I thoroughly enjoyed writing Black Mongoose, not least because the fictional country of USuzwe was reputed to have the most beautiful women in Africa. I had much more of a struggle with the website. I had never built one before so I had to start from scratch, which included buying the program – RapidWeaver – learning how to use it and, as the site began to come together, finding and sorting out the bugs.
The website was designed – if I can use so strong a word - to help those of my readers who know little of Africa see some of the wonders that I was struggling to describe, and of course one of them was Africa’s women. The book boasts some truly beautiful women, the lovely Lindiwe and the diminutive Zanela to name but two. And they dominate my stalwart English hero, they wrap the poor boy round their little fingers, they manipulate him, point him in the right direction, and give him a gentle push.
So, in the website, I gave a page to photographs of African women. All came from that wonderful source of photos, Flickr. had been warned by a friend of my daughter’s who is a lawyer that I must obtain permission to use the photos, which I did. I was deeply moved by the generosity of the people I approached. Some turned out to be professional photographers, yet they still allowed me to use their stunning shots.
This photo of a Masai mother, courtesy of Flickr member ‘Arriving at the Horizon’, me too late for the first upload of the site so I used it in a blog. To me, this girl is the Mona Lisa of Africa except, instead of a smile, she has a tear.
Jon
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