A woman in a man’s world: Entertains while giving viewers insight into the working world to which they would not ordinarily be exposed. This episode highlights the life and work of Dr. Mamisa Chabula, a woman who’s chosen to dedicate her life to the practice of male circumcision. Men have learned to trust her enough to examine and treat initiates. Her choice of career has sparked many debates… and has won her numerous awards. Her most important achievement, though, has been to pioneer a revolution around the practice of circumcision.
My footprint of Africa: This documentary tells the story of South Africa’s oldest city, Cape Town. Filmmaker and storyteller Bev Mitchell turns a personal lens on the city of her birth to retrace its hidden social and spatial heritage and celebrate a breathtakingly beautiful, magical place. Yet beneath the surface of this port city at the tip of vast majestic Africa, suffers an identity crisis that is rooted in its turbulent past.
The medicine bag: This documentary tells the story of a Nama family and a medicine bag passed from generation to generation and is set against a back drop of oral histories and traditions of the Nama in the Northern Cape.
The bag and the accompanying healing skills have been an important part of Letitia’s family for as long as the family can remember; the information passed on from her great-grandfather to Agab, her grandfather. When he died the bag was given to Letitia’s uncle who shared the inheritance with her mother. Only these two, from a large family of twenty siblings, were instructed on how to use the contents and how to heal. Healing included the laying up of hands and rubbing with ointments, sounds and smelling and herbal treatments.
These practices and the medicines have been and still are of value in the Nama culture helping to keep the community together and to preserve the language. The documentary follows the trails of the medicine bag – from the Northern Cape to Johannesburg and back.
