Waafrika (Part 2) – An original audio play

In last week’s None on Record podcast we listened to part 1 of Nick Mwaluko’s play WAAFRIKA. We met the main character, Awino, who is sitting at her mother’s grave when her father, the village chief finds her there. Awino’s father is angry because she has gone to live with a white woman named Bobby AND there are rumors that Awino and Bobby are lovers. As you can imagine this doesn’t sit well with the chief who feels that Awino is going against tradition.

In this week’s None on Record podcast, we hear part 2 of Nick Mwaluko’s WAAFRIKA.

Listen to Part 1

WAAFRIKA is set in a Kenyan village where Awino, the favorite daughter of a local tribal chief named Odhiambo, has left her home and gone to live with Bobby, a white woman and former Peace Corps volunteer who has decided to stay on in Kenya. Bobby is an out, and outspoken, lesbian; she wants Awino to embrace her new found sexual identity with vigor and pride. But Awino knows that while Bobby is buffered from the facts of African life by her American sense of privilege, such a step is fraught with peril. Homosexuality is punishable by the death penalty.

Two women — one white, one black — fight to survive in a place where being gay is punishable by death. Written by African playwright Nick Mwaluko, Waafrika brings us into a frightening terrain giving a deeper dimension to the international struggle for lesbian and gay civil rights, as well as our world and ourselves.

WAAFRIKA

CAST OF CHARACTERS

AWINO: A Kenyan woman of extremely dark complexion; early twenties A boyish woman with a husky voice who often passes for a man. She wears army boots, men’s trousers, a man’s undershirt and a large over shirt to hide her small breasts. Her head is bald. She often wears a baseball cap.

BOBBY: A white American woman in her thirties. She is canonically attractive according to western feminine aesthetics and mannerisms. Feminine, delicate, petite, and ultra-sensitive yet tough against what she believes to be social injustice, particularly against marginalized communities.

CHIEF ODHIAMBO: A heavy-set Kenyan man in his late forties. He is stern in appearance and reverential in manner. He wears traditional clothes befitting his honored status as Chief. His clothes are brightly colored with lavish embroidery put together by fine gold thread. He walks majestically on stage with a staff-like wooden cane or walking stick in hand.

MAMA MUGABE: Chief’s second wife

MAMA OPIO: Chief’s fourth and youngest wife

Recorded in New York City

Photo Credit: Zanele Muholi
Photo Credit: Sulai Lopez (Nick Portraits)

letters@noneonrecord.com

None On Record: Waafrika! (an original audio play)

In this week’s None on Record podcast we listen to Nick Mwaluko’s play WAAFRIKA (Part 1).

WAAFRIKA is set in a Kenyan village where Awino, the favorite daughter of a local tribal chief named Odhiambo, has left her home and gone to live with Bobby, a white woman and former Peace Corps volunteer who has decided to stay on in Kenya. Bobby is an out, and outspoken, lesbian; she wants Awino to embrace her new found sexual identity with vigor and pride. But Awino knows that while Bobby is buffered from the facts of African life by her American sense of privilege, such a step is fraught with peril. Homosexuality is punishable by the death penalty.

Playwright: Nick Mwaluko
letters@noneonrecord.com

Two women — one white, one black — fight to survive in a place where being gay is punishable by death. Written by African playwright Nick Mwaluko, Waafrika brings us into a frightening terrain giving a deeper dimension to the international struggle for lesbian and gay civil rights, as well as our world and ourselves.

WAAFRIKA

CAST OF CHARACTERS

AWINO: A Kenyan woman of extremely dark complexion; early twenties A boyish woman with a husky voice who often passes for a man. She wears army boots, men’s trousers, a man’s undershirt and a large over shirt to hide her small breasts. Her head is bald. She often wears a baseball cap.

BOBBY: A white American woman in her thirties. She is canonically attractive according to western feminine aesthetics and mannerisms. Feminine, delicate, petite, and ultra-sensitive yet tough against what she believes to be social injustice, particularly against marginalized communities.

CHIEF ODHIAMBO: A heavy-set Kenyan man in his late forties. He is stern in appearance and reverential in manner. He wears traditional clothes befitting his honored status as Chief. His clothes are brightly colored with lavish embroidery put together by fine gold thread. He walks majestically on stage with a staff-like wooden cane or walking stick in hand.

MAMA MUGABE: Chief’s second wife

MAMA OPIO: Chief’s fourth and youngest wife

Recorded in New York City

Photo Credit: Zanele Muholi
Photo Credit: Sulai Lopez (Nick Portraits)

Here is the cast of WAAFRIKA:

Zainab Jah (Awino)
Amanda Boekelheide (Bobby)
Ahmat Jallo (Chief)
Jennifer J. Joseph (Mama Mugabe)
Ebony JoAnn (Mama Opio)

NONE ON RECORD: Rape For Who I Am

Homosexuality is one of Africa’s last great taboos. In South Africa, homophobia is being ‘expressed’ through targeted rape of black lesbians.

Four extraordinary women expose harrowing experiences and the struggles of African lesbians. Rape for Who I am is their courageous refusal to become victims of their sexuality.

Check it here.

A film by:Lovinsa Kavuma

Director’s Statement:

I love the women in my film. I can sit in front of them for hours listening, watching and learning. I have enjoyed making this documentary because of the passion, life, and honesty of the characters.
I went to make a film about the rape of lesbians. To a degree I expected to discover victims. What I found were women who had had enough of being brutalised. They campaigned against hate crimes, were unapologetic about their identity, fought for their rights and refused to let Africa make them feel ashamed of their sexuality. As a collective, they were making their presence in South Africa felt. The women of this film blow away all preconceived ideas I had about homosexuality in Africa.
I thought it was a tabooed topic until I met the South Africans.

I arrived in Johannesburg a couple of weeks before Pride. During this period, the organisation for black lesbians arranged workshops, plays, events, seminars for the lesbian community. It was the perfect timing, operating in a private, safe, relaxed, community space/ environment. I was able to mingle and create great friendships. There are times I felt like a voyeur, the girls knew it and they let me be. -L.Kavuma -

NOR Interviews: 3Sum

Photo above: 3sum: Amstel Makwane(L) Koyo Bala (center) and Jeff Moyo(R)

The group 3Sum is the first openly gay music group in South Africa. The group debuted in 2002 and is made up of members Amstel Makwane, Koyo Bala and Jeff Moyo.

“They had a fear of how people were going to accept, us,  these people…being on stage…being gay.”

 

 NOR Interviews: 3sum [4:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Feedback? : letters@noneonrecord.com

NOR Interviews: Nick Mwaluko

Nick Mwaluko talks about transitioning from female to male after immigrating to the United States from Kenya.

“Could I have lived in the other form? I still would have  clean water…the three meals a day.”

Nick Mwaluko was born in Kenya and currently lives in New York City.
He was interviewed in New York City. Nick has also written for the Huffington Post and further shed light on who he is in the article “Becoming a Man“.

 

 NOR Interviews: Nick Mwaluko [6:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

BIO:

Nick Mwalukowas born in Tanzania, East Africa and raised in Kenya. After arriving to New York City, Nick entered into Columbia University on fellowship. Transitioning from female to male in his third year of study, he remained on the Dean’s List and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Nick’s play WAAFRIKA, which is about a Kenyan woman’s affair with a white female PeaceCorps Volunteer, premiered with critical acclaim and has won numerous awards. He is finishing his Masters in Fine Arts with a Concentration in Playwriting from Columbia University.

Photos of Nick Mwaluko: Sulai Lopez
Photos of Selly Thiam: Olive Demetrius

NOR Interviews: Notisha Massaquoi

Notisha Massaquoi is originally from Sierra Leone and currently lives in Canada.
She was interviewed in Toronto, Canada.

“I felt my silence enabled her to be murdered in that way…”

Notisha Massaquoi talks about Fanny Ann Eddy, the lesbian activist who changed her life.

FannyAnn Eddy
(1974-2004)
In 2004, FannyAnn Eddy, an LGBT activist from Sierra Leone, West Africa was murdered in the offices of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association. The news of her murder circulated around the world and was a turning point for Selly Thiam, a Senegalese lesbian living in the United States. To honor the African QLGBT (queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) spirit that Fanny Ann embodied, she began collecting the oral histories of QLGBT Africans from the African Continent and in the Diaspora.

In 2006, None on Record: Stories of Queer Africa (NOR), an audio based oral history project was created to archive these oral histories.

Since then, None on Record has grown to a six person production crew working to bring these important testimonies to the world. Currently NOR has collected stories in Canada, South Africa and the United States.

Our Mission is to document the hopes, struggles, challenges and joy of being a QLGBT African. The None on Record archive exist to tell the stories of Africans in their own voices.

A new episode of None On Record will be broadcast every Monday at www.iloveupeople.com. You can also find out more about NOR at www.noneonrecord.com

Notisha Massaquoi Photo Credit: Olive Demetrius

None On Record: Interview w/ Bev Ditsie

It is a pleasure for iLoveUPeople.com to syndicate None on Record; an amazing project that archives the oral stories of Queer Africans on the continent and throughout the diaspora. This introductory episode features the story of Beverly Ditsie of South Africa who after speaking at the first South African Pride found herself in danger and also found a greater strength in her family.

A new episode of None On Record will be broadcast every Monday at www.iloveupeople.com. You can also find out more about NOR at www.noneonrecord.com