Celebrating a Remarkable Life: Miriam Makeba

Some of you may, like me, have been saddened to hear of the death of that great singer, Miriam Makeba, earlier this weekend.  She was a South African singer but her powerful voice reached across Africa and, eventually, the whole world.

On Saturday, the Virtual Africa group held a tribute in celebration of her life, which took place on the Robben Island sim (Robben Island was, of course, the notorious prison in South Africa where Nelson Mandela and other prominent figures in the ANC were jailed for so long – the name has been reclaimed as a symbol of hope triumphing over adversity).

It was a great party, and wonderful to hear so many of the songs of Africa that she sang, awaking her listeners to the richness and diversity of African culture. Alanagh Recreant, who oversees the Virtual Africa, had hoped to be able to invite Miriam Makeba into Second Life; that will, alas, never happen now.

The Virtual Africa sims are well worth visiting, if you have not already been.

‘Virtual Africa’ is an initiative of Uthango Social Investments, and is a community-building and content creation project related to Africa. It is managed in SL from a beautiful savannah environment with uniquely commissioned Acacia trees, buffalo grass and various animals. You can take a fascinating safari around the land.  One of the cutest artificially intelligent animals, a small meerkat, can be adopted on the island to the amount of 250 L$ (1 USD) and will form a relationship with its owner – although if you don’t visit it regularly, it will die. An international company, Komm-Passion, donated programming and design expertise to develop the animal early 2008.

Uthango Social Investments also opened Robben Island next to Virtual Africa to accommodate and promote pro-Africa communities across the grid in the form of ’embassies’, and to showcase quality African goods, services and events. They invite applications for rental space in support of our greater project – to promote African real world projects because they are here to add value and share best practice in development.

Robben Island is also the location of the African Rain club, which housed the Tribute to Miriam Makeba.  More generally, it is intended to promote African music and talent.

There is an inworld group that you can join, SECOND LIFE AFRICA to keep track of developments, or you can check their blog called Africa in Virtual Worlds: http://slafrica.wordpress.com.  Alternatively, you can join their FaceBook group: UTHANGO.