🔅 The Future is... Exclusive?
How a Busted Car Led to a Beautiful Documentary & Fine Dining Goes African
Good Morning from Senegal!
Welcome back, dear readers, and happy New Year!
After a restful two-week pause, we're ready to dive back into the heart of African affairs—unearthing stories that inspire, inform, and challenge the mainstream narrative.
We’re honoured to have you as a subscriber, and here's to a year filled with fresh perspectives and meaningful conversations. ✨
Last Week in Numbers
🇬🇳 1.2 Million Tons: China’s State Power Investment Corp. is upgrading Guinea’s bauxite game by building an alumina refinery that’ll churn out 1.2 million tons a year — ready by 2027 to turn red dust into global profits.
🇨🇮 100 Troops: Ivory Coast’s president is trimming France’s troop count from 600 down to 100, riding the wave of anti-French sentiment across West Africa. France is downsizing its troops across West Africa, cutting deployments in Senegal, Chad, and Gabon too.
🇳🇬 x2 Tariffs: Nigerian telcos want to double their tariffs as inflation hits near 30-year highs. MTN and friends say 11 years of the same old pricing rules just isn’t cutting it anymore.
🇬🇦 600,000 Hectares: Gabon’s junta is expanding its logging footprint by taking direct control of the nation’s timber firm, tightening its grip on 600,000 hectares of lush rainforest — and a $620 million industry.
🇿🇦 $108K p/a: South Africans in the US are leading the African diaspora income charts, pulling in a sweet median household paycheck of nearly $108,000. Kenyans, Cameroonians, Ghanaians, and Nigerians aren’t far behind — all topping the US average.
🌍 $537m Series C: Mining startup KoBold Metals, backed by big names like Bezos and Gates, just bagged $537 million for its series C round for AI-driven hunt for the minerals that’ll power the green energy future. Next stop: a giant copper mine in Zambia.
🇿🇼 4,000MW: Zimbabwe wants to nuke its power woes with small reactors, eyeing Russian investors to help boost capacity from 2,600 to 4,000 megawatts by 2035. Because 18-hour outages are nobody’s idea of fun.
🇿🇦 & 🇷🇼 & F1: South Africa and Rwanda both want to host Formula 1 and insist there’s room for two African grands prix on the global stage. Africa remains absent from the 2025 F1 calendar despite growing interest. Why settle for one podium when the continent can score a double victory?
*Data accurate as of the close of markets across the continent
From Breakdown to Breakthrough: How a Busted Car Led to a Beautiful Documentary
Ever had your car break down in the middle of nowhere? For most of us, it's a day-ruining nightmare. But for actor Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (you might know him as Ronnie from "The Chi"), it turned into a 22-year journey that's now winning awards across the film festival circuit.
Here’s how it all started: It's 2002, and Ntare's car decides to call it quits in Mbirizi, a small Ugandan town. While waiting for repairs, he stumbles upon a photo studio owned by Kibaate Aloysius Ssalongo. Instead of scrolling through his phone (as most of us would), Ntare discovers thousands of negatives in a sack – a treasure trove of portraits capturing Ugandan life from the 1950s onwards.
What started as a potential photo exhibit or coffee table book morphed into something much bigger when Hollywood heavyweight Steven Soderbergh caught wind of the project. After seeing some two-minute teasers, Soderbergh basically said, "Name your price," and jumped aboard as producer.
The resulting documentary, "Memories of Love Returned," is more than just about pretty pictures. It's also a family drama that would make reality TV producers jealous – multiple wives, children, and enough emotional baggage to fill a photography studio.
Beyond the family drama, the film tackles some heavy themes: gender politics, same-sex relationships (particularly poignant given Uganda's current anti-gay legislation), and the power of photography to preserve history.
So next time your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, maybe look around – you might just stumble upon your next award-winning documentary. Just make sure you're carrying a camera, like Ntare was.
We can’t wait to see it…
Here, Ntare speaks more on the project:
Welcome to Steyn City: South Africa's Monaco-Sized Escape From Reality
Welcome to Steyn City, where springboks and impala roam freely, and your biggest daily decision is whether to hit the Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course or take your horse for a spin at the Olympic-sized equestrian arena. This luxurious enclave on the outskirts of Johannesburg comes complete with a man-made lagoon, biking trails, restaurants, and schools.
$2.7 million is the price set to own a property in Steyn City, but millionaires are not just dropping the cash to access the amenities, they’re also desperate to escape South Africa's crumbling infrastructure.
While half of South Africa's 63 million people rely on monthly welfare payments, the country's elite are busy insulating themselves in private utopias where their kids never have to venture into the "real" South Africa.
Today, estates like these are booming faster than you can say "backup generator." Since 2003, the number of homes in such developments has quadrupled to 490,000—mostly because nothing says "I've made it" quite like having your own power and water supply and school and restaurant while the rest of the country goes dark.
As one person puts it, gated communities are "a symptom of a failed society." (Ouch, but accurate?)
The Future is... Exclusive?
Because these aren’t just home, but rather self-contained worlds. We're talking cradle-to-grave living with kindergartens, medical facilities, and senior living all within the walls. It's like a luxury cruise ship, except it's on land, and you're trying to escape the outside world instead of seasickness.
So while South Africa might have lost 20% of its millionaires in the past decade, those who stayed are making sure they're living their most exclusive lives.
Welcome to the new South Africa, where the rich don't just get richer—they get their own private cities.
Fine Dining Goes African: How Kigali is Becoming the Hub of High-End Cuisine
There's a new culinary capital cooking up a storm, and it's not where you'd expect. Kigali, Rwanda's pristine capital, is serving up a food revolution that's got everyone from globe-trotting foodies to Michelin-starred chefs paying attention.
Remember when Copenhagen was just that place with the Little Mermaid statue? Then all of a sudden it felt like everyone was fermenting everything in sight? Well, Kigali's having its own moment, minus the fermentation, plus a whole lot of African flair.
Dieuveil Malonga is the soft-spoken culinary mastermind behind Meza Malonga. Before setting up the restaurant, he travelled through 46 African countries just to perfect his menu. Now that’s dedication!
His tasting menu is basically a pan-African road trip for your taste buds: Ivorian mushrooms here, Egyptian black lemon there, Ghanaian shito cream everywhere, and it sounds delicious.
Why Kigali? Well, for starters, Rwanda's got more plant species than your local botanical garden (15% of Africa's plant diversity in less than 1% of its landmass). Plus, it's stable, safe, and apparently becoming a magnet for culinary innovators who are tired of making the same old pasta in Paris.
You can read more about Malonga and the other top-level chefs that are changing Africa’s fine-dining cuisine here.
Food for Thought
“Pride has no beauty.”
— Malawi Proverb