The third season of the popular TV series Big Brother Africa started last month. The show, which will last for 91 days (until Sunday 23rd November 2008) involves contestants from Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Tanzania.

The 3rd season has already developed a huge amount of interest on the continent. African bloggers are currently discussing the show from a variety of angles. Bazanye wants to offer updates of Big Brother III but he does not own a TV. So what does he do? He makes them up:

Because I have no TV (ref Crime Rate) I cannot offer updates of Big Brother Africa III.
Not unless I make them up, as I shall now proceed to do.
Day I
10:40pm
Uti belches loudly and drops his hand to his belt. After a single deft gesture he has his large belt clip open, his fly unzipped and his belly is able to escape from confinement. “That was good food,” he says.
Sheila repeats the first word she uttered when she entered the house. “Fuck!” she says.
Uti, speaking drowsily, replies, “You misunderstood the reason I undid my fly. It’s because I am full. Maybe later.”
Sheila is disgusted and walks away from the table to join a gaggle of other housemates who have drifted towards the fridge. She leaves Morris at the table. Morris is looking at Uti enviously. “How did you do that?”
“How I opened my fly so fast and with only one hand?”
“No, I mean how do you repulse women so fast? I am a pretty boy so I don’t know how to do that.”
He then adds, “Shwinggg!” and walks away, too.
Mimi’s head is literally inside the fridge. She is that eager for a drink. Takondwa is looking at her bum.
11:00pm
Munya and Lucille are having a conversation. “As I said in my intro montage,” Munya brags, “Zimbabweans are the ultimate hustlers.”
“Do you really think that is the best thing to say to the rest of Africa about Zimbabwe?”
“Why? What’s wrong?” he continues grinning because he really doesn’t know what is wrong.
12:00-next morning
Uti farts all night long.

Felix writes a 2-part series about BBA. After briefly discussing other reality shows such as Apprentice Africa, The Ultimate Search, he focuses on Big Brother Africa III:

Let me try and describe the whole scenario, they come into the house, six boys and six girls, youths with hormones pumping like wild fire, desperate to win the prize money of 100,000USD, knowing the craziest in the house or better still the wildest, which means taking showers naked on live television,… Each housemate will scheme and play the game hard in order to be the last man or woman standing to win 100,000 US dollars; while audiences watch every minute and every second of their lives in the house live on satellite TV. Not forgetting those hot and steamy shower hours where everything comes off in the full glare of the Big Brother lenses, and the organizers of the show in other to make this happen, they arrange a cozy, luxury two bedroom apartment with small rooms, and share the participants to be 3boys and 3girls to a room and they are welcomed with enough food, drinks, cigarette and music to swing into the mood of getting to know each other fast enough for action to start taking place in the house.
Funny thing is, I find it really fascinating how watching a group of people sitting around, talking, eating and sleeping? Can be entertaining, yet you get millions of fans going to bed late, because they are waiting for the housemates to go to bed first or hoping some action like what happened in the last edition will reoccur, some might say it’s the Shower Hour( the most watched session), but the truth remains, its gets a lot of fans hooked to the screen, even me…(lol) sometimes.

Is BBA a vehicle for encouraging immorality and promiscuity?

My questions are what is the average Africa youth to benefit from Big Brother Africa which without a doubt has become one of the most followed reality series in Africa and M-net, producers of the show got massive auditions across the 12 countries for season 3. BBA2 received over 900,000 SMS messages; over 14 million registered page impressions and over 4 million viewed video clips on the show’s website and which of course means the organizers of this show are really smiling to the banks each season. My other question now being what value is being delivered? Or are we being westernized to the point where we aimlessly follow a show that is immoral and a vehicle encouraging immorality, promiscuity… but whatever you views are, if you are watching (like I am), it means you asked for what you are getting.

He dwells on the same subject of moral values in his second post:

That is not the worst of it, the news I came back to hear is when the house mates went into a game called “Truth or Dare”. This got one of the girls(Sheila) having to kiss all the guys in the room, one of the guys(Takwonda or T.K for short) stripping butt naked and standing in front of the rest of the house mates and it gets worse, the really crazy guy in the house(in my opinion) Ricco, strips butt naked and gives Sheila a lap dance while kissing her ears, as if they hadn’t showed enough capriciousness, the flirt of the house, Latoya strips half naked and T.K sucks her boobs. Are they getting into an orgy already?
Now I’m sure this sounds like a flick from a porno movie, but truth is I just described an evening 4days into the BBA show, remember this kids are going to be in the house for 91whole days and only four days into the show they have gone this far, your guess is as good as mine what will happen in before the show it comes to an end.
Anyways, I guess I got what I asked for when I subscribed for the program, so maybe I should stop complaining or better still unsubscribe, but really, its mind boggling where we are headed in an attempt to be like our western counterpart or is this all part of the civilization?

“Isnt homosexuality the issue anymore?,”Kenyan Gay Man asks:

The Kenyan representative in BBA stated that she is bisexual and her strategy would be to sleep with all the women first then go for the dudes. This was even reported in The Standard friday magazine.

I was expecting the usual Kenyan reaction with politicians leading the way about morals and homosexuality etc. However, except for Hot 96 fm digress Am I the only one who listens to this station and really love the music? end of digress..erm where was I, oh yes, except for Hot 96fm, I have not heard anyone else comment about this declaration.

Imagine if the contestant was a man and he declared that he would first seduce all the dudes before he takes on the chiles! Now that would be something but that aside, the reaction would be swift and take the Kenya headlines.

Bella Naija does not think the Nigerian contestant, Uti, will win:

I still have a big question mark as per the Nigerian rep. Sorry but off the bat, dont think he will win…Hope I am proven wrong tho but as per first impressions…hmmmm

BTW, the Angolan guy (Ricco) and Latoya (TZ) have already had a mini hookup! within 12 hours of being in the house!

“The guys are kinda cute,” writes Linda Ikeji:

Big Brother Africa is back and I'm so so delighted with their selection this time around. The guys are kinda cute…
I just finished watching shower hour…hmmm…I repeat, the guys are kinda cute…well packed. lol

Sheila, the Kenyan contestant seem to attract a lot of attention from viewers. Is she a bully?:

Oh yes Sheila Kwamboka is a bully in the house. She has bright ideas and feels frustrated if nobody listens to her so she turns to bullying. But she's a friendly bully.

Sheila also led a group so desperate to gossip that they locked themselves in the toilet. They could not leave even when another housemate wanted to use it. That was a shame!

Vybez says that the prize is hers:

She is 23 years old , wild and keeping it real 24/7. This time all eyes are on her coz if the other contestants don’t watch it, the prize money is hers. The only forminadable threat or compe is from Mimi the Ghanaian chiq and Towana the Botwasana chiq. Go gal that prize money is ours…lol.

Wanjiku writes about the fake nominations, which took place at the beginning of the week:

The honeymoon is over for the housemates as the inevitable nominations began. They’ve no clue that the nominations are fake and eviction on Sunday will be fake too.
So who nominated who? And why?

Africancorp posts photos of the contestants. Times Multimedia has a video.