I'm travelling around the most exciting continent on the planet - Africa.
With more than 50 countries
and hundreds of cultures...
Look at you guys! Yeah!
Don't switch over, you are watching the right channel.
..it's the fastest-growing, most dynamic...
Everybody here's crazy!
Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Aah!
Come on!
..and most epic place on Earth.
Oh, man! I'm going to have to pinch myself in a minute.
On this final leg of my trip around Sub-Saharan Africa,
I'll be in Southern Africa.
I'll be travelling from the beaches of Mozambique to South Africa,
before I finish my journey in Zimbabwe.
I mean, look at that! Even the trees are posh around here.
It's a region that's still deeply divided.
This is what they were shooting? Yes.
Everyone's dreams are left in rubble.
And the natural world is under attack.
Oh, man!
But this spectacular place... Ah!
..is so ready for change.
Now really feels like the right time
to be making something beautiful out of the chaos.
MUSIC: Samukela by Zena Abacar
Ah! This place is beautiful!
I was starting the final leg of my African adventure
on Mozambique's awesome Indian Ocean coast.
1,500 miles of unspoiled golden beaches.
The Bazaruto Archipelago National Park is a small chain
of tropical islands just off the mainland.
You know what? This is a terrible spot you've got here.
Isn't it ugly! I mean, it's so ugly.
It's rubbish. It's really, really bad.
I'd rather be in the inner city. THEY LAUGH
Dr Andrea Marshall is a marine biologist who's lived here
for 15 years.
She was taking me to Paradise Island.
Yes, that's what they actually call it.
Skills!
Nice one.
Today, it's uninhabited.
The most annoying thing about these desert islands
is that they're just not accessible whatsoever. No, they're not.
I'm going to need a helping hand. Why don't you join us?
Zito has actually been my guide to the archipelago.
Give us a push. Yeah.
Actually, we're doing all right. it's not so bad.
It's quite... Don't go too fast.
This way, we'll go this way. I can see then.
Oh, look at this now!
Look at this!
Can really get an idea.
I'll use the crutches. Let's go upstairs. All right.
Back in the early '60s,
Paradise Island was a high-end holiday destination.
Yeah? That's amazing.
It's just outstanding.
Look at that view. I heard that Elton John used to come here,
I heard, you know, that a bunch of different musicians
and actors and celebrities used to come.
A lot of people from South Africa used to come.
This is a honeymoon destination, as you can see.
I mean, it's so beautiful.
When the war started, tourists weren't going to come in the war any more.
In the 1960s, people here began a brutal war of independence
against their Portuguese colonizers.
It lasted a decade.
After that, the country was torn apart by 15 years of civil war.
What was it like for you to grow up in the war?
Really terrible, because nothing was going right.
Everything was going wrong.
No kids was going to the school,
there was no shop to go to buy something to eat.
There was no food, no water.
And daytime, you had to be hiding somewhere. You can't walk around.
If you walk around, they'll shoot you straight away.
The wars brought poverty and devastation to Mozambique,
but they also kept tourists away.
And that's left places like Bazaruto almost totally unspoiled.
There's a lot of wild environments
and beautiful environments in Africa.
What's so special about this park?
This tends to be one of the most important
aggregation sites for these big threatened species.
Like whale sharks, like manta rays,
a lot of different species of sharks and dolphins.
They all seem to aggregate here, because there's a lot of food.
This is kind of like the Serengeti of Africa, but for the ocean.
And this is also one of the best places in the world to see an animal
that I'd never even heard of - a dugong.
This is a sweet spot for the dugong,
so we're going to start actively looking now,
and we'll just take the boat back and forth.
You're basically looking for a very small head
with two nostrils coming out.
I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for.
But if it looks odd, then that must be it, that's what I'm...
Dugong are extremely rare and very timid.
Turning the engines off, trying to keep very, very quiet,
because the dugongs are really shy.
I'm really hoping we see some.
It's gone quiet now.
RADIO: He's approaching the corner now. Oh!
I don't know.
There's lots of jellyfish and crabs and other stuff,
just no dugong.
Oh, there it is! Can you see it?! Where?
It just came up for a breath. Ah! There it is!
He has got a mermaid tail.
It's getting closer. Yeah.
Ah!
I could see the markings on its skin and its big flipper.
That was incredible. That was amazing. That is incredible.
That was amazing. Ten metres away from a dougong.
Yeah, it's very rare. It's behind us, it's behind us!
Oh, it's behind us! It went under the boat.
It's just such a joyous moment when you see it.
It's like you're waiting for your lottery numbers to come up
and you're like, "Go on, say my number, say my number!
And then it pops up and you're like, "Yes!"
It's beautiful.
I hope we're not getting too greedy now,
but I'm going to get changed
and we're going to get into the water and hopefully swim with a dugong.
I grew up in East London.
Proper city boy.
So, if someone had told me 20-30 years ago
that one day you'd be going to Mozambique and you'd be swimming with dugongs,
I'll be like, "Do-what?!"
But it's going to happen.
That way more.
Look at it! Go, go!
Dugongs are mammals, like whales and dolphins,
but they're actually more closely related to elephants.
And, like elephants, they're vegetarian.
They spend most of their time in sandy bays like this,
grazing on seagrass.
Wow! I saw it!
That was amazing! There it is! There it is!
Look, it's going to come up right there!
It feels like a dream now. I can't believe I actually saw it.
That was absolutely stunning.
High-five. I'm so, so glad.
Because I have researchers in the country
that have been here for four, five years that have never done that.
So, what are the threats to the dugong population?
Across the globe, their habitat is being destroyed,
their food, which is seagrass, is being destroyed.
And so, it really just means that the available habitat
is getting smaller and smaller.
And then these animals, they're getting caught in nets.
they're being cut up by the propellers of motors.
And all of the combination of all of these different threats
is just reducing their population numbers.
They're being decimated all over the world,
but particularly in Africa.
Why should we protect the dugong?
We're losing animals at a rate faster now
than ever before in human history.
And it's as a result of our impact on the environment.
And so, I think the message is,
it's not whether we need these animals, as humans, to survive,
it's what kind of world do we want to leave to our children?
This is a protected area managed by a conservation organisation
called African Parks,
but Mozambique desperately needs the money that tourism can bring.
The challenge they face is to develop tourism
without endangering amazing creatures, like the dugongs.
This is the main road that takes you
from the south of Mozambique to the north.
And as you can see, it's just littered with potholes everywhere.
Even the sides are eroding away, just crumbling all over the place.
And we've had to literally slalom.
We've been on here for miles, and just slaloming in and out.
It just shows how poor Mozambique is.
There we go.
This place is one of the ten poorest countries in the world.
Everywhere looks just so rundown.
So rundown.
Life is hard for pretty much everyone here.
But for one group of people, it's so much tougher.
Let me come around.
I'd come to meet Kastigo, who has been disabled since childhood.
How are you?
Like me, he uses a wheelchair.
Oh! Oh, you've got a puncture.
Do you want me to help you?
Oh, my days!
How are you going to repair that? That's a huge hole!
I'll hold that bit there, yeah.
I mean, look at that, that's incredible.
If I had an inner tube that looked like that,
I would have chucked it away a long time ago,
but I guess Kastigo hasn't got much money
and he's got to find a way of sorting this out.
How often, Kastigo, do you have to change or repair
the tyres of your chair?
I think it's good. Yes.
Vamos?
ANIMATED CHATTER
Kastigo, how do people treat you around here?
Disability is viewed with fear and superstition here.
Many people even think it's contagious.
That makes even the most everyday things a massive challenge.
Kastigo normally has a lot of problems getting on the buses
to try and get into town.
So, I'm going to go along with him and see if we can stop a bus,
just to get a feel of what it's like for him
living here and trying to get around.
The local minibuses are usually pretty packed
and there's no room for a wheelchair.
Kastigo's happy to leave the chair behind and just climb in and out,
but it's not that easy.
The bus looks like it's going to stop.
So, Kastigo's seeing if he can get in.
There's a lady getting out of this bus.
Wow! Wow!
They didn't even acknowledge him. They just slammed the door shut.
This one?
This is possible?
No? Not possible?
Wow!
I mean, that was awful!
Awful!
Seven buses went past, you know.
The first couple opened the doors, let people out,
they took one look at him and said no.
And then the final bus, the guy said, "It's too much work".
It's too much work to get him on the bus.
I mean, for me that's just... It's just ridiculous.
If it's too much work for them, what's life like for Kastigo?
I'm...I'm...I'm furious at this.
It's rubbish! Absolute rubbish!
Sorry, man. I'm sorry.
I can remember when I was growing up in London,
buses and taxis would drive past me without stopping.
It's a terrible, terrible feeling.
In Mozambique, I'd heard about an NGO trying to change attitudes.
And they're doing it in a way that I know works.
This looks like the coach.
Is this your coach?
Yeah, yeah.
Hey! Hey!
Ha-ha-ha!
I think we're a little bit late, so the coach was waiting for us.
Your chariot awaits, sir!
ALARM WAILS
This is incredible! Ha-ha!
APPLAUSE
WHISTLE!
This basketball match is organised by a charity called Light For The World,
who work with disabled people across Africa.
WHISTLE!
CHEERING
Come on!
CHEERING
WHISTLE!
Hey! Thank you.
So, what's basketball like for you?
What does it do for you? How does it make you feel?
You look much more cheerful and happier than before,
when you were trying to get the buses.
I want you to make sure that the Kastigo that we see here
is the Kastigo that we see all the time. All the time!
Never the one who's waiting for the bus.
The basketball player!
Wheelchair basketball changed my life,
and I hope it can do the same for these guys.
That was really nice, to see Kastigo finally smiling.
And it's a massive transformation
to that sad guy that I saw earlier today.
The problem he's had is he's spent his life being beaten down,
and he's had so many negative experiences,
he can't even get on a bus, for God's sake.
And here, he comes and he plays sport.
And he finally gets that positivity
and he feels strong and he feels like himself.
And if he can have more positive experiences like this,
then, yeah, one day, he will achieve his dream
and have a family and a normal life,
which is what he deserves.
I continued my journey in a bit more comfort than before.
This has got to be one of the best roads I've driven on on my trip around Africa.
I'm actually quite relieved it's easy on my back.
Now, this road connects inland Africa with the port of Beira,
which is where I'm heading to now.
Look at this. This must be our hotel.
What a grand entrance. Look at that!
Golden Peacock Resort.
Got Chinese flags flying.
Definitely know who runs and owns this place.
China has invested billions of dollars in Mozambique
over the last few years.
They've built bridges, major new roads and huge hotels.
This hotel still astounds me.
I mean, look at this reception. It's massive!
Hey! You must be Jie.
Ade, how are you? Yeah, really good, really good.
Very nice to meet you. Shall we take a look around?
Yes, I'll show you Beira. Let's go. Let's do it.
Jie Kai is a Chinese entrepreneur.
One of thousands making money in Africa.
Have you been to Africa before?
Yes. Actually, I was... Before coming to Beira,
I was in Lagos for three years.
Lagos? That's where I was born!
Really? Yeah, yeah.
You are from Lagos? Yeah. Do you speak Yoruba? Yes.
ADE LAUGHS
Wow!
I couldn't believe that! I'm sitting in a car in Mozambique
speaking to a guy from China in Yoruba!
We'd better put on the helmets and...
Oh! You mean I have to take it off?
I thought that's a better one. ADE LAUGHS
Yeah.
Jie had brought me to the port of Beira in central Mozambique.
His company transports goods and raw materials between China and Africa.
What are they bringing in?
I don't know. They're just putting the containers onto the stack.
Yeah. You can see the machine they're using is also Chinese.
Not only are the Chinese bringing, or importing and exporting goods,
but they're also making the equipment
that takes the goods in and out of the country, as well?
Yes.
China is now Mozambique's second-biggest trading partner,
after neighbouring South Africa.
Do you think we'll be able to talk to some of the crew?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me try. He looks Chinese.
Let me go and try. Yeah.
Can you ask them how long they've been travelling for?
That's a long time on the ship.
You like basketball, yes?
So, who's your favourite player?
He's not bad, LeBron James.
What about Steph Curry? Durant?
Only LeBron James.
Now, he's the king. LeBron is the king.
Well, if you come down into Mozambique,
maybe me and you will play basketball.
THEY LAUGH
China is investing billions and billions
of dollars across Africa.
But not everyone thinks it's a good thing.
They've been accused of supporting corrupt regimes
so that they can get their hands on Africa's massive natural resources.
So, Jie, whilst I've been travelling around Africa,
I've seen lots and lots of Chinese influence.
So, China is bringing a lot of infrastructure to Africa,
advancing the lives of the African people every day.
I think it's an exciting opportunity in Africa,
and China wants to be part of this.
And, in fact, our national strategies, as well,
are to go abroad, really, to expand our influence
and to share our experience in development.
I must admit, I worry about
what the Chinese are doing here,
because of Africa's history of countries coming from outside
and exploiting them for their resources.
I don't know what your thoughts are on that.
I can only say that, er...
at least China is buying the resource, not stealing.
Chinese are everywhere in Mozambique,
and, to be honest, they seem to have a presence all over Africa.
and there are a lot of people who are suspicious at their motives.
They're worried that they're here to exploit Mozambique.
But this is a poor country, and it needs investment.
And that money's got to come from somewhere.
The next stop on my journey was South Africa.
I was headed along the Indian Ocean coast,
to the province of KwaZulu-Natal.
I can see a... Is it a buffalo?
It's a wildebeest.
Oh, a wildebeest.
This is another of Africa's wildlife hotspots,
with huge protected game reserves.
But even out here, in this beautiful wilderness,
China's influence is having a dramatic effect.
Hello, Chris.
Ade!
I met up with Chris Galliers from Project Rhino.
He's trying to protect South Africa's rhinos
from an explosion in poaching.
These amazing animals are killed for their horns,
which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Chris took me to a rhino orphanage.
Which one's this one?
Nandi.
Her mum was poached in November 2015.
And when you say poached...?
She was shot and her horns were forcibly removed.
So, how do the poachers remove the horns from the rhino?
Often, it's literally a case of putting the animal's head on a log
or a rock, and getting an axe,
and just hacking off what they can.
It's brutal. It's horrendous.
I've only ever been to one crime scene before,
and it's not something that I ever would want to have to go to again.
It's barbaric.
It's just axe cuts on the face, sort of missing the horn.
You know, it's just.. It's, like, hacked away.
Often...
Often when they shoot the adult for the horn,
the animal doesn't always die.
So, it could still be alive whilst it's getting half its face
hacked off by these poachers with an axe? Yes.
So sad.
There are only 25,000 rhinos left in the world,
and 1,000 are being killed every year.
Poaching is such a major issue here,
and these guys are really working hard to try and combat it.
So, I'm just following Chris to see one of the things they do
to try and protect the wildlife here.
Most rhino horns are shipped to Vietnam and China.
The trade is worth tens of millions of dollars.
With so much at stake,
Chris and the team are resorting to extreme measures
to protect the rhinos.
See this rock on the left of us here, left of the road?
There's the chopper over there.
Going to locate the rhino first,
which we believe is just in front of us here,
and then they're going to dart it, and then we'll watch it from there.
I heard him say it's going to go down soon.
It's going to go down, and we're going to have to off-road
because we haven't been able to entice it to the right,
so we're going to have to go to the rhino, and deal with it in there.
There's one standing there.
One rhino is still awake in front of us.
Is that the mother?
It's been sedated. Yah.
Oh, look at them.
You can feel it, the bristles here.
Bristles just show that all this is just compressed hair,
it's keratin.
That's what drives people so crazy and drives this whole industry,
the compressed hair of the rhino.
It's no different to your fingernail.
So, that's what we'll be doing, just like you clip your fingernails,
that's what we'll do with that.
Oh, man!
Without their horns, the rhinos are worthless to poachers.
This is just extraordinary.
And it's...
I'm gobsmacked.
But, also, there's a part of me that feels really sad
that we have to do this, that we have to deface the rhino,
just to save this life.
All because of this,
which people find really...
I don't know, it's... This is what people kill rhinos for.
Once it reaches consumers in the Far East,
rhino horn is worth more than gold.
This one piece alone could go for tens of thousands of dollars.
The horns begin to show when the rhinos are just a few weeks old.
Would poachers actually still poach this calf,
even though it's got a tiny little horn like that?
Absolutely, they will cut whatever they can get off it.
Would you know roughly how old he is?
Yeah. So, he's probably about 14 or 15 months, I'm guessing.
So, he's a baby. Yeah.
He's not very... He's probably just been weaned.
It's so sad that they would kill him just for that little thing.
I just...
I don't know.
I feel so sorry for these creatures.
They have no choice in this,
and it's the only way to save their lives and it's... Mm.
It's desperate, isn't it?
That it's got to this situation.
The horns grow back, and this mother has already been de-horned before.
In a couple of years, she and her calf will go through it again.
So, push it all the way in? Yes, go for it.
Are we pushing it down? Yep, go for it. Thank you.
So, this should wake her up.
Takes about three to four minutes, yes.
It's up! It's up on its feet.
They're both up on their feet.
That was a lot quicker than I thought.
You're happy? Yes, very.
They both walking off together, none the wiser, and safer,
which is obviously why we do this.
Since de-horning was introduced on the private reserves
in Kwazulu-Natal, the number of rhinos poached
has fallen by around 70%.
The next stop on my journey was Johannesburg,
South Africa's largest city.
This place has one of the biggest economies on the Continent.
It felt completely different to any of the other cities I visited
on my journey.
Johannesburg was the heart of the revolution against apartheid,
the racist system of white rule.
Hello, you must be Norman.
I am Norman. Yes!
I'll be your guide today. Thank you.
This place has always been a beacon of hope for me,
and for so many black people around the world.
It's nearly 30 years since Nelson Mandela walked out of prison,
bringing apartheid to an end.
I wanted to find out how democracy had changed the country.
I'm looking around, Norman, in this area,
and all I see is black faces.
I can't see a single white face around here at all.
All the white people moved.
Can you show me where the white people live?
Yes, I can, yeah. Can we go there? Yes, definitely.
Most of the white people live in exclusive areas of the city,
away from South Africa's notoriously high levels of crime.
These houses are amazing.
They look very plush.
Even the trees are posh around here!
I mean, who cuts trees like this?
Just got the security truck in front of us.
We're seeing them all around these areas.
Man. I mean, look at that!
Yo, bruv!
That's bulletproof... Bulletproof glass in every house. Yes, yes.
These are super rich people.
Can we pull up just here?
Norman, for me, this is highly unusual,
because you've got this high wall, and not only the high wall,
the electric fence, and then on top of that,
that you've got this ADT armed response sign.
What is that all about?
That's the security company so that anything that they suspect,
or anything that might actually be a danger,
I think they've got what we call panic button, which actually rings
in the security company,
so that they can respond to it any minute.
I'll be honest with you, I've never seen houses with electric fences
anywhere that I've been to in the world.
I've travelled all over the place, and this is bizarre.
Literally, every house on this road has got an electric fence on it.
When you see areas like this, which are mainly
owned by white people, and you see the way they're living...
..what does it make you think?
It makes me think like nothing really has changed in South Africa.
It feels to me like you're uncomfortable
to talk about this.
It is... It is not an easy thing to...
..to live someplace like that...
..and see no change when you have a democratic government.
It... Actually,
that's why a lot of people are angry today,
because they don't see any changes at all.
We just had a security car just fly past us.
Yeah, that probably was checking us out.
Yeah, they are making a patrol, but I'm not sure.
They might actually have been checking for us.
Two brothers sitting in a Mercedes in a rich white area.
What do you reckon?
HE LAUGHS
After 25 years of democracy,
more than a quarter of South Africans don't have a job.
This is now one of the most unequal countries in the world.
And inequality has actually increased
since the end of apartheid.
Economically, a black man still feels the same as under apartheid,
because economically we don't... We don't have anything.
We are still...
..at the bottom.
So, you're facing an economic form of apartheid?
Yes, definitely.
The land belongs to minority white race in South Africa.
Land is the big issue here.
White people make up 8% of South Africa's population,
but they own more than 70% of its land.
At the same time, millions of black South Africans
don't have proper homes.
Houses around here look pretty run down.
They're often forced to squat on whatever land they can find.
We've heard about an area of land
which has been occupied illegally by squatters,
and there have been attempts to remove the guys forcibly.
And we've just come along to see how the operation is going.
Just coming to the area now.
Something has gone on here. I mean, there's rocks in the street.
There's burned out patches of grass on the side,
and there's a really strong smell of burning rubber, or something.
Just an object here on the side
that's looked like it was burned out.
You can see something happened here.
Something violent.
Can you tell me what's going on?
So, do you live here? Yeah.
And tell me what happened to your house.
Just a few hours before I arrived,
more than 60 families had their homes destroyed.
This is where you live? Yeah.
This is your house? Yeah.
You can't believe it.
Where was your house? I can't see anything.
All I see is rubble.
My house is rubble now.
They use rubber bullets. Live bullets.
He has two rubber bullets here. Can we see?
They missed me. This is what they were shooting with? Yes.
Yes, they were hot when they come out.
Was your house knocked down as well?
Yes, it was also knocked down.
Where was it?
On top.
And who does this land belong to?
This land belongs to nobody.
It was a dumping area.
So, we are trying to transform the dumping area into a decent place.
So, you felt, because it was free and it was open and no-one was here
that it was OK for you to come here and settle?
Yes, we occupied it because people are homeless,
people are poor, people are unemployed, jobless.
So, we tried to save their lives.
So, what happens now?
You know, I've seen some guys gathering bricks up there.
What will you do next?
We are going to do it again.
Even if the police come back and knock it down?
They can knock it down maybe five times, ten times,
but we will remain here.
I mean, if land is unoccupied, it has to be occupied.
If people say, "We are homeless", and there is no response,
we look at the vacant place and we occupy it.
There's nothing wrong about that.
In fact, we are helping the government.
Do you guys feel you've been let down by your government?
Definitely, yes. Definitely, yes.
I say, our poor president, Nelson Mandela,
was betrayed by the fellow comrades
because it seems he has died for nothing,
and he's gone 27 years in jail for nothing.
For me, this is heartbreaking,
because I was, you know, and I know many people in the UK
would be the same, who watched the struggle of black people here,
and we thought, when Mandela was freed, and apartheid was abolished,
that things would change.
There's no change.
I think he's crying in his resting place.
South Africa was the great hope after apartheid.
And now everyone's dreams are left in rubble.
There's huge pressure on the government here
to seize land from rich white people
and hand it over to the black population.
The trouble is, that could scare white-owned businesses
out of South Africa, and wreck the economy.
Which is exactly what happened in the next country I was headed to.
The final stop on my African adventure was Zimbabwe.
I'd come to Lake Kariba in the far north.
I'm on the largest man-made lake in the world.
Just getting a little bit wet!
This lake is enormous.
It's hard to believe that it's man-made.
When I look over that side,
I can barely make out the end of it.
But in that direction, I see nothing.
It just goes on and on.
I know I'm on a lake,
and there's a possibility of getting wet, but this is ridiculous!
My pants are soaked!
Lake Kariba is 140 miles long,
and it wouldn't exist without the giant Kariba Dam.
This is super cool,
because I'm going to get a chance to take a closer look at the dam,
but I needed my passport just to get on here,
because this acts as a border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.
That's the Zimbabwe side, and over there is Zambia.
I've got to take a run up and get out this kerb.
Here we go!
Oh! And I'm up.
Wait for it.
Look at the drop!
Wow!
If you're not a fan of heights, this is pretty scary.
The dam provides up to 40% of Zimbabwe's electricity.
But it was built in 1955,
and it's starting to show its age.
Decades of neglect have weakened its foundations.
A lot of people are worried it could collapse.
If it did, it would send a tidal wave down the Zambezi,
putting millions of lives at risk.
Just on my way up to meet a fisherman
who works on the lake, to find out a little bit more about the dam.
You must be Chance. Yes.
How are you? Fine, and you?
Yeah. Good to meet you. Yeah.
Can you hold these for me? Yes.
Thank you.
I've heard that there have been problems with the wall here.
When you look at the dam wall now, and you look at the lake now,
what goes through your mind?
Work has begun to fix the problem.
But it's a symbol of how Zimbabwe has fallen apart.
Right. I'm off to the capital now, Harare.
In the past few years, Zimbabwe has been a pretty scary place.
Under dictator Robert Mugabe, people were arrested and tortured,
even killed for speaking out.
Mugabe seized land from white farmers
and gave it to his supporters.
Corruption and mismanagement caused the economy to collapse.
There was hyperinflation,
and Zimbabwe's currency became worthless.
The value of currency is based on trust.
And when you lose that trust, like Zimbabwe did ten years ago,
it's really hard to get it back.
Nowadays, Zimbabwe doesn't even have its own currency.
It relies on the US dollar, but there aren't enough to go round.
All over Harare, I saw people queuing outside banks.
Mugabe is now gone, but the economy is still struggling.
Like so many countries that I'd seen on my journey around Africa,
Zimbabwe should be rich.
These little micro businesses,
there's a guy selling T-shirts over there.
Little bar over here with guys playing pool as well.
This is a proper local community.
I'd come to a small town in the countryside just north of Harare.
The place is pretty rough.
Well, it is, it is. But that's where the resource is.
Jacob had agreed to introduce me to some miners.
Hello, guys! Hey. Hey! Hey, how are you doing?
Looks like hard work.
Can you show me the rock that you've just been crushing?
I was going to come and offer to help you,
but that looks pretty deep down there.
So, what am I looking at, this here?
It has gold on it.
OK.
These guys are after one thing.
Gold.
Every last scrap of it.
I rather naively thought they were going to be coming up
with tiny chunks, maybe little nuggets of gold.
But, actually, if you look at this rock, you probably won't see it,
but there's a tiny, tiny, like, 2mm speck of gold
just on the edge of this rock
and that's what all that hard work is for.
That bit of gold.
Jacob, how many of these type mines would you find in this area?
Everywhere you go, there's gold in this country.
And look at how shallow this pit is.
There's gold just a few metres beneath the surface,
so there's plenty, literally thousands,
of these type of operations happening in the country.
That's incredible.
So, literally, wherever you go around Zimbabwe,
you could just pitch up, dig a hole,
and potentially you could find gold? Absolutely.
Zimbabwe is supposed to have enough gold
to make everyone in the country a millionaire.
But it's hard to get at,
especially for small scale miners like these guys.
The work here is tough and dangerous.
What are the silver specs that are in here?
This is mercury. Ah, so that's Mercury. Yes.
Is the mercury not poisonous? It is.
Are you not worried?
Mercury is a toxic chemical, which can cause brain damage.
Ah, so now you're using this as a filter...
Yes. ..to get rid of the mercury. Yes, yes.
Ah, you look at that.
You can see the bubbles of mercury
just being filtered out from the cloth.
OK, so, it's a sieve.
And what's left should be gold. Yes.
It's such an intricate process.
Ah, so there's still some mercury on that gold? Yes.
So, what will you do with this now?
To remove the last traces of mercury from the gold,
you need to heat it up.
But mercury is even more dangerous if you inhale the vapour.
It can even kill you.
Is that it?
If you hadn't told me that that was the gold,
I would have thought it's just a speck of dust. It's so tiny.
Small scale miners like these guys dig up most of Zimbabwe's gold,
risking their health every day.
This country needs serious investment
to make mining more efficient and safer.
This whole process here, it's not very sophisticated, is it?
Well, you know, with gold mining in Zimbabwe,
there's so many levels and so many different players coming in
with different technology, so what we're seeing here
is the most rudimentary of them all.
One of the things I've really noticed
is the entrepreneurial skills of Africans,
because these guys are... They're making a big difference.
They're doing it themselves. It's a cottage industry.
Absolutely. And these guys are now just doing whatever they can,
wherever they are, but obviously they need help to scale up.
You know, what's happening in the country is that a lot of
the corporates are coming in to try and help these guys
improve their systems.
Looking at the environmental degradation that's happening,
the use of chemicals in a very hazardous way,
so absolutely all that needs to be changed.
And, with Zimbabwe opening up for business,
all these things are being sorted out.
It's baby steps, but eventually we'll get there.
So, would you say now is a good time to be a Zimbabwean?
Now better than ever.
Look, we've got gold, as you can see.
We've got 25% of the diamond resources in the world.
We've got the second largest platinum deposit in the world.
We've got chrome, we've got lithium.
We've got beautiful tourist attractions.
We've got energy, we've got everything. 300 days of sunshine.
So, I mean, we've got it all.
We just need to come together and make it right.
I'd better extend my visa and cancel my passport and stay here!
Absolutely!
Jacob is so optimistic.
But Robert Mugabe's party is still in power.
Protests against his rule are growing,
and the violence and repression has returned.
People here, like so many I've met across Africa,
are desperate for change.
I feel like I've been really educated today,
watching these guys quite literally turn dirt into gold,
and they work so hard.
After travelling thousands of miles, I was finally getting to the end
of my whole African journey.
This is properly off the beaten track.
I was heading to a remote rural community.
Here we go.
Look at the locals - they're probably thinking,
"What the hell is going on?"
All of these people turning up outside their house.
You have to fill up that space right there.
OK? Just with shapes that go up, as well as sideways.
An entire film crew was here
to shoot a music video for a British indie star.
This is the first Western music video
that's ever been shot in Zimbabwe.
What did you think, you know, initially?
Because, for me, Zimbabwe is probably not the easiest of places
to come to, after the problems they've been having.
I mean, I think that's probably the perception that I probably had,
but actually being here, it's been so incredibly easy.
You know, people have been so friendly and helpful.
I mean, this hut is actually someone's home,
and we turned up here, you know, a few days ago,
driving round like, I was like, "I like that hut!"
We came here, he said, "Can we paint your hut?" And she said yes!
They've been really, really helpful.
These guys are just rehearsing the dance moves.
Love it. Must be fun for the kids,
but then you've got the locals as well, they're just watching.
This is new for everybody.
It's just... It's so good for Zimbabwe, and so good for Africa.
Shingai Shoniwa is one half of British indie band The Noisettes.
She's now launching her solo career.
Her parents are from Zimbabwe,
and she's come here to film the video for her debut solo single.
It's called Coming Home.
I'm going to get behind the camera,
otherwise we'll face the wrath of the director.
Roll camera.
Cue music.
# I am coming home... #
Woo! And cut. Thank you very much.
We will have a brief break...
Really, really good. Really, really good. Thank you! Thank you, dude!
Give us a hug. I don't want to mess up your make-up.
No, you're not messing it up at all. Oh, my God.
It's not often you see videos with an all black crew,
and all black cast as well.
How much does that mean to you?
It means a lot, especially to be able to use local crew in Zim,
because there is so much talent here across the board,
in the film, theatre, dance, arts industries
but people haven't historically had as many opportunities
as they'd needed to actually create an industry.
What do you think is stopping people from coming to Zim
and Africa to do things like this?
I think... I feel that for too long there's just been
quite a sort of singular story and a narrative
coming out from Africa visually,
the lens that people see Africa is often, you know, the negative
images of... Yes, poverty, crime... Yeah, war. ..corruption, war.
Yeah. And I kind of feel like that is one aspect of it,
but I think it's a bit unfair that we only get to see one aspect
of contemporary society in Africa, and at the moment it's thriving.
With all the troubles that's happened in Zimbabwe in the past,
could you have imagined that you'd be able to come here and film this?
It's always been my dream, and it's just, with all...
I think everything is about timing,
and now it really feels like the right time
to be making the narrative about what is possible in the future
and taking the lessons from the past
and making something beautiful out of the chaos.
First positions!
I'm being told off! Right, yes! I've got to run.
Yes, go, go, go! Thanks! All right.
Thank you. Rolling, speed is set.
SHE SINGS IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE
# It's the rhythm of us
# It's the rhythm of me
# It's the rhythm of everything
# It's the rhythm of us
# It's the rhythm of me... #
I'd come to the end of my African adventure.
Woo!
My journey had taken me from the volcanic fields of Cape Verde,
across Africa's savannahs,
and through its jungles.
It's clear from what I'd seen that Africa still faces
so many challenges.
This place just looks utterly devastated.
From war and conflict...
It breaks my heart.
All their lives, all they've ever known, is this. War.
..to corruption and poverty.
But there is so much cause for optimism here.
We are the young generation of Uganda,
and we are turning things around.
Peace.
I've met people willing to risk everything for political change...
..and others hoping to transform the continent with technology...
..and Africans returning to their homeland
to build a better future.
You know, I'm leaving with mixed feelings,
and it's because on one hand, from what I've seen,
Africa's great resource is not its material wealth,
like its gold or its oil.
For me, it's actually its people.
But, on the other hand, I think those people have been let down
time and again by their leaders.
So, what I'd really like to see
is for Africa's people to take more control of their futures
and help shape this continent to make it everything it can be.
# I am coming home... #
SONG CONTINUES IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE