Mbongeni Ngema, who played ‘Constable Sabela’ in the 1988 musical ‘Sarafina’ passed on at the end of 2023. As the news filtered through, we started reminiscing about the movie. This brought back memories from our childhood because we watched this movie so many times as kids.

One day, during the December holidays, we were just chilling with my wife and family friends and we decided to re-watch Sarafina. After a quick search on the different streaming platforms, we found the movie on Netflix. As I was watching I went through so many emotions. I will get back to these emotions later, but first, I will go through the differences in how we watched Sarafina as kids versus now.

Back Then (90’s)

We watched Sarafina on VHS tapes back then as kids. My parents actually had a copy which we shared with pretty much the whole neighbourhood. I even remember one time when my brother who stayed in Harare borrowed it for months. There wasn’t a lot of good shows on TV, so whenever we had visitors or we got bored, we turned to the small library/collection of VHS tapes. In addition to Sarafina, some of the movies I remember from that library include ‘Hard Target’, ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’, ‘Matilda’, ‘Home Alone’.

We watched all these movies countless times. We even memorized some of the lines, even though we were probably getting the words wrong. In my childhood, we only learned & spoke English at school. So, until maybe the ages of 12-13, we would not understand most of the dialogue in movies. The actors/actresses in the different movies had different accents to what we were used to, which made it more challenging to understand.

An example of this in Sarafina is when Ms Masombuka says “…so that’s what South Africa is to the whites, a gas station stop on the way to somewhere else, a Pepsi and a piss in the sun“. I had no idea what she was saying because I did not know what she meant by ‘gas’ or what ‘Pepsi’ was or what ‘piss’ mean’.

Unlike Hollywood movies, most of the actors/actresses in Sarafina were unknown to us. I personally only knew Whoopi Goldberg (Ms Masombuka) from the Sister Act movie, which we had in our home collection. The rest of the cast was completely new to us as kids. And, speaking of Ms. Masombuka, I always thought the character was a foreign teacher since I knew that Whoopi Goldberg was an American .

Sarafina was very relatable to us as kids. So many things were applicable to our circumstances at the time, from the characters’ personal struggles to the socio-economic environment. Even though Zimbabwe had been independent for over a decade, colonisation and the liberation struggle were still very much talked about. The school assembly scene at the beginning felt very much like our school assembly then, from the setting to the teachers’ clothing to the Headmaster’s speech.

Now – Watching Sarafina in 2023

It has been over 25 years now and a lot has changed. My personal circumstances have changed, I am now a husband and father and I am living in a foreign country. I now live and work in South Africa, the setting for the movie.

The political environment has changed as well, South Africa is now a democracy and has been led by Nelson Mandela’s political party for over 30 years.

The technology landscape has changed as well, Sarafina is now available on Netflix. Netflix has subtitles, which helped us understand some of the dialogue that we did not understand back then. I was also expecting to watch Sarafina on the South African streaming platforms DStv & Showmax but it was not available on their platforms

I still get the same feelings when watching Sarafina. While a lot has changed, there are a lot of things that are still as they were all those years ago. The movie is about a ‘happy ending’, with Mandela free and South Africa free as well. But that happy ending is not for everyone. Many Africans still suffer oppression, injustice and poverty.

The actors/actresses of Sarafina have grown into household names since then Somizi Mhlongo, John Kani, Robert Whitehead, etc. While watching, we were also googling were some of the actors who aren’t very popular now, like Guitar. Then, there were other cast members who did not have prominent roles, but are now big in the South African entertainment industry, like Sindi Dlathu (Lindiwe Dikana). Everyone referred to Crocodile as ‘Dojacat’s Father’ through the entire movie, which was hilarious.

Looking at all these people who are now stars in their own right, you can tell that they chose the best of the best to be part of the Sarafina cast.

Sarafina is a musical, and the music is very good and the dance moves are top-notch. The song that plays at the end of the movie, ‘Freedom is Coming‘ is one of my favorites. Recently found the playlist for some of the songs on Youtube here: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lKfFB0kI2H2fg6v602jjkP-nDC9bsaCLM and I give it a listen every now and again.

I will have to do a follow-up post on the standout moments and the emotions evoked from watching this wonderful movie.