It caught my eye as it ran across the CNN ticker: “Madonna, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Bono are some of the celebs pledging to ‘save Africa.’ But does Africa want them?”
I was on my way to teach a class, so as I continued down the hall I thought about it. Good question . . . does Africa want them? But it can’t be answered. Africa doesn’t even know they exist.
Once while I was living in Ts’oeneng, I think it was in 2006, Bono came to Lesotho. He visited the capital on a Saturday and I happened to travel from Ts’oeneng to there the next day, where I ran into an American friend who told me about it. She was working in Maseru for a non-governmental organization and she giddily told me all about the event the night before where Bono had spoken about the local textile factories and AIDS. She showed me photos on her cellphone. There he was on the stage at Lesotho’s most expensive hotel wearing his signature extra-terrestrial sunglasses (is that what they are?)
Wow, so Bono had visited little Lesotho. He came and went and I would have never known. I guess out in the villages we don’t get a lot of news. But then I wondered if his visit counted as news in Ts’oeneng.
On Monday, I asked my Form E class — the oldest and most world-wise class of students at Ngoana Jesu Secondary School, “Did you know that Bono was in Maseru over the weekend?”
“Pardon, sir.”
“Did any of you guys hear that Bono, the singer of the music group U2, was in Maseru this past weekend?”
“Sir?”
Not that my students were totally unfamiliar with Western celebrities. One student had written “Snoop Dogg” on his backpack, and I had been asked a number of times if I liked Celine Dion.
But that’s just it: Snoop Dogg and Celine Dion. Which Western celebrities were also known in Lesotho was curious and never predictable. Dolly Parton was played frequently on the radios of public buses, along with R.Kelly. Soccer is the most popular sport, so people knew the British player David Beckham, but the only other athletes we knew in common were professional wrestlers. They loved John Cena.
No one I met knew Madonna, or Angelina Jolie — and once I showed students a magazine photo of her husband Brad Pitt, to which they made no connection either. Sorry, George Clooney. You, too, don’t translate.
And sorry, Bono. While you’re flying in and spending a few hours saving Africa, Africa is wondering who you are.
by 
One reply on “What is a Bono?”
That is like Reese Witherspoon being pulled over for DUI and harrassing the police officer that pulled her and her husband over, “Don’t you know who I am!!” she exclaimed!! They believe their own press. Huge ego.
It always happens… Somebody should tell those” saviors of Africa”, maybe it will deflate their egos, bring them back a little closer to earth.