<h3>Shashi Naidoo</h3>
South African businesswoman, model, actress and TV presenter, who recently became one of the founding members of Fashion with Feeling, a non-profit organization in the fashion industry.
HAPPINESS TO ME IS…Having the freedom and access to realize one’s potential and worth.
WHAT I FEAR THE MOST: Living a life without purpose.
WHAT I HATE IN OTHERS: Hate is such a strong and negative emotion. There are differences in others, which we find difficult to qualify with our own values and principles. I try to keep away from any negative behavior that is of no benefit to others or me.
I ADMIRE: My mother and sister have always been inspirational; they have always pursued their passions, and look for the best potential in everyone. One woman who is a great inspiration for me is Navi Pillay; she has gone where many women have not been able to, due to her dedication and commitment to human rights. She was the first woman of color to be a judge of the high court in South Africa; she was a judge of the international criminal court. It’s very important for us to speak up for those who are being deprived of their rights, and I find there is nothing nobler than pioneering one’s life to preserving human rights and equality.
MY LUXURIES: Shoes and handbags. I always remind myself that one day, my daughter will get to enjoy them as heirlooms.
WOULD YOU GO UNDER THE KNIFE FOR PLASTIC SURGERY? Plastic surgery exists for medical reasons and to help us enhance some of our features that we are insecure about. I prefer going to the gym than surgery, because the recovery period is not as painful as going under the knife. I am quite content with myself right now; maybe if gravity takes its toll one day, I will consider getting some work done.
MY THINKING: Keeping your focus is important if you want to make a success of anything. Sometimes we get really busy making a living and forget to make a life, which is detrimental to the mind. So always reward yourself for all your hard work, and take time out to say thank you.
&nbsp;
<h3>Chantel Dartnall</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-29594 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-047-Snippets-003-710x1024.jpg" alt="" width="710" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-047-Snippets-003.jpg 710w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-047-Snippets-003-300x433.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-047-Snippets-003-600x865.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-047-Snippets-003-208x300.jpg 208w" sizes="(max-width: 710px) 100vw, 710px" />
Chef Chantel Dartnall is the culinary force behind Restaurant Mosaic at The Orient in Johannesburg that has one of the most diverse (and longest) wine lists this side of the Sahara.
<h4>Describe the food you create in three words?</h4>
Flavorful, botanical, artistic.
<h4>What makes a good chef?</h4>
Passion.
<h4>What make a terrible chef?</h4>
A chef who does not respect himself/herself or the people working with them.
<h4>What is your signature dish?</h4>
This season it has to be Birds of a Feather which is a trio of poultry. Fungi on the Forest Floor which features a beautiful combination of mushrooms. From previous seasons, Lobster Bisque, Duck leg Confit and Cambodian Butternut cream soup.
<h4>Your favorite restaurant in Johannesburg?</h4>
Chef Dario Di Angeli’s Cube Tasting Kitchen.
<h4>Whose cooking inspires you?</h4>
Chef Pieter Goosen at Hof van Cleve &#8211; Belgium, Chef Michel Bras &#8211; Aubrac, France, Chef Pascal Barbot – Paris.
<h4>Which words or phrases do you most overuse?</h4>
Taste, taste and re-taste.
<h4>What or who is the love of your life?</h4>
My lovable black cat, Peanut, short for Peanut Butter.
<h4>What is your greatest achievement?</h4>
Opening the Restaurant Mosaic eight years ago.
<h4>Where would you most like to live?</h4>
Italy for the food and the beautiful ancient cities.
<h4>What qualities do you most admire in other women?</h4>
Self-confidence, self-assurance and being a great leader.
<h4>What would your last meal on earth be?</h4>
Creamy wild mushroom and black truffle pasta and a very big wild strawberry
Mille-feuille and a bottle of Perrier-Jouet Belle Epoque champagne.

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INSPIRATION

As a young girl born and raised in Pakistan, Hina Kassam always knew what she wanted in life – to start her own business, be her own boss, and be successful. Very successful. And she endeavored for that very early in life.
“I always wanted to lead rather than be led,” says Kassam.
At the age of 19, she sold double-glazed glass to a window company, and thereafter sought every opportunity to satiate her entrepreneurial energy.
Kassam has been involved in forex trading since the beginning of her career, working for investment banks. Today, she has worked with diversified businesses across three continents including Europe, Asia and Africa and is well-versed with financial analysis in various industries. She is the COO of ACM Gold, a forex trading company she founded with her brother Irfan Pardesi in 2005 in Pakistan, before moving to Dubai. The company currently enjoys a R400 million ($36 million) turnover and the siblings have made South Africa their base.
“Over the past six months, our numbers have tripled and we see tremendous growth going forward, our staff is growing, and we are very confident about the whole African region,” says Kassam.
ACM Gold was awarded Africa’s Best Forex Broker 2013 by World Finance. The company is now eyeing the rest of Africa.
“Kenya is an interesting market because they love to trade on the phone, and they love the app and the technology. We are very much a technology company.” However, the company’s head office in Johannesburg isn’t moving anytime soon.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-29602 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-050-051-Hina-Kassam-001-191x300.jpg" alt="" width="191" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-050-051-Hina-Kassam-001-191x300.jpg 191w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-050-051-Hina-Kassam-001-300x470.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-050-051-Hina-Kassam-001-600x941.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-050-051-Hina-Kassam-001.jpg 653w" sizes="(max-width: 191px) 100vw, 191px" />
“It’s the financial hub for the whole of Africa, people want to come here. Everybody looks to Johannesburg as their capital,” says Kassam.
She also understands the effects a great team can have on the success of a company, so she constantly strives to seek and develop new leaders.
And like most businesswomen with a love for beautiful things, Kassam’s passion for trading, mining stocks and leadership is complemented by her love for jewelry, and this too she has managed to turn to her advantage.
Her sparkling track-record has also included starting her own business selling fashion products in the United Kingdom as well as exporting these products to other parts of Europe.
The Power Dresser
The single mother of two never leaves home without make-up. Her personal style oozes confidence.
“You need to wear high heels if you want people to listen to you, if you want people to respect you. You don’t need to be loud and to shout; you need to dress well,” says Kassam.
Loyal to the Chanel and Louis Vuitton brands, Kassam describes her style as “powerful”. Her ultimate power kit at work is “a well-fitting blazer with wedges or high heels”.
And where does she indulge her sartorial senses? Her favorite shopping destination for the latest fashion finds is London, where she has lived the longest. She shuttles between Dubai and Johannesburg, but her line-up of labels in the closet of her Johannesburg home is a reflection of her achievements. For every big contract, new office or business, she adds a new Gucci, Prada or Louis Vuitton bag to her copious collection.
Kassam’s current obsession is lace but no matter the season, you will never catch her without jewelry. Her latest splurge is a R100, 000 ($9,000) Chopard watch. An apt self-gift for a person who has clearly made the most of her time.

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Digging Her Heels In

Indian theatre personality and Bollywood actress Lillete Dubey borrows a hat from a 17-year-old spectator. We are inside Johannesburg’s red velvet-upholstered Auto &amp; General Theatre On The Square, and this is an hour before the staging of 9 Parts Of Desire, a play directed by Dubey starring her 30-year-old daughter Ira.
“I woke at 5AM, have had a long day and must be looking a mess, maybe the hat will compensate,” says Dubey, before the photo session. She needn’t have bothered. At 60, she is slim, svelte and spunky, despite the “old rehearsal T-shirt” and sherpa boots she is wearing.
The hat is perhaps symbolic of the many she wears every day. Mother, wife, actor, director and recently, Richard Gere’s co-star in the sequel to 2011’s Judi Dench and Bill Nighy-starrer The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel that will release worldwide in February.
Snacking on a cheese-tomato sandwich, and between mouthfuls, Dubey’s glowing description of her handsome co-star is predictable: “He’s paired opposite me romantically and chases me in the film. Richard Gere is such a lovely, warm, charming, affectionate guy.”
Her first meeting with Gere though was anything but predictable.
“I had just thrown up after a bad reaction to something I had eaten. So when I was introduced to him, and he prepared to hug me, I said ‘please don’t come near me, I have just puked’. And he said ‘I have had a number of reactions from women, but this is a first’.”
Dubey had visited Johannesburg three years ago, as director of the long-running off-Broadway hit Dance Like A Man. The play has just completed its 505th show globally. Despite starring in 40 films in Bollywood and internationally, theatre remains her first love.
“Theatre is a jealous mistress, it leaves me with little time for anything else,” says the Mumbai-based Dubey, who is currently working on six stage productions. She had “stumbled into” Bollywood after 20 years of theatre, and is instantly recognizable in India’s thriving film industry.
Film credits include Shyam Benegal’s Zubeidaa, Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding and notable blockbusters with Bollywood royalty Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.
9 Parts Of Desire, written by American-Iraqi playwright Heather Raffo, details the lives of nine Iraqi women between the first and second Gulf Wars. Dubey’s daughter Ira is outstanding essaying all nine women.
“It’s a serious play, has some humor, but is hard-hitting,” says Dubey, ecstatic about the response she received in Durban. The play was staged in South Africa as part of Shared History 2014: The Indian Experience in South Africa, in early September.
She regrets her trip to the country is brief. On her wish-list is a visit to the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town. But she’s not sure if she can make it.
“South Africa is steeped in music, dance and theatre. I wish I had the time to experience some more of that.”
Dubey is also thrilled about her newest film, Dr Cabbie, a Canadian production that has just released. “Yet, my heart is in theatre,” she says, before blowing our way kisses and disappearing back-stage to a realm that she calls her own.

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Tipping Her Hat To Theatre

Contemporary art created by African artists in Africa and abroad has long been recognized across the African continent – yet failed to make any international impact.
Thankfully that has spectacularly changed, and over the past few years, African art has hit a tipping point.
For instance, shimmering bottle top wall-hangings by Ghanaian sculptor El Anutsui decorated the exterior of the Royal Academy in London last year and his work New World Map sold for £541,250 ($873,400) in 2012.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-29642 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006-211x300.jpg" alt="" width="211" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006-211x300.jpg 211w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006-300x427.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006-600x853.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-006.jpg 720w" sizes="(max-width: 211px) 100vw, 211px" />
But while renowned artists such as El Anutsui and Ibrahim El-Salahi from Sudan have broken through the international ceiling and are bought by museums in London and New York, most African artists remain invisible to the West because they don’t exhibit there.
Art entrepreneur Touria El Glaoui quickly realized when she traveled through Africa on business that she saw “amazing talent and amazing art” yet there was no international platform for those artists, only “a huge gap”.
So last year she came to London, which is at the heart of the international art market, and set up 1:54, London’s first contemporary art fair dedicated to visual art from Africa.
&nbsp;
Same time as Frieze Week
El Glaoui timed it to coincide with Frieze Week, a landmark on the London art calendar attended by 70,000 art buyers.
“The artists we showed were both established and more up and coming, but perhaps they didn’t have a gallery, they didn’t have representation, they hadn’t yet been collected by a museum,” she says.
Although a risk at the time, piggybacking Frieze Week proved a great success. The art, sculpture and photography on sale at 1:54 was priced between £2,000 ($3,200) and £200,000 ($322,000), and the 14 exhibiting galleries sold every single item and played host to 6,000 visitors including the great and good of the art world.
Those collectors who turned up late found all the works had been sold and actually complained ‘why didn’t you bring more work with you to sell?’ Perhaps unsurprisingly, given last year’s success, 1:54 is back in October, with 85 artists sold through 27 galleries, and this time has taken two wings of Somerset House in Central London.
So what led El Glaoui to become an art entrepreneur with a passion for helping artists from Africa build an international career?
&nbsp;
Learnings from dad
El Glaoui was born into a family of artists in Morocco, and her 90-year-old father is Hassan El Glaoui, one of Morocco’s most famous living figurative painters. This, and the fact that she has been dealing with galleries on behalf of her father for 15 years, gave her instant credibility in the art world.
She has learned hugely from the experiences of her father, who quickly established himself in Paris, but chose to return to Morocco to paint in 1965. He took a long time to rebuild an international reputation.
“Of course today, my father sells in the secondary market at Christies and Sotheby’s, but an international gallery would have changed where he is in terms of pricing.”
She is keen to share this insider’s knowledge of dealing with galleries and the international art market with up and coming and more established artists from Africa.
“All artists would prefer to be considered mainstream artists, and I know what’s needed for them to succeed.”
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-29641 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004-300x223.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="223" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004-300x223.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004-600x445.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004-768x570.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-082-083-Touria-El-Glaoui-004.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
El Glaoui explains that the price which collectors are willing to pay for art is to a large extent influenced by factors such as having an agent and a gallery to promote an artist internationally, having work bought by influential museums and private collectors, and also by winning art prizes.
Linking artist with collector is critical, and so El Glaoui is excited to have recently signed a deal for 1:54 content to be exhibited on Artsy, the New York based online art gallery which links 250,000 subscribers with established galleries and artists around the world.  This will give her artists a global platform for sales and recognition.
Putting African art on the map is just what she intends to do, and El Glaoui has ambitions to replicate the Fair in other countries, the obvious next location being New York. Finally, once the 1:54 brand is well established she would like to bring the 1:54 Fair back to Africa.

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Putting African Art On The Map

It all started when Ashley Heather wanted to make a ring from silver halide – the light-sensitive metal used in photographic film and x-rays. With digital becoming more popular, the film is a rarity these days.
She searched far and wide, badgered family and friends alike, and even begged universities for the film. Sourcing it was a painful process; and even more so, extracting the silver halide from the film. Where others saw junk, Heather saw profits.
Now she is out to prove jewellery can be made from rubbish.
“I started with photographic waste, but then that became incredibly hard to find, so I changed to circuit board waste. It gets sent to a refinery where it gets melted down and then the raw material is extracted in Johannesburg and then delivered to me,” says the young designer from Johannesburg.
Heather is making a name. But it’s a tough job.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-29638 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-080-081-Ashley-Heather-002-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-080-081-Ashley-Heather-002-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-080-081-Ashley-Heather-002-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-080-081-Ashley-Heather-002-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-080-081-Ashley-Heather-002.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
The market is saturated and it’s important to set yourself apart from the rest, she says. Heather’s work has certainly turned a few heads, she was part of the Design Indaba’s Emerging Creatives Program four years ago and she won the Most Innovative Product award at the 2013 Decorex Show in Johannesburg.
These days, Heather spends most of her time in a small studio in the backroom of a craft shop, in the trendy Cape Town suburb of Woodstock. She no longer dives in dumpsters for raw materials, now she buys them from refineries.
“I’ve been selling in little boutiques and through word of mouth mostly. I get a lot of enquiries through my website. It’s an organic process and I’m feeling my way [in Cape Town]. I’m a small business. I get a lot of people who call from the stairs, saying they are lost, but they know my shop is in the building. It’s a much slower pace from Johannesburg, I remember the first few weeks the strange looks I got when I wanted to work after 2PM on a Friday, but I’ve learned to adapt and to love the lifestyle here,” she says.
The business is a far cry from her early days in Johannesburg in 2010. This was when she first saw metal being smelted. She was hooked.
“I remember seeing the shiny glow of the metal as it was melting in the crucible and I just knew I wanted to do that too. Two days later, I signed up on a course, and a few months later, I had set up a tinier studio in the backroom of my parents’ house in Johannesburg. When I look back, my new studio here is massive.”
With capital of R20,000 ($1,800), Heather began selling silver pieces at markets and online. Now the silversmith is looking to become a goldsmith.
“I love working with people. My best pieces come from engaging with clients and making something we are both happy with.”
Heather is up for the challenge, although it’s very likely it will be harder to find gold in the bins.

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Crafting Jewelry From Junk

<ol>
<li>Thermogenic supplementation: Sports supplements are growing in popularity; thermogenics for example are stimulants like caffeine and raspberry ketone that increase the body’s natural heat and energy production. They burn fat best.</li>
<li>Green tea: The Asian fat killer is back. This all-natural hot drink is known for its fat-burning and cleansing properties. It’s one of the cheapest and easiest ways to kick up your metabolism.</li>
<li>HIIT: High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is the new way to throw a quick workout into your day and burn fat. HIIT workouts never last longer than 15 minutes. Training at high intensity for shorter periods boosts the metabolic rate. A basic HIIT workout can be a 100-meter run at 100% intensity and a 20-second rest period; perform this pattern for 10 rounds.</li>
<li>Avoid crash diets: These diets help drop the kilos fast but at the expense of the right nutrition. Crash diets not only burn fat but also throw away muscle – not good if you want that bikini body.</li>
<li>Keep it fresh: When buying fruits and vegetables, remember to buy fresh, not frozen. When cooking your fresh produce, don’t overcook, it will lose its nutritional value.</li>
<li>Stay hydrated: Keeping up one’s water intake and staying away from sugary cold drinks is absolutely vital to the fat-burning process.</li>
<li>Take the stairs: Avoid the elevator, run up the stairs instead. You have nothing to lose. You will burn fat as well as end up feeling better through the day.</li>
<li>Protein is power: Keeping up a high-protein intake provides the body with long-lasting energy through the day. High-protein diets are not just for professional bodybuilders anymore.</li>
<li>Get some sleep: Sleep is very important in the fat-burning process; it allows the body to recuperate from the daily stresses.</li>
<li>Hit the iron: Weight-training is now widely accepted as one of the leading ways to lose weight and has been proven to burn more calories per hour than any form of cardio. One of the best pieces of equipment to use is the kettlebell, a Russian weight with an odd shape that requires the body to use more muscles even to manoeuvre.</li>
</ol>

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10 Ways To Boost Your Metabolism And Burn Fat

Sushi, the Japanese culinary export of note, has endured several incarnations since finding its way to the Johannesburg sprawl over two decades ago. But it didn’t really go mainstream until the start of the noughties, just under a decade after the country’s first democratic elections and hot on the heels of the Y2K scare. It was the cuisine of the millennium in South Africa, the poshest thing you could go out and order. It was food for the monied, then. But not anymore.
The sushi was good back then, righteously prepared and well worth its billing, says Andrea Burgener, a food journalist and restaurateur.
“The first time a piece of sushi wandered into my mouth&#8230;I was seated at the sushi bar of&#8230;Ohsho, a fine upstanding restaurant armed with the sort of sushi chefs you’re scared of.”
Ohsho, which opened its doors in the late 80s, no longer exists but it introduced the tastebuds of the city to its charms and its price tag. “Ohsho&#8230;[was] Johannesburg’s introduction to sushi; a formal introduction, with no sushi merry-go-rounds or California rolls. Very pricey. Very good. I spent every penny I had going there,” says Burgner.
But Johannesburg is a particularly fickle city, at least when it comes to sushi. After Ohsho and Daruma, the other sushi institution in town, faded into culinary purgatory, a new sushi convention followed – cheaper, mass produced, on-the-go sushi. What followed was a terrifying trend that Burgener christened as the age of ‘McSushi’.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-29630" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-078-Global-lunchbox-003-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="201" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-078-Global-lunchbox-003-300x201.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-078-Global-lunchbox-003-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-078-Global-lunchbox-003-768x514.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-078-Global-lunchbox-003.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“The Japanese chefs [at Ohsho or Daruma] would have thrown themselves upon their sashimi knives at the idea of putting cream-cheese and strawberries anywhere near a piece of sushi.”
But as the sushi trend continues to grow in Johannesburg, fusion has become the de facto status quo. Enter Vusi Kunene, proprietor of the city’s The Blackanese Sushi Bar in Maboneng. Kunene; not to be confused with the notorious Kenny ‘Sushi King’ Kunene infamous for eating sushi off of barely-clad models at his 40th birthday party a few years back, found his way to sushi while on a break from Jozi. Working in Cape Town, the former waiter found a passion in sushi. In the mid-2000s, returning to Johannesburg, Kunene decided to hedge his bets on a sushi operation. He teamed with other burgeoning sushi chefs in the city. Together they experimented at food fairs and held sushi classes across the city, eventually opening a restaurant two years ago.
Today, he’s the talk of the town, sushi and Kunene are almost synonymous. As the name suggests, there are no sushi purists at The Blackanese. But Kunene understands the sophistaction of Japanese sushi convention, although avocados and strawberries feature heavily in his creations. Kunene hopes to do something big with his sushi brand. But, for now, he’s happy with its success and all its perks. “I love the satisfaction of changing people’s lives through food,” he says.
The golden days are gone but the sushi apocalypse, imagined by Burgener as “curried sushi in a Tex-Mex wrap from a vending machine [or] free sushi enclosed with your favorite magazine”, is far from fruition. Hopefully, sushi innovators like Kunene will keep that reality at bay for a little while longer.

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Sushi And The City

A long trek through the parched mopane woodlands of Koakoland, in northwest Namibia, takes me to Otjikandero village, where I get a glimpse of Himba lifestyle. What impresses me is the cleanliness of the circular village, surrounded by the veld in an idyllic setting. Most Himba villages offer such visits for a small sum of money, like the Masaai of Tanzania do. This has helped them lead a sustainable lifestyle seen nowhere else.
These pastoral people live in communities of less than a hundred people. Himba women are known for smearing themselves with otjize, a paste of butter, fat and red ochre giving their skin and hair a reddish hue whilst also protecting them from the sun. The skin presumably symbolizes the color of the earth and of blood.
My guide during my 3,000 mile travel through southern Africa is a young lady from Cape Town. The Himba teenagers connect with her at a personal level. They touch her white face and feel her straight hair, while I am equally fascinated by their wonderful headdresses and ochre complexion.
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Whereas the very young girls have braided hair falling in front of their faces, at the onset of puberty, they wear longer plaits loosely around the head. I am also told the hair is used as a veil to hide their shyness during those years. After puberty, the girls partake in a special ceremony, when their hair is washed and they are given the traditional ekori headdress made from tanned goatskin. After marriage, all women wear the erembe headdress, made from the skin of a goat’s head and fastened by leather thongs. They also wear hair extensions adorned with goat skin.
Bath Huts
Every Himba village has a ‘bath hut’ where women take turns to ‘smoke’ themselves with aromatic herbs. I am given the privilege to see one such demonstration. A young girl waves a small coal stove containing the smoke of aromatic herbs under her elaborate headdress for several minutes, then covering herself with a towel, and also smoking her torso and lower body parts. She then rubs herself with the otjize paste and emerges from the bath hut looking transformed.
The Himbas spend considerable time adorning themselves. They wear beaded necklaces that they craft themselves. Their chunky copper and silver anklets prevent them from snake bites as they walk in the bush.
Using the body as a canvas has been a vital part of ancient life the world over. Africa in particular is home to some of the most fascinating body art: skin painting, facial scarring, magnificent hairdos, lip and earlobe extensions, to name a few. The practice of body art was mostly predominant in Africa and meso-American cultures. As ancient practices are vanishing everywhere, the west has rediscovered body decorations by way of tattoos and piercings. A torch has thus been passed from the ancient to the modern era.
Unfortunately, I could not photograph any of the men since they had left the village to graze their herds. The Otjikandero village has adopted a few AIDS orphans from neighboring areas and raised them in the Himba tradition. I saw several of them playing. They all sported single plaited hairdos on shaven heads.
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Before I bid farewell to these unique people, I visit the common kitchen and donate the 10 kilograms of rice that has traveled with me on a journey through souther

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The Red Women Of Namibia

Ituze Ndutiye Colombe epitomizes everything Rwanda is today: determined, enterprising and forward-looking.
On weekdays, she works long hours as an ICT trainer in one of Kigali’s top technology firms. By evening, she switches careers, driving her Toyota RAV4 to a small shop run by the Rwanda Nziza craft cooperative in the Kiyovu neighborhood of Kigali where she retails her fashion label INCO Icyusa.
On weekends, she is with her tailors, sketching, sewing and selling. Once she has struck off all the tasks on her to-do list, finally, after dark, she gets to be the 25-year-old she is, listening to Avril Lavigne or partying hard with friends in Kigali’s karaoke pubs.
An artist, fashion designer, technologist and entrepreneur, Colombe says that as a child – ever since she could hold a crayon – she loved to sketch.
“From the beginning, I wanted to draw. In school, I was also interested in physics and technology. I was looking for something that would combine the two,” says Colombe, who now uses multimedia to design her website and clothes.
Colombe launched her label with the meager money she had saved from her day job. She could have asked her mother, a lawyer and her greatest support, for more, but didn’t.
“She would have offered it to me, but I wanted to do this on my own,” says Colombe.
Her father, also a lawyer, had passed away when she was seven. At the age of 12, when Colombe was still considering subjects for secondary school, she was introduced to a Belgian designer who was visiting Rwanda. Colombe was awestruck by her drawings – they were patterns she had never seen. It awakened her sartorial sensibilities, and she tried to learn whatever she could.
“At that point, there were no schools for fashion and design in Rwanda – there still aren’t. And the schools that had these courses were abroad and expensive,” says Colombe.
So, she decided to enrol for her second favorite subject: information technology. As a student, she also made money as a designer. After her bachelor’s degree in December, Colombe signed up with Rwanda Nziza to display and retail her label, consisting of apparel and accessories. She sources her fabric, mostly cotton, from Nairobi. Her designs are Africa-inspired but, as she asserts, not limited to Africa. When we meet her, she is wearing a short funky skirt, featuring African patterns on denim, mixing traditional with contemporary cool.
Next step: she wants to make enough money to open her own store in Kigali. “There is great demand, mostly through custom orders, for good clothing. I want to create simple and beautiful things for people,” says Colombe. She is also striving to promote African heritage and generate job opportunities for women. In 2009, Colombe was the youngest designer at the first Rwanda Fashion Festival. She has recently returned from Washington DC, after a prestigious six-week fellowship with the Young African Leaders Initiative Network.
“I am happy to place Rwanda on the fashion map in my own way,” says Colombe. For a country torn by war in the past, she is one of many entrepreneurs continuing to change its image.

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‘I Wanted To Do This On My Own’

A few days before her debut as a flash restaurateur, Noji Matutu Gaylard was worried about the turnout.
“I hope people come,” she said as we maneouvered through the potholed streets of old Johannesburg seeking supplies.
She needn’t have worried. She received close to a hundred visitors on the day, and rustled up a neat profit.
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Before the event, each ingredient had already been accounted for thrice over by Gaylard, formerly a media researcher by profession. She was meticulous, only free-range eggs and Norwegian smoked salmon would do. The success of her menu depended on the most delicate detail.
These were the beginnings of Gaylard’s Restaurant Day. Founded as Ravintolapäivä in 2011, the concept, now a global movement, was the brainchild of a group of Finnish entrepreneurs looking to give anyone with a knack for cuisine the chance to run their own restaurant, bar, cafe or food stall on a single day. Over the last three years, Restaurant Day has become a culinary movement celebrating food culture from living room restaurants to front-yard cafes. On the Sunday in August that Gaylard opened for business, over 2,000 pop-ups across the world were doing the same.
But her’s was the only one happening in Africa.
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Perfection on a plate
It was a brunch special. The menu was diverse with additions from other burgeoning chefs in the neighborhood. The waffles were diligently pressed and plated by Belgian pastry chef Kris Van Damme, who went to night school for six years while holding down a day job as a social worker to ply his trade. This was the first time he and Gaylard met, in her kitchen, and he went straight to work churning out waffles and innovative pastries.  His offerings were some of the most popular items on the menu.
Manning the coffee station was Eevastiina Hyvönen who was, appropriately, Finnish. She had labored the night before over the dough for the cinnamon rolls. The salmon bagels were churned out by Gaylard’s husband Joseph. And her eldest daughter had recruited friends to help with waitressing. The kitchen seemed deceptively chaotic but discipline was maintained throughout service. Gaylard’s marketing campaign had amply helped. In attendance was a heady mix of friends and strangers. The backpackers had come because of the menus she left at their usual haunts, the friends had come to support and the children had come to play with her little girl. It was, for many, the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Reflecting on her day as a restaurant owner, Gaylard says: “It was great fun.” Her punters were satisfied with the menu and the little touches: a DJ to set the mood, a playground to distract the kids and a special buffet for the famished. It must have done the trick because her cash registers kept ringing. Gaylard is planning a second Restaurant Day in November. If that succeeds, she is considering opening a food truck.
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Ain’t No Flash In The Pan

Every time Nicole Amarteifio turned on primetime television in Ghana, she struggled to find a character she could identify with. A character who was a strong, black, college-educated woman born in Ghana and raised in America, just like her.
Amarteifio soon found she was not alone in her thinking; other women she knew also shared her sentiments, tired of seeing African women playing supporting roles on TV or nothing at all.
And then, one day, watching re-runs of Sex and the City, the popular American TV series, the idea hit Amarteifio: why not create an African version of the show?
Thus was born An African City, a YouTube web series following the lives of five women who, after years abroad, return to Ghana.
“African women, for so long, have been told that they are invisible, it [was] important to have a show that screams out: ‘Not true! You are visible and I see you’,” says Amarteifio.
She drew on her own life for inspiration. At a young age, her family had relocated from Ghana to New York. Her father wanted the family to experience ‘the American dream’ as he once had as a student at Wesleyan University, Connecticut.
But life in The Big Apple was not easy. “I grew up in a neighborhood where I was often the only black child in my entire class, which meant often having a swarm of white faces that would look at me when subjects such as black crime in the inner city or name-a-disease on the African continent came up.”
She decided she was going to find out what it meant, for her, to be black.
When her maternal grandmother visited the family in New York, she would enlighten her with stories from her life in Ghana as Queen Chief in the town of Akuapem in the Eastern Region.
“She would tell me stories about her Caucasian husband who worked for the British colonial government&#8230; my grandparents’ interracial marriage was among one of the first documented interracial marriages in West Africa,” she says.
Amarteifio looked forward to summer holidays in Accra where she would immerse herself in the culture.
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cars in africa?
“After a while, I was less interested in ‘the American dream’ of my parents [and] more interested in what ‘the African dream’ could mean for me and my peers.”
After a bachelor’s degree in African Studies from Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts, she relocated to Ghana where she worked in various companies, hoping to change the way African women were portrayed in the media. But a career in media didn’t satisfy her; she felt she could impact more people with TV.
In the first episode of My African City, Amarteifio depicts a situation many Africans can relate to. When Nana Yaa (played by actress MaameYaa Boafo) proudly gives her Ghanaian passport to the immigration officer, he responds saying: “You’re Ghanaian? You don’t look or sound like a Ghanaian.”
“There are so many of us who have left and have returned, but we are no less African. I will not be marginalized and I will not be told who I am&#8230;rather, let me tell you who I am,” says Amarteifio.
Since its debut in March 2014, An African City has resonated with many people around the world. But the show has had many challenges.
Initially Amarteifio struggled to convince investors and TV networks to buy into the concept. She invested $1,000 from her savings into the series, and cut costs by using YouTube to broadcast her show.
“There are certainly some people from the West who watch the show and say, ‘Wait? They have cars in Africa?’ My series is about showing the Africa they never show you.”
As the series, now shooting its third season, gains success, Amarteifio hopes people will start to see Africa in a positive light, highlighting success stories.
“There are flaws in the ‘Africa Rising’ rhetoric, but I would take that rhetoric over the ‘Dark Continent’ message any day,” she says.

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‘We Are No Less African’

A year on, our very first cover girl, businesswoman Precious Moloi-Motsepe, continues to inspire. We caught up with her on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum (WEF) studio debate at CNBC Africa in Johannesburg, where she talked about WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report, and the importance of more female participation in the economy.
Moloi-Motsepe has spent most of last year traveling the world as a member of The Giving Pledge campaign. At the same time, she has focused her energies towards expanding African Fashion International (AFI), which organizes fashion weeks across Africa and supports designers. She believes Africa’s fashion industry can take the world by storm. However, there is plenty of room for improvement.
“Where I feel we’re lacking is taking our creative skills and turning them into commercial products to make it available globally.” And on female empowerment: “I know there are challenges but [women] cannot sit back, we have to come to the table and continuously engage to make our voices heard.”
Moloi-Motsepe is a mother to three boys. She says aside from her many projects, she has spent a lot of the past year just being a mom. The work with the Motsepe Foundation she has set up with her mining magnate husband Patrice Motsepe has also seen her travel across South Africa over the last year.

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Former Cover Girl

When in August, Captain Irene Koki Mutungi, a pilot with Kenya’s national carrier Kenya Airways, flew into Nairobi the airline’s fourth Boeing 787 Dreamliner from Boeing’s assembly site in South Carolina, United States, it did not make much news.
The fact that she is Africa’s first black female Boeing 787 Dreamliner certified Captain did not make headlines either. The story was the plane.
Mutungi was raised in what she describes an aviator’s home. Her father was a pilot with Kenya Airways.
“My most memorable moment was when I flew with him on a flight he was commanding to London. I was about five years old. From that day, I promised myself I would one day become a Captain,” she reminisces.
She says she’s fortunate to be born into a family where excellence and integrity were all-important. She has become more conscious of the real world and is motivated by the fact that women, especially African women, can excel in everything. Has she ever encountered discrimination as a woman?
“Unfortunately, such is life. Anytime it has happened it has increased my resolve to keep aiming high. In my early years in aviation, a passenger disembarked because he said he wasn’t a guinea pig. That can tell you what I’ve been through sometimes.”
In many parts of the world and especially Africa, it’s still a man’s world. The stereotype of the working woman is rarely attractive with popular culture portraying successful women as consumed by their careers.
“As for stereotypes, this one too is far from reality. There are countless women successful in their careers and dedicated to their families and communities at large.”
Mutungi cites Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Malawi President Joyce Banda and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the Africa Union Chairperson.
“Just like those African leaders and other women who are anchors of their households and communities, I too am a dedicated person who always strives towards excellence while remaining committed to what matters. I do that by being a model mother, model daughter and a role model to my African sisters.”
Mutungi describes her journey to the top in a male-dominated industry as one filled with commitment, sacrifice and support from friends and family.
Fear is at the root of so many barriers women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fair of failure. How does Mutungi handle fear?
“I don’t know what fear means. Yes, sometimes I may ask myself questions, but every situation is handled in a way that leaves me in control.”
She says she rarely has sleepless nights. “If I stay awake at night, it’s not usually anything of concern. I think of how great an aircraft the B787 Dreamliner is. Boeing has delivered a masterpiece.”
Mutungi wants to be remembered as an African mother who tried her best to change the narrative of the African continent.

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Flying The Dream

It was in December last year, at 3:30AM. Helga Barkhuizen was in the passenger seat with a friend and his two children. They were on their way from Cape Town to Beafort West, on the N1 near the small town of Leeu-Gamka, 70 kilometers away.
The Miss South Africa International 2012 had had the time of her life at a biker rally and a new tattoo to boot. It still itched on her wrist.
The road to George was a familiar one for Barkhuizen. The road of the N1 lances through kilometer after kilometer of dry scrub.
Barkhuizen drifted off to sleep on the center console.
When she woke again, she saw the truck turning into a petrol station that was to crush her life.
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“The car pulled to the right, I closed my eyes and I prayed, and I said you know what, this is it. I am ready to die,” she says.
In a few seconds, in a horror collision, a steel rod sticking out the back of the truck split the car in two slicing her left leg and shattering her right.
“My leg was on the floor in front of me. It was taken off in the accident. It wasn’t like I woke up in hospital, I said goodbye to my leg there and then,” says Barkhuizen.
But, by pure chance, an ambulance was at the petrol station.
“The first thing I told the paramedic was that he needed to give the driver something for shock. He was running around like a headless chicken. I get calm in emergency scenarios so I don’t actually freak out. And the paramedic was looking at me and saying ‘you do realize how hurt you are?’ I said yes I can see, but [the driver] needs to make phone calls right now, if he cannot verbally get my personal details across, then I am going to die,” she says.
It was also lucky for Barkhuizen that she remained conscious.
“I asked for the Jaws of Life and they said there was no chance. We can’t bring the jaws because you’ll be dead before we can get them here. The fact that I was kind of flexible and had been a dancer all my life saved my life. They bent me like a sandwich to pull me out of the car. Then they vacuum-packed my body into a black bag to keep the blood circulation going. I was literally sitting in a pool of my own blood before the 70 kilometer drive to the hospital,” she says.
Barkhuizen spent two months in a Cape Town hospital learning to live with her amputation. She was overwhelmed with the support her family gave her, who flew in regularly to visit. The others in the car accident walked away with scrapes and bruises.
“I didn’t know [the driver] had fallen asleep until about a month ago [July], when I went to see the car. Call it women’s intuition, like an ant itching in your bum, I felt like something was amiss. The panel beater said there was no chance that he had been driving 100 kilometers an hour and didn’t see the lights on the truck. The car was going at 160km/h when it hit the truck. It was when the driver touched the brake that I woke up and knew something was wrong.”
These days, Barkhuizen is full of life. She walks proudly around in her prosthetic, which costs R500,000 ($46,000), and is built to support high heels. She needs to buy two pairs of shoes though, one for her real foot and the other, a size larger, for the fake one.
The fake foot also needs to be charged, like a battery.
From her offices in Rivonia, Johannesburg, she runs an interior decorating company; a motivational speaking clinic for teens; an eco-tourism property development scheme and an executive lounge networking club. She has also designed a glow-in-the-dark rubber band engraved with your personal details – inspired from her accident. All this is done in a male-dominated business world.
“It’s difficult. You will see a pretty face and a skirt and they will think wow that is how she got there and you wouldn’t think she worked her bum off to get to that point. It’s very difficult to walk into meetings with cultural generalizations or with a specific certificate to get things done,” she says.
Barkhuizen is training to participate in the South African Paralympic swimming squad, plans to buy an automatic motorbike with a foot strap and dreams of scuba diving with an aquatic-friendly leg.
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“Whatever came out of this, I knew I had to make the most of it, why stop living because I’ve lost one limb. There are so many things that are driving me, particularly my personal trainer and my businesses. I am young, I still want to get married, there is no reason for my life to be boring. It feels like I’ve been actually asleep for the past ten years. I’ve missed who I was,” she says.
You’ve got to listen to somebody who cheated death and prospered.

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Losing A Limb, Finding A New Life

There are a few ways to tell an African story and Nigerian designer Patience Torlowei chose to say it with fabric and paint.
Torlowei’s story, named Esther, is in fact a flowing gown in raw silk, chronicling, in acrylic, the real issues of Africa, from the militancy crisis in the Niger-Delta region to the rebel concerns in Central and Eastern Africa.
The artist, who seeks to use her work as a medium to tell stories, also conveys the environmental catastrophes the continent faces, using the imagery of dead fish in the polluted waters of the Niger-Delta, and mass deforestation, among other pertinent topics.
The dress has obviously made an impact. It made its way from the airport in Lagos to the fashion runways in Washington DC, and finally to a pride of place at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art.
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It’s the first piece of African haute couture on permanent exhibition at the museum.
It all started in February when Torlowei was invited as one of nine African designers to present her collection at a fashion show at the Smithsonian.
She had, amongst other creations, also presented her focal piece, Esther.
Following positive feedback for her work, the museum requested to purchase it from her. She instead donated it to them.
Otherwise, Torlowei is the founder of Patience Please, a design label producing quality lingerie. Her first line was launched in 2006 with Patience Torlowei BVBA, a bridal wear company. In two years, the brand supplied wedding and cocktail dresses across six countries in Europe. Torlowei also began to explore the possibilities in her home country Nigeria.
“I came to Nigeria with the heart to transfer the skill of lingerie manufacturing to my people. I have always been of the strong belief that we are fully capable of manufacturing good clothing on a large scale… My dream was to make Nigeria the hub of lingerie manufacturing in Africa.”
Torlowei seeks to use her art to generate awareness about issues threatening the future of her country and the world.
“Through works such as Esther, we aim to encourage conversation on topics that hit close to home, and play our part in promoting positive development,” she says.
And in turn take African culture to the world.

Tag: October 2014

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