Big Brother Africa 4: The ‘Caring Revolution’

EISH my Big Brother peoples, the show is quickly drawing to a close, with the last nominations taking place this past Monday evening.
By now we all know that Emma, Kevin and Itai are up for possible eviction this week.

Initially, Mzamo, Emma and Itai received the most nominations, but Eddie – as Head of House (HoH) – swopped ‘his girl’ Mzamo and once again threw Kevin into the mix.Eddie had initially planned to save Emma, but with Mzamo ending up in the mix that went awry.I am so glad that Eddie was in the driving seat for these last evictions. It would have been heartbreaking had he been nominated and possibly evicted, just a week before the finals. So, our boy is in the finals! Which is so great and a first for Namibia, which has never had a housemate in any of the previous season finales of Big Brother Africa.Although this week’s eviction is between three housemates. It seems that BBA producers have decided on five housemates in the final. I almost wish it could have been a double eviction, leaving only four housemates instead of five in the final stretch. As it stands at the moment, with five housemates in the final, two are obviously from Nigeria, Nkenna and Kevin – although he is up for eviction, I don’t think he is in any danger of being evicted due to his massive popularity. That leaves three housemates from the SADC region.This is rather unfortunate for Namibia and Eddie because it means that the SADC vote is split in three, with Malawi most probably voting for Mzamo and either Zimbabwe voting for Itai or Angola voting for Emma. It would have been great if those countries could have pooled together to vote for Eddie but one never really knows how Africa will vote. At the end of the day, who wins will be determined by tallying the votes of each participating African country. Whoever has the most country votes, wins. Let’s just hope they choose to support Eddie instead of wannabe rapper Kevin.Nigeria, of course, is likely to throw the bulk of their votes behind Kevin. CARING AND SHARINGThis week’s task, The Caring Revolution, is much more serious than previous tasks. Africa faces many challenges, this week the housemates must examine two more serious and urgent concerns. The housemates must help raise awareness around HIV-AIDS. As part of the task the housemates had to raise a giant red ribbon blimp. Around mid-morning the housemates were paid a visit by two Pepfar representatives who had the chance to speak candidly to the housemates, sharing their expert knowledge and brainstorming different approaches to the fight against HIV-AIDS. Pepfar is a US government-based fund, which directs aid for HIV-AIDS in Africa.Well, Biggie wasn’t satisfied with the housemates simply talking the talk, as such – he wanted them to walk the walk. In order to demonstrate their commitment, housemates had to walk around a red track one at a time in relay until midnight. Nkenna walked around the track screaming ‘avoid HIV, zip it up’, while other housemates had to read the sobering HIV-AIDS statistics from their own countries. In addition, the housemates had to create a one minute Public Service Announcement (PSA) which was filmed. Housemates had to write a script and followed Biggie’s suggestion to centre the PSA on reducing the stigma surrounding HIV-AIDS testing. Biggie wanted a strong, clear message to send out. Later in the evening, housemates had a more formal discussion on the topic ‘What can I as an individual, do about HIV-AIDS?’The housemates seem to be taking to this task very seriously. As HIV-AIDS affects more and more people around the world it starts to touch individuals, through friends and family who are living with the virus. Almost everybody nowadays knows somebody who is either infected or affected by HIV-AIDS so this topic is rather emotional and sensitive. Itai got particularly emotional during his diary room session. Perhaps thinking of a close friend, who he told housemates earlier in the week, recently passed away due to an HIV-AIDS-related illness. Between sobs, Itai spoke about combining traditional and pharmaceutical medicines to tackle the virus. He stressed the importance of individuals across Africa taking responsibility and empowering themselves to make better decisions. Saying that if a man loves his other half, he would do everything he could to protect her from contracting HIV-AIDS. Definitely gives us food for thought. Very fitting I think, for this to be one of the final tasks. It certainly helps that the message is being sent out by young, funky, cool entertainers. Hopefully the Caring Revolution will contribute to a general drop in HIV-AIDS statistics across Africa. * You can watch Big Brother Africa 24 hours a day on DStv channel 198. The daily show, live nominations and eviction shows will be broadcast on M-Net Africa (DStv channel 102). Africa Magic (DStv channel 107) will broadcast all repeats.