South African fan site

Claim to fame: Published author, executive producer, actress, poet, independent record producer, corporate and independent event MC, life skills facilitator/speaker and television series presenter.

Lebo Mashile was named by Cosmopolitan Magazine as one of South Africa's Awesome Women of 2005.

Can be seen currently in: L'atitude
(SABC 1, I watch it on Wednesday mornings but apparently it's also on at 19h00 on Tuesday nights.)

Profile

Why we love her: She is the beauty and intelligence behind and in front of a brilliant, honest and original truly South African magazine programme.

I first 'met' Ms Lebo when i was flicking through Tv channels one morning and found L'attitude. Lebo, a poet and feminist, is the host of this travel documentary series. But L'attitude is so much more than the average magazine show. An impressive range of issues are explored including identity, culture and gender in a way that only the eloquent and perceptive Lebo Mashile could. Each week she travels to a different place around the country to discover and illuminate the dynamics of our complex cultures. The way in which Lebo facilitates the explorations always inspires me. She sensitively uncovers the positions occupied by South Africans by meeting them in the spaces they inhabit. She is so good at adjusting her behaviour to suit the situation and responds without judgement to all those she meets along her journey through the landscape of a developing South Africa. Lebo is provocative and refuses to accept easy answers. She gives her own particular take on what she hears and closes every programme with one of her poems.

Above information gathered from here

when we were africans

when we were africans
we knew the price of life
was paid from birth
the stagnant air was cleared
when mind
met heart
met soul
met deed
met word
a divine standard of excellence
an expression of worth
if I am better than the next man
in my truest self I am worse
in a world stripped of material
all that is left is work
the footprint on the pavement
of possibility is work
the harnessing of the heaven
promised to me is work
even death is a seed to work
until grace is a tree deserved

Buy her books
An interview
A gripe
NBF (Nathaniel's new best friend)
An article

# posted by Terri : 19.9.06  0 comments