over The Amazon: My Quest To Understand The Monkeys Of The Night was an interesting read about her childhood, her “hippie” life in the 60s followed by a long stretch as primate scientist and raising a daughter as a single mother in the jungle.
This book revealed her warm persona, her motherly instincts, her love for nature and her sacrifices to achieve scientific credentials through hard field work in Manu National Park, Peru, in the 70s, a good two weeks journey from civilization.
Her second book, For The Love Of Lemurs: My Life In The Wilds Of Madagascar, gave me an idea of her amazing years observing, documenting and studying the behavior of lemurs, especially the golden bamboo lemur and the greater bamboo lemur both of whom she discovered in Ranomafana.
It was an amazing read covering the difficulties of a young woman scientist in the middle of a rainforest in a politically isolated land with multiple tribal customs and taboos.
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Her scientific journey began four decades ago in New York City when in 1968, as a young housewife on her way to a Jimi Hendrix concert with her husband, she got trapped in a Greenwich Village pet store, Fish &amp; Cheeps, during a rainstorm.
She eventually went home owning an owl monkey that she had fallen in love with at the store. It was the counter culture era in the United States with anti-war protests, hippie culture, women’s rights and African-American equality movements. Therefore raising a monkey, albeit an exotic one, was not considered unusual.
The young Wright was a social worker in New York despite having a biology degree from Hood College in Maryland. As Barbara J. King, nature commentator at NPR (National Public Radio) put it: “That connection with an owl monkey led to a radical life change. Eventually Wright headed to graduate school and then to Madagascar to do research. She has discovered new lemur species and helped create a national park — all while helping the local people along the way. Her efforts have blossomed into a worldwide movement to save the lemurs, considered to be among the most endangered vertebrates.”
After raising the owl monkey for a year she wanted to find a mate for it. Not finding much information on the subject in libraries, she reached out to the anthropology department in CUNY (City University of New York) and came to know that owl monkeys are natives of the Amazon and jungles of Central America. The young Wright decided to take her painter husband and new-born daughter, Amanda, to Brazil to find a mate for her owl monkey. The family eventually came home with a mate and soon the monkey pair had an offspring.
Wright’s observation that the male monkey took all offspring-raising responsibilities defied common perceptions among primatologists that only females nurtured offspring. Her curiosity of this behavior led her to travel to Costa Rica for several months, again with her young family, to study owl monkeys. She came back with sufficient information to publish a pioneering research paper. Her attempt to publish was spurned because she was not a bona fide scientist as she did not have an advanced degree. So she began her PhD studies at CUNY under the tutelage of Dr. Warren Kinzey, a well-regarded scientist.
Her field studies took her to Manu National Park in Peru, where she spent nearly two years studying the behavioral aspects of owl monkeys. Her book High Moon Over The Amazon details her experiences in Peruvian rainforests including stories of facing jaguars, vipers and army ants while raising a young daughter.
Later, working as a research associate for Duke University’s primatology lab, she was sent to the Philippines and Borneo to study the Tarsier monkeys of Southeast Asia. Upon her return, her professor assigned her to Madagascar to search for a new species of lemurs, and especially the greater bamboo lemur, considered extinct.
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This assignment began her three decades of field work in Madagascar which had been closed off to Westerners for more than a decade in the 70s. The economic infrastructure had fallen apart, there were no paved roads and people resorted to slash-and-burn subsistence farming, which meant slashing and burning the rainforest.
Wright was so frustrated with Madagascar and writes: “My journey was just one disappointment after another, until I came to <a href="http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/centre-valbio/about_us/ranomafana.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ranomafana</a> in the Southeast. I stopped in a village because it had hot mineral springs and I needed a bath. Later, the villagers guided me into this gorgeous forest, where I camped. In the forest, I spotted something that I thought was the animal I’d been searching for. It wasn’t. It was actually a species new to science, the golden bamboo lemur. Not long after that, I did see a greater bamboo lemur. It wasn’t extinct after all.”
In 1989, she became a MacArthur Foundation “genius” Fellow. In 1995, she was awarded the Chevalier d’ Ordre National (National Medal of Honor of Madagascar) and in 2004, the Officier d’ Ordre National from the President of Madagascar in recognition of her conservation work.
She is busy commuting between two continents; she is the founder of Center ValBio, a modern research campus in the rainforest of Madagascar. As professor of anthropology and standing member of National Geographic’s Committee on Science and Exploration, she is today considered the world’s top primatologist and lemur expert.
Conducting over 40 biological expeditions in Peru, Sarawak, Philippines, Paraguay and Madagascar over the past four decades, she is the author of several research papers focusing on behavior, predation, rainforest ecology, climate change and conservation studies especially of Malagasy lemurs.
In 2013, Wright was one of only 26 resident members to gain election to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States. In 2014, she won the Indianapolis Prize for Conservation, the most prestigious award for nature conservation. She has written many books including Madagascar: Forests of our Ancestors, Tarsiers: Past, Present and Future and Girl Power: Ladies Led in the Lemurs. &#8211; Written by Ramdas Iyer

The Professor Who Saved An African Rainforest

Flying over the 400-mile wide Mozambique Channel that separates Madagascar from the African continent, my heart raced at the prospect of visiting a remote island that separated from the African continent some 165 million years ago.
Imagine an island more than 1,000 miles long in a blue tropical ocean uninhabited for most of its history. Forests cover vast areas, interspersed with swamps where eight-meter-long crocodiles lie in wait to prey on pygmy hippopotamuses. In the rain forests and in dryer parts of the island live some of the strangest primates to have ever existed on earth. Some 110 species of these lemurs live throughout the island and range in size from the world&#8217;s smallest primate, weighing about one ounce, to a lemur the size of a gorilla (now extinct).
Peering out of my aircraft window, I watched the stratocumulus clouds tower over the many swollen rivers draining the rainwaters as we descended towards Antananarivo (Tana), the capital of Madagascar located in the cool central highlands. With golden paddy fields blanketed by green clusters of trees, I was descending into what appeared to be a paradise of forests, paddy fields and rolling hills.
At the arrivals area, I was surprised to be greeted by faces that displayed a unique blend of African and Indonesian bloodlines. First populated 1,600 years ago by ancient sailors from Borneo, in today’s Indonesia, its early history is being slowly peeled by anthropologists one excavation at a time.
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Nearly all the species here evolved in isolation since it broke off and drifted away from east Africa many million years ago. What I found here is a lost world of unique animals and plants, unseen by humans until their first arrival.
My planned take-away from this trip included photographing colorful chameleons, trekking the lush rainforests, navigating spiny thorn forests and climbing the spectacular rock formations. At the end of it all, what left me with a deeper sense of this country was its unique people following ancient customs, despite their wanton destruction of a paradise.
My guide in Antasibe, Maurice Ratsesakanana, was instrumental in me tracking down the apex lemur, indri. Its haunting calls are reminiscent of the songs of the humpback whales. Each morning in my bungalow, at the Hotel Fenny Ala at the edge of the rain forest, I woke up to its call. The indri is the largest lemur in existence today and tracking and photographing them in rain was a trophy to be had. Indris have never been successfully bred in captivity and this is the only place on earth that one can see these unusual primates.
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Maurice also exposed me to some of the 600 amphibians and reptiles that inhabit the forest, most of them endemic to Madagascar, meaning found nowhere else on earth. Frogs of every imaginable color and pattern leapt in this wet jungle. Chameleons, some brilliantly colored, and others shades of mottled brown, crept invisibly about. The largest can capture mice and birds, while the smallest, measuring only an inch, feeds on insects.
More than 80% of Madagascar’s 14,883 plant species are found nowhere else in the world. The rain forests had many orchids growing on tree barks and stems. Maurice indicated that three-fourths of Madagascar’s 860 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchid" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">orchid</a> species are endemic, as are six of the world’s eight <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">baobab</a> species. I found orchid nursery’s lining all along the Antasibe road, simply harvested from the rainforest each day.
At the World Heritage rain forest of Ranomafana, Theo Farafidison, my guide, educated me on so many aspects of the fauna there. Theo worked with filmmaker David Attenborough during the shooting of the BBC series there. Almost all the amphibians and reptiles in Madagascar, half the 300 birds and all its 110 species of lemurs are endemic. Theo and I spotted a Parson’s chameleon that was almost two feet long and capable of grabbing birds with its sticky tongue. I could not help but coax it to walk on my arms, a small violation of the park’s rules. The bamboo lemurs are a specialty here, along with seven other species.
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My personal highlight was that of grabbing a six-foot tree boa at night while we were looking for nocturnal lemurs and chameleons. He was quite docile and surprisingly comfortable in my hold. After studying him in my confines, I gently eased him on to a tree, not realizing that they hunt on the ground. After photographing many species of frogs, scores of geckos, including those that mimic leaves, several chameleon species, five snake species, including a very large Madagascar tree boa, I moved to the drier side of the highlands. The unique animals of this country, especially the tree boa constrictor, are a target for pet suppliers from all over the world.
Some of the amazing landscapes I found in the country’s national parks included spectacular rock massifs, canyons, aquatic environments, savannahs and dry lands. Isalo, Zombitse, Kirindy and Andatringa come to mind as places that cannot be missed. Waterfalls abound, cascading down tall cliffs into rivers and lakes, the central highlands are a mosaic of woodland and savannah, while the eastern regions are covered in dense, humid rainforest.
In my quest for soaking up this paradise I swam in cool pools inside canyons, trekked the Tsaranoro massif, a sheer rock 800 meters tall known for world-class rock climbing, went sapphire prospecting on river banks, walked in wet, dry, semi-humid and spiny forests enjoying everything from insects like the endemic kung fu cricket, which takes on a martial posture when approached by the diverse ethnic groups that populate this island.
One great adventure that will last in my memory was my attempt to reach the spectacular limestone karst formations of Tsingy de Bemahara in the rainy season. It is an impenetrable wilderness of limestone spikes and sharp rocks that dominates the North West. The Tsingy is an ancient 200-mile long coral reef lifted from the ocean and carved over the millennia by wind and water into dagger-edged pinnacles. Crossing rivers on barges and driving through the dirt roads that had become three-feet deep streams during the rainy season, I reached this remote area to be hailed as the first tourist to arrive there that season. A nine-mile trek and climb ensued my visit to this world heritage site from the top looking down since all road access was inundated.
Deforestation has been present on the island since its colonization by humans, approximately 2,000 years ago, with 90% of the original forests lost. With an unprecedented population growth, extreme poverty (one of the highest in the world), and a brewing political crisis, the nature of the island is helpless and besieged by multiple fronts including corruption at the highest level. There is a police stop almost every few miles; they find something wrong with every vehicle in order to squeeze a few arriaris out of innocents and crooks alike. Thankfully, they do not bother tourists. One interesting behavior that I wish to write about is that of the gendarmerie (national police) who offered a full ceremonial salute when all our papers were in order.
In addition to the traditional system of slash and burn deforestation, which allows local people to open forests to cultivate, international players in cahoots with local officials selectively log rosewood tree species and have become the main threat for the biodiversity of the island. Lorries of hardwood leaving forested areas forced me to enquire about its legitimacy to everyone I met. They all shrugged almost helplessly even though their future was being stripped one day at a time.
Other threats include killing lemurs for meat, poaching reptiles and amphibians for the pet trade (the ploughshare tortoise fetches $200,000), habitat alteration and the clearance of forests, primarily for firewood and charcoal production. En route to the rainforests of Antasibe, I could see virgin rainforests burning outside the limits of the park for agriculture and cattle grazing that brought tears to my eyes. At every turn during my trip, my driver Tony Rebetsitonta, reflected on the different forested areas that had disappeared in his 25 years of driving around the country. It is anticipated that all the island’s rainforests, excluding those in protected areas and the steepest eastern mountain slopes, will have been deforested by 2025. As a result, several charismatic species such as chameleons and lemurs that evolved for millions of years here may become extinct by the end of the century.
The urgency to conserve the habitat has long been noticed by western scientists and conservation funding for Madagascar is at its peak. From protecting flora, fauna, habitats and large swathes of remaining forest, organizations are finding new ways to compensate the locals, educate them on sustainable land use and above all deal with a complex system of taboos that hold back progress.
While at Ranofamana National Park, I came to realize that this large virgin rainforest was protected and later converted into a park by none other than Dr. Patricia Wright of Stony Brook University in 1980, while studying bamboo lemurs as a post doctoral research worker there. This is another example of a driven woman scientist challenging government officials, locals and vested interests to create a legacy for mankind.
By the 16th century, the central highlands where the bulk of Madagascar’s population resides had been largely cleared of their original forests. It was small wonder that I saw red top soil getting washed off into the rivers from the air with no roots to hold them down. More recent contributors to the loss of forest cover include the growth in cattle herd size since their introduction around 1,000 years ago.
I met a professor from the University of Pretoria who is studying land grabs and cattle rustling in Madagascar and did not want his name publicized. This is a country where people still keep their wealth in cattle and not cash. He told me that rustling cattle is big business and as a result big groups of heavily-armed men attack villages and run away with the several hundred heads of cattle. I am told that the Malagasy people register their Zebu cattle at birth with the authorities, and not their own children.
Today, there are around 18 different ethnic groups living on the island. These include the Asiatic Merina (who make up over a quarter of the population), the Betsimisaraka, Betsileo, Tsimihety, Antaimoro and the Bantu Sakalava. The Malagasy language is very similar to the Indonesian language Minaan; spoken only in Borneo, it has accepted some Bantu/Swahili words over time. Their customs especially of burials, land ownership, taboos and professions are very unique for the traveler to see and experience.
The Malagasy burial customs matches closely with cultures from Indonesia where I have traveled extensively to study them. This includes periodic exhumation of the bones and huge celebrations, keeping the corpse at home until it dries before burial or placing them inside rock cairns in hard to reach places, all of which bankrupt families in pursuit of satisfying their forefathers. Their philosophy, much like the ethnic Indonesians of Sulawesi and Borneo, is that life on earth is very ephemeral when compared to the soul’s journey through the universe.
This beautiful land and its people are in a ticking time bomb of land loss, top soil erosion and desertification in a few centuries. While western agencies are doing their best to stem the degradation, it is inevitable that it cannot be reversed. Added to this, poor education, absent healthcare and a corrupt government have kept the people very poor, just living under an annual $500 per capita.
It is a paradise in retreat and all our efforts to decelerate this decline is all I can hope for these wonderful people and its other living denizens. It is a travesty created by man in his effort to conquer nature. &#8211; Words and photos by Ramdas Iyer

A Paradise In Retreat

The toughest day in her entrepreneurial journey – inspired by the large number of travelers passing through the numerous police roadblocks she manned in and around Kariba, Zimbabwe – is the day Patricia Mazvidza’s guest lodge opened its doors.
A veteran of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, Mazvidza shrugged off the comfort of government employment as a police officer. She had risen to the commissioned rank of inspector and later on to superintendent.
“The idea to start a guest lodge initially came in 2002 while I was working at the roadblocks as a police officer here in Kariba,” says Mazvidza at her business, Dzimbabwe Lodge, in Kariba. “Most of the cars you would stop at the police roadblocks were carrying tourists and other travelers to Kariba.”
She always wondered where these people would sleep and if they were comfortable during their visit.
Roadblocks are a topical issue in Zimbabwe, but the police deny that it sets targets for each team manning the numerous blockades in Harare. On the day of the interview with Mazvidza, there were nine police roadblocks between Harare and Kariba.
At each roadblock, police officers flag you down, ask for your driver’s licence and check for front and back reflectors, vehicle licence and ask you to open your trunk to check the spare wheel, breakdown triangles and serviceable fire extinguisher.
If you don’t have any of the required equipment, they book you and ask you to pay on-the-spot fines, which range between $10 and $20. If you don’t pay the fine, your vehicle is impounded.
In addition to burning a hole in tourists’ pockets, the roadblocks are hurting Mazvidza’s business. She thinks they deter tourists from traveling to Zimbabwe. She tells FORBES AFRICA that the roadblocks are being handled differently to when she was a police officer.
“When we did our training for law and policing, we were always told and we always observed the importance of warning – you don’t just rush to book and fine just for the sake of collecting a fine,” she says.
Apart from the guest lodge, which has 16 rooms and which is in the process of expanding to 35 rooms, Mazvidza also runs a thriving petrol and diesel filling station under a franchise agreement with Zuva Petroleum.
At the filling station, which opened in 2014, and where profit margins are 6 cents per liter, Mazvidza has opened the Zuva Restaurant and is working on adding a vehicle servicing station.
“I saw that if I put all my eggs in one basket, you will be left with nothing if the basket breaks up. We did not have the experience to run a fueling station and at first I hesitated but it is doing fairly well, but you have to supplement it with other businesses such as the restaurant and servicing garage that we are setting up,” she says.
Mazvidza’s husband is a civil engineer working for the Zambezi River Authority which oversees the Lake Kariba. He encouraged her to soldier on with the business and he also did the design for the guest lodge.
“My best day in the office is actually the day we started the guest lodge business. I was hesitant and thinking ‘what if people do not come and it becomes idle’. Yet, when we opened doors in 2002, there was so much demand and now we are not afraid of even the big lodges and hotels here in Kariba because I believe in the services we offer and the smartness and relaxed nature of our services,” she said
She has no worst day in her entrepreneurial journey but she wishes she had started the hospitality business earlier. The guest lodge – which has presidential, executive, family and single rooms – is complemented by two boathouses on Lake Kariba.
Her business is a world away from where the 53-year-old Mazvidza started. She was born in Mutoko, in eastern Zimbabwe, and crossed over into Mozambique for liberation war training while she was still in primary school. She returned to Zimbabwe in 1980 and later enrolled for the police force.
“I joined the police force in 1983 after undergoing police training at Tomlinson Depot in Harare and was stationed at Mbizo in Kwekwe. I was then posted to Kariba in 1989 which saw me promoted from constable to sergeant and then to inspector in 2000,” says Mazvidza.
“I was then further promoted, in 2002, to the rank of superintendent. We had bought a piece of land here in Kariba and we thought of using it as a guest lodge after carefully thinking about the potential opportunities in the hospitality industry here.”
If starting her business was tough; deciding to retire from the police force was more difficult.
“I retired on October 21, 2002 after making one of the toughest decisions of my life. But I had to decide after considering that if you run your own business full time, it is always better. Frankly speaking, I never thought I would be able to run a business as I always thought it was good just to be employed but today I now know that it can be done because I have done it.”
It was one of many tough decisions along a hard road but Mazvidza is not looking back.

Patricia-2-

No Roadblock Can Stop This Business

They call themselves Geeks on a Plane and they landed in Africa with hope and money in the middle of uncertainty. Many of these investors and entrepreneurs are based in Silicon Valley, one of the biggest US business hubs, known for its start-up ecosystem, high-tech innovations and scientific developments. They have been touring Africa looking for investments.
“Successes are infrequent, maybe 20 to 30 percent of our investments will probably return some capital but the majority of the significant outcomes will be less than 10 percent of our portfolio and the really big outcomes will be under one and two percent,” says Dave McClure, the founding partner of 500 Startups, the venture capital and seed fund accelerator that organized Geeks on a Plane.
The company was launched seven years ago. It has created business opportunities for about 18,000 companies, making around 500 investments a year, says McClure.
“This is our eighteenth trip around the world. We usually take between 20 and 40 people to the different markets in the world and try to expose them to what is happening. We learn about the local market, we meet entrepreneurs and investors, and we tell them what is happening back in Silicon Valley. It’s a great way to get to new markets and meet new people.”
It has been four years since the first investment in Africa. Since then there have been at least 10 investments in sub-Saharan Africa, in payment infrastructure, mobile technology and services. The investment, per company, ranges from $25,000 to $100,000. McClure says some of their investments have failed, but they encourage companies to work hard to break even, as soon as possible, to attract other investors.
<div id="attachment_31484" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31484" class="wp-image-31484 size-medium" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/3W0A0759-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/3W0A0759-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/3W0A0759-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/3W0A0759-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/3W0A0759.jpg 683w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Dave McClure</div>
“To create the right risk appetite [is all] about hope and trust. When you think about trust, it’s when you sort of build a network of investors together… We have investors coming in and spending three weeks with us and we showcase some of our start-ups and what we have seen is that those people that are meeting for the first time are creative, so of a similar interest. One of the companies didn’t raise the money before, but with the class they raised $500,000,” says Bedy Yang, the Managing Partner at 500 Startups.
“You often see that intersection with a local founder and a local investor, it is not only among people on the same trip and same small circle, but the idea we open those circles. The reason we come to Geeks on the Plane is we want to map up those circles and narrow the trust quickly and say ‘I want to do something people believe in and write the cheques’.”
Monique Woodard, one of the first black female venture capital partners in the United States, says the best women in business are African women. Despite this, they are often rejected by banks and investors.
“I would say they need to start [considering women entrepreneurs] because I am coming to take those deals… The position of women in business in Africa is quite good when you look at large corporations or family run businesses. When you look at start-ups, we are still at the very beginning of seeing women entering,” she says.
Woodard says in a developing market they first look at telecoms, transportation, broadband, financial services, e-commerce and media.
“The sub-Saharan ecosystem is still emerging and developing market. There’s a playbook of how the developing markets of sub-Saharan Africa can grow and we have done it in other areas as well. I expected it to be different but not impossible,” says Woodard.
Woodard acknowledges fewer girls are taking science and mathematics at school but says she’s hopeful that will change. They have partnered with companies, like Andela in Kenya, to train and place women in the software development industry.
“That’s not something unique to Africa, that’s very much across the board. So, there are things we should be doing, figuring out how to encourage girls to continue with computers science degrees and then continue to be in the tech industry and start their own companies. When it comes to education, we play are role in investing in companies that provide education outside the public school system,” she says.
The company has helped many in Africa, including Hanan Abdel Meguid, an Egyptian businesswoman. In the early 1990s, Meguid, then a student at the American University in Cairo, took a leap of faith when she enrolled for a computer science degree despite not being familiar with computers. She discovered the field was male-dominated, but she stayed in the course.
“I started my first company with friends, right after university, because our dreams and our capabilities were much bigger than the opportunities in the market. A similar experience is happening for Arab youth this day. IT has become a catalyst for change,” says Meguid, who’s now based in Silicon Valley and mentoring in advisory and seed investment programs.
500 Startups has an appetite for risk – amid the turmoil of the week they landed in South Africa, it was just as well.

Risk? So What?

With their colorful costumes and tall stature, the Maasai people of the Great Rift Valley region of East Africa are perhaps the most photographed tribe in the world. Their fierce adherence to an ancient way of life is glorified in coffee table books and travel magazines the world over. The Maasai people of East Africa live in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania along the Great Rift Valley on semi-arid and arid lands. The Maasai occupy a total land area of 160,000 square kilometers with a population of approximately 1.2 million people.
I visited the Maasai people of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in 2014. Whilst they live within the confines of the roles they play as glamorous tribals for visiting tourists, they are reportedly constantly battling government initiatives that erode their way of life and meager livelihoods.
Indigenous people such as the Maasai worldwide are between 300-500 million, embody and nurture 80% of the world’s cultural and biological diversity, and occupy 20% of the world’s land surface. Some indigenous people strive to preserve traditional ways of life, and at the same time seek greater participation in current state structures.
But all is reportedly not well for these pastoral farmers since the land they grace has been under threat by mining and wildlife concessions for nearly 50 years. Local indigenous councils have been battling with authorities during this entire period: it seems like both their luck and existence are running out.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31604" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/32108349462_67d1ac59fa_o.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
An additional problem for the Maasai apparently is the discovery of vast quantities of helium in the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley. The BBC News in June 2016 reported this find as a “game-changer”, especially as previously-known world supplies are running out.
A group of researchers from Oxford and Durham universities in the United Kingdom, working with the Norwegian helium exploration company Helium One, have discovered what they believe is a vast supply of the element in an unlikely place.
“Their research shows that volcanic activity provides the intense heat necessary to release the gas from ancient, helium-bearing rocks,” according to a statement from the University of Oxford.
“Within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley, volcanoes have released helium from ancient deep rocks and have trapped this helium in shallower gas fields.”
Robert Richardson, Professor of Physics from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, won the 1996 Nobel Prize for his work on “super fluidity of helium”, and has issued a warning that supplies of helium are being used at an unprecedented rate and could be depleted within a generation.
Professor Richardson warned the gas is not cheap because the supply is inexhaustible, but because of the Helium Privatization Act passed in 1996 by the US Congress. The Act required the helium stores held underground near Amarillo in Texas be sold off at a fixed rate by 2015 regardless of the market value, to pay off the original cost of the reserve. The Amarillo Texas storage facility holds around half the earth’s stocks of helium – around a billion cubic meters of the gas. The US currently supplies around 80% of the world’s helium supplies.
Richardson said it has taken 4.7 billion years for Earth to accumulate the helium reserves; we will have exhausted them within about a hundred years of the US’s National Helium Reserve having been established in 1925.
Helium is used in hospitals in MRI scanners as well as in spacecraft, telescopes, nuclear research and radiation monitors. Until now, the precious gas has been discovered only in small quantities during oil and gas drilling. Using a new exploration approach, researchers found large quantities of helium within the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley.
Prof Chris Ballentine of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, said: “This is a game-changer for the future security of society’s helium needs and similar finds in the future may not be far away.”
The discovery was reported in the US journal Popular Science.
“To put this discovery into perspective,” Prof Ballentine continued, “global consumption of helium is about 8 billion cubic feet per year and the United States Federal Helium Reserve, which is the world’s largest supplier, has a current reserve of just 24.2 billion cubic feet.”
The Tanzania find could reportedly thus be sufficient to meet global demand for nearly seven years, and may be more than twice as large as the US helium reserve.
This latest find, estimated at 54 billion cubic feet of helium ($3.8 billion), is a major shot in the arm to global helium reserves which have been running dangerously low, with prices rising by 500% in the last 15 years, according to Global Risk Insights (GRI), which provides expert political risk news and analysis on events affecting business, investment, and economic climates worldwide.
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While this scientific find has excited scientists the world over, the other side of the equation is the possible land-use stress to the Maasai people under whose land this discovery has been made. But the Maasai are no strangers to land grabs since the time they moved into the Rift Valley from South Sudan during the 15th century.
During the 16th century, their presence ranged from Lake Victoria to the Indian Ocean and from the highlands near Nairobi to the Serengeti plains in Tanzania. There they peacefully co-existed with other tribes and often times came to the aid of their neighbors during Arab slave raids. The British, who arrived in the late 18th century, saw the Maasai as a nuisance and negotiated a 1904 treaty to move the Maasai to a piece of land in the Rift Valley.
In the 1950s, in a deal that was very similar to the previous dealings, the British successfully convinced the Maasai to move out of the Serengeti land to the Ngorongoro highlands where fellow Maasai already lived in order to create a better wildlife corridor. The Maasai lost the best dry-season rangeland in their area to the benefit of all the wildlife among which they had lived for so many years.
Realistically, the major priorities of the governments of Kenya and Tanzania are economic growth, and both have relied on tourism and other projects to obtain this.
“Modern society demands resources to maintain a standard of living commensurate with people’s expectations, and a suitable level of environmental quality is inherent to this standard. Trade-offs are inevitably made between the activities that provide energy, minerals, timber, and food and the need and desire to preserve ecosystem services. Such trade-offs are often highly controversial and politically volatile,” writes Lee Gerhard of Kansas Geological Survey, in a conference presentation entitled Meeting Societal Resource and Environmental Requirements into the Twenty-First Century.
The author, a chemical engineer by training, has investigated and determined that there is no chemical way of manufacturing helium, and that current supplies originated in the very slow radioactive alpha decay that occurs in rocks. Commercial helium is produced as a byproduct of natural gas processing. Most natural gas deposits also contain smaller quantities of nitrogen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, helium, and other non-combustible materials that must be removed via “upgrading” to produce natural gas with an acceptable level of heat energy.
Once the helium has been separated from the natural gas, it undergoes further refining to bring it to 99.99+% purity for commercial use. The question remains if the helium found in Tanzania would require large operations for upgrading it.
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This author also believes that the environmental impact of recovering the helium gas can be reduced by newer drilling technologies such as lateral drilling and gas fracking without disturbing the land above. In my opinion, the Tanzanian government needs to actively seek the cooperation of the Maasai society while trying to create a formula for sharing royalties.
These profits I believe should be invested into the Maasai society through a structured program to prepare them for modern society through vocational education and other cottage industry enterprises. An international NGO should be used as a vehicle for this equitable transfer. I envisage that in doing so all aspects of the helium issue can be attacked: global scientific progress, GDP growth, and most importantly, allowing the Maasai to earn royalties while holding on to their culture, which is a heritage that belongs to all of us globally.
During my planned travels through Maasai lands and the Rift Valley areas in the near future, instead of capturing images of their enactments of various ceremonies popularized by travel magazines, I am planning on spending time inquiring about their progress with the government agencies regarding the helium issue. Watch this space for more.

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