Oneza: The enchanting couple
‘Kiss by kiss, I move across your small infinity, your borders, your rivers, your tiny villages,’ the Chilean Nobel literature laureate, Pablo Neruda wrote in his poetic classicLove Sonnet XII.
Whereas in the figurative sense, Neruda was detailing how love allows one to access another’s most intimate parts, the literal meaning could not be more apt for Botswana’s Zibanani ‘Oneal’ Madumo and Tanzania’s Feza Kessy.
The distance by road between Gaborone and Dar es Salaam may be 3 415 km (via Livingstone) or 2 434 km (had there been a direct road), but the varying borders, rivers and tiny villages strewn across such great a distance have not been a barrier to the couple, now nicknamed Oneza.
As we sit at the RB2 studio at Mass Media Complex (home of the Daily News, Kutlwano, Radio Botswana, RB2 and Btv), on a day Oneal spent at Botswana’s oldest commercial radio station, where he is still under a contract, downstairs from our own offices, this love across the borders between the two is as visible as is palpable.
The love that developed in Randburg, Johannesburg at the Big Brother Africa: The Chase set has translated into a popular culture phenomenon in Botswana; possibly not since Seretse and Ruth Khama’s ‘marriage of inconvenience’ (as labeled by the British author Michael Dutfield) has the country been this enchanted with a couple.
Overwhelmed by the love she’s been received with in the country, Feza, while non-committal about her plans, does not rule out living here permanently. “I would not mind moving to Botswana,” Feza says emphatically, sat across the studio from Oneal, who was behind the microphone, “I am currently looking for the right job to do, it could be here, it could be in South Africa, or back home in Tanzania.”
A singer, Feza, feels that she wants to continue with the artistic strain that has been the common feature of her adult life thus far. “I now have the opportunity to promote my music across Africa because I’m better known because of Big Brother,” she says, adding that Bongo Flavour (Tanzanian youth music genre) and hip hop are part of her repertoire.
She says that while she’s been doing her music mostly in Swahili, she wants to use English more to attract a more continental audience. Meanwhile Oneal, declares that for now he is still contracted to RB2, while he considers options. “I am still under contract at RB2, until I get a better offer. I will continue to do what I’ve been doing, being a radio and club deejay,” he says, adding that he would also like to engage in public speaking.
They both enjoyed their stay in the Big Brother house, Oneal calling it ‘surreal,’ and though Feza says it was challenging at times, she says she had fun.
On his final diary session, Oneal was critical of West African attempts to dominate in Big Brother; something he says he does not regret, though he feels it was the reason he was voted out.
“I take full responsibility of what I said, I had to be myself, and I would never sell my soul. I have been vindicated,” he says, referring to Africa’s decision to vote for Namibia’s Dellish and Cleo of Zambia ahead of the West African housemates from Ghana and Nigeria. ENDS
