WANcareerlife: Twinkle little star-Kabelo's Ms South Africa

Kabelo Mashiane

Once KABELO NONTOKOZO MASHIANE, aboveright, was assured that the future was hers to conquer she has not looked back. The former Miss South Africa hopeful is as inspirational as the stars that shine in her exotic eyes. She oozes so much zest that it is impossible not to feel like a winner in her presence. Of course, she has faced some obstacles in her quest for stardom-like entering the modelling business so much late in her life- but she has learnt to brush doom aside and go for glory. She told Thembi Masser that, away from beauty pageants, she will, in an array of a list that include getting married, be a film star, a songstress of note and boss the media.

Kabelo, 23, says to be in the Miss SA competition is not pap en vleis; it is much more classical than making an appearance as a beautiful woman and walking away with the accolades. It requires a stiff resolution to endure the pressure and to be as gentle as a dove. You have to humble yourself and be gracious to the other contestants and all those around you-including members of the public, she advices.

“And the side-shows too are confusion and brilliance at the same time.” She sites her first auditions for the Ms South Africa competition as one of the most joyous, yet nerve wracking occasions of her life. It was a colourful camaraderie of beauty, she says. “It was a mesmerising presence to be at the Maslow.” With a coy, uneasy smile, Kabelo admits that the memories are still hazy even today.

Firstly, “the Maslow Hotel in Sandton is imposing. It is so lavish, it is so majestic,” Kabelo drools as she remembers her first visit to the hotel to take part in the regional competitions of the Miss SA contest. “Then there were so many girls, so many models, all so beautiful, all so pretty, and all so richly radiant and opulent. And all of them were so utterly confident in their make-up. And the eventual Miss SA of that year, Liesel Laurie from Eldorado Park, was there in her glory. I was like the proverbial Jim arriving for the first time in Jo’burg and standing in the streets to thrill at the amazing, incredible sights.”

Kabelo entered the Miss SA at the insistence of her agent, Debbie Moore.

She was at home one August day in 2016 when Moore encouraged her to take part in the prestigious competition. “At the time, although surprised, I said to myself, ‘Go for it. You are already a Ms Benoni princess and a Model of the Year winner so how can this one be a problem?’ So Kabelo completed the entrants’ paper work and was allowed to take part.

But not everything was made out of splendour, as Kabelo got embroiled in a hair-raising situation with a fellow contestant in an uninspiring incident she will not forget easily.

It was during the auditions when a black entrant pulled her aside and frowned at Kabelo’s dread locks. The beautiful black woman sniggered and remarked that if there was a mistake in Kabelo’s preparations then it was pitching up at the competition sporting dread locks. “That increased my anxiety and the butterflies in my stomach became too much and my head spun like a wheel out of control. I was in a maze.” She says she did not know what to do then-to sneak away and cut the dreaded dread locks or to put a brave face and face her dismay and saunter ahead. “When they called me to be in a group of ten models who were to face the judges guess what shock awaited me? Claudia Henkel, a former Miss SA, was one of the judges. It was frantic, touch and go. They asked me to walk from that angle to that corner and up and down until the judges said ok.” But not Ms Henkel. “She called me to her table and I thought, ‘Jesus, she is going to comment about the hair’. But she was so sweet. She smiled at me and said, ‘I wanted to look at your face. Thank you’.” None of the other models was asked to do something like that except for Kabelo.

Waiting for the results was like waiting for Godot, she remembers. “And finally when an official came in and called my name first I said, well, I came and I saw the finery. And so I am going home. The official called a second name and said, ‘Congratulations. You are through to the next round’. I collapsed with shock.”

Immediately thereafter Kabelo did a video shoot where, after being asked to sing a tune to test her voice, she sang her favourite gospel tune, He is Lord. It then followed a nerve wracking month before she could learn if she made it to the second round of the competition or not.

Kabelo cherishes the moments she spent at the Maslow for the second round of the contest, where only 24 of them were present. It was a hectic two weeks which was full of training-how to address the media, how to handle the public, how to handle finances, how to behave here and there. It was about table etiquette, gym, and to her amazement, how to select or choose a boyfriend. “Oh,” she remarks, “so many how that and how this... like how to treat celebrities who wants to take you out for a jol...”

In the end she did not succeed to continue with the competition. She did not make the last twelve. She was hurt, devastated, but wiser, she acknowledges. “The two weeks will remain an indelible mark somewhere in me...I will never forget everything. I wish it could happen again.”

In future she will do films, “because that is the logical sequence. And I will sing too, because I am talented in that way as well. I aim to blaze the media with my presence in the few years to come.” Then she warns, “Ladies and gentlemen look up into the skies; Kabelo is in the cyberspace...hahaha.”

Kabelo is the daughter of Mankukeng Elizabeth and they live with her father, Zithole Ali Sogiba and her three siblings in Etwatwa, Daveyton. Her biological father is a school principal.

Growing up Kabelo wanted to be an accountant. That dream, she says, is still alive. At the moment she is busy with her teachers’ course with UNISA.

She is passionate about the youth, about bringing a change in the way they see the world. “And it is also about women empowerment. In our society a lot of girls do not have trust in themselves, they don’t have authenticity, and they are just there. Most of the unmarried ones wait hopefully for a knight in shining armour to come over and marry them. And most of the time the knight does not come to them because they are so miserable looking and helpless. Men look for women with an ambition and the will to live a life, and for women who will contribute meaningfully to the relationship. Rich men do not have the time and money to squander on wretched women.”

While insecure women are waiting on the side-lines for men to pick them up, Kabelo points out that a scourge is ravaging Daveyton. This evil scourge, unplanned teenage pregnancies, is racing away into the pits with the futures of the African child, ruining her womb and riddling her with endless apathy, poverty and an empty stare into a hollow, bleak existence. It cannot be ascribed to ‘a mistake’ anymore; it is a deliberate, brainless development. It must be stopped, she asserts. It delays the young women’s progress in life and drags their esteem in to the depths of despair, she adds.

“Being pregnant at an early age does not stop or hinder girls from prospering, but it delays progress in achieving their goals earlier.”

So she intends to run workshops for the hopeless women and invite respected society members to address and aid them into becoming meaningful in life. She will ask the women to notice role models and mimic them. Kabelo has already held motivational talks at her former primary school and these talks will increase as she continues to reach for her vision: to emancipate women from the invisible shackles of helplessness. “Look at me, when I was at school I always worried about my height because I was always the tallest girl in the school. That put me off because I was always mocked and made fun of. But once I shrugged that attribute off, my height is working profitably for me.”

Far away from social problems and a professional life Kabelo is a woman and a lady, and so she has personal ambitions. “I would like to have an understanding boyfriend. I don’t care about his looks. Looks are nothing to me; it is what is inside of him that matter. My boyfriend will have to respect my family; will have to support me in what I need to do and respect my dreams and ambitions. He must not be jealous of my achievements, but teach me and groom me to be his wife,” she enthuses, her exotic eyes alive with expectation, “a profitable wife.”

Fact Box

KABELO NONTOKOZO MASHIANE

Born 02/07/1994 in Etwatwa, Benoni

HOBBIES

Beauty Competitions

Ms Sozizwe Primary School

Crowned Model of the Year, 2014

Ms Benoni

2014 2^ND Princess & 2016 2^nd Princess

Ms South Africa 2016

TOP 24

Gym work

At the John Wesley Community Centre

Trained by Trevor Lubisi

Charity work

Motivational speaker

Women and youth empowerment

EDUCATION

Sozizwe Primary

Grades 1-6

Benoni Primary

Grade 7

Liverpool Secondary School

Grades 8-12

Subjects: English, Afrikaans, business studies, accounting, life orientation, maths literacy and her favourite subject, economics

Ekurhuleni East College (Benoni Technical College)

Management Assistant (achieved)

UNISA

Teaching degree (present)

MOTTO

Harbour friends who are challenging, not hangers on who will drag you down

FAVOURITE LINES

In everything include God, because greater is He that is in me than the one on earth
Don't die in poverty. Success might just be delayed. Never give up.