No Decision

By Jerry Kai-Lewis
Correspondent | Monday August 25, 2008 00:00

 

Out of the about 240 girls that converged on the Grand Palm Hotel's GICC, very few impressed the two talent scouts, Botswana's 2006 winner Kaone Kario and longstanding South African model Andiswa Manxima and the cast of the M-Net crew shooting the behind the scenes segments of the search. The day of hopes and dreams was not without the drama of a reality TV show; something M-Net viewers would appreciate.

After scanning the length of the line of hopefuls, which snaked its way along the right service access doors of the GICC building, and in between 'cuts' and 'takes', the very blunt Manxima, with Kario in tow, approached young girls that did not fit the bill. Visibly upset and dejected, the unfortunates who never had the opportunity to even strut for the scouts got a brief brush with the stringent rules that govern the world of the fashion model. 'Unfortunately our industry is a bit cut-throat and straight forward like that; we can't beat about the bush, otherwise we will be wasting everybody's time.
 
I'm sure that some of them are very talented in many other ways but unfortunately they don't have the kind of talent we are here looking for,' said Andiswa Manxima. Maybe because of the country's obsession with beauty pageants since Mpule Kwalegobe's unexpected win at the 1999 Miss Universe pageant, a majority of the girls, who fell below the height restriction of 1.7m showed up hoping to impress the judges with their looks and sense of fashion.

Manxima said that modelling is a career and has certain requirements while pageant queens are just ambassadors, 'and there's no career in that'.
Buoyed by her impressive show of beauty and brains that landed her the coveted Face of Africa title, Kario is one of the hottest modelling products in Southern Africa. Having travelled to as far as New York in the United States and Madrid, Spain, strutting her stuff, Kario said that while winning is important, it is her experience that even making it to the top 10 is enough to land some of the girls lucrative work.

'I have some of my closest friends in the industry I did Face of Africa with that didn't win but are doing just as well as me by just making it to the top 10,' said Kario. She added that she is currently building up her profile for what she hopes would be the next shift in her career, acting.

In the meantime, she said that she would be back in school in February next year. After the first axing, those who were unfortunate to escape Kario's and Manxima's attention for the chop were led into the GICC foyer for more behind the scenes work for the M-Net crew. After shots of Kaone and Andiswa walking down the winding stairwell and introducing the Botswana hopefuls, who were made to cheer for the camera, it was time to get to the meat of what they braved the early morning draft for.

Speaking for MultiChoice Botswana Public Relations Officer, Tshepo Maphanyane, before the first selection process, where the girls were made to 'walk' for the scouts, she said that it was unfortunate that the majority of the girls who turned out for the day did not meet the height and hip (96cm) requirements. 'But they are the ones who showed up. And unfortunately, if no one gets chosen, then Botswana won't have a representative at the Face of Africa this year,' said Maphanyane. She added that while one, at most two, girls would be chosen, it was not a rule that 'somebody has to be chosen' from any of the countries the scouts are scheduled to visit before the boot camp phase.

It was now time for the moment of truth. Led through the doors like cattle for the slaughter, a group of the young hopefuls was made to sit in a 'holding room', while another waited out in the foyer in anticipation of their catwalk moment. Unfortunately, a majority of them were not even allowed to waste the time of the scouts and shooting crew as they were deemed too short for the catwalk.

And true to the spirit of reality TV there were a lot of tears and broken hearts. Unfortunately, at the end of the swimsuit section, and after close to 10 hours of waiting, the scouts were nowhere near choosing anyone of the handful of girls they had to look over. The quantity, it seems, did not produce the quality that the scouts and other stakeholders were hoping for. MultiChoice Botswana's Maphanyane said that her office would release the names of the hopefuls, if any.

From Botswana the scouts and production team will go to Namibia before moving on to Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa.