| Fairy-Tale Romance Meets Culture Clash
Take two parts romance, one part biopic, a pinch of documentary and a hint of The Odd Couple, and you've got The White Masai, a bittersweet film about a cross-cultural and inter-racial romance based on a true story.
Young Swiss shop-owner Carola is on holiday in Kenya with her long-term boyfriend Stefan. Everything is going well when Stefan draws to her attention a couple of Samburu warriors in traditional dress who are aboard their ferry. Carola and the taller, more handsome of the warriors, Lemalian, make eye contact. It seems the people who most stand out from the crowdthe white, blonde woman and the stately, spear-wielding tribesmanare immediately drawn to each other in the sea of everyday Kenyans going about their business.
Carola and Stefan wind up hanging out with Lemalian and his friend Tom, who get them out of a few sticky situations.
NEW 'AIR TO WATER' MACHINES
"We have and are receiving many new inquiries for many sample units of a variety of our machines that convert thin Air to Water, on site, almost on a daily basis. "Over the past month or so, we have received such queries for various models of our range of machines from individuals from all walks of life, companies in the safari camps', lodges and coastal hotel industry and the construction industry from all over the country and others from Uganda, Tanzania, and South Sudan." In addition, the company reports that interest in the larger models of Air to Water machines is growing and officials from several leading NGO's are in ongoing negotiations with the company for the purchase of machines for possible deployment in rural areas and water starved villages in many affected areas regionally.
Kill at your convenience
IF YOU want to shoot a lion without any risk to yourself, you had better hurry. From June 1st it will be illegal in South Africa to shoot a lion while it is caught in a cage or a bear-trap. Farms will no longer be allowed to trot out tame or drugged game to be mown down by wealthy but inept hunters. "Canned hunting", the government proudly insists, has been banned. Animal-rights activists are not so sure. They point out that the law still allows hunters to lure lions, leopards and hyena with bait, and to dazzle leopards and hyenas with a bright light, before blasting away at them. Although hunters can no longer use crossbows to kill the biggest and most endangered species, many others, including buffaloes, hippos and wildebeest, will still be fair game. .
South Africa's national parks poised for surge in "pink' tourism
South Africa's national parks are poised for a surge in "pink" tourism now that a tourist operator has launched a series of tours designed to initiate gay visitors to the delights of the savannah.
While Cape Town is consistently voted one of the top five gay holiday destinations worldwide, Strider Expeditions says it aims to lure gay tourists out of the Mother City for a fuller African experience. "In South Africa the gay community is not very well served," says Ian Pollard, a former guide in Kruger National Park and co-founder of Strider along with British woman Charlotte Currie.
Gays "feel more accepted in some places than others," he says. Identifying accommodation in the countryside that welcomes gay clients was a first step to launching the service.
Many artists stayed in the South for inspiration
Like many African-Americans and like many artists, black artists migrated from the South for better opportunities. Among the most famous from South Carolina was William H. Johnson, who left Florence at 18 in 1919 to study at the National Academy of Design in New York. Johnson he spent most of his life in New York and Europe. Merton Simpson grew up in Charleston where he studied informally with William Halsey, because art classes weren't open to black children. Simpson moved to New York in 1948 when he was 20 and studied at New York University and Cooper Union. In New York, he continues to paint and runs an art gallery specializing in African and contemporary art. Jonathan Green, 51, grew up in the Lowcountry, and his colorful paintings are inspired by memories of South Carolina, but he has lived and worked in Naples, Fla., most of his career.
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