Show Me your Muscles - Ernest Mtandeki - The First Black Mr. South Africa

Today I am taking you back in time. I am taking you back in time 37 years, when a young man with a perfectly sculptured and incredibly beautiful body - the calendar wrote the year 1975 - was posing for a photo at the beautiful and lonely beach of Bonza Bay in East London, South Africa

The young man's name was Ernest. 

Ernest Mtandeki was the first ever black Mr. SOUTH AFRICA in history. The history books were open at Chapter Apartheid in 1975. And here was Ernest.

Not only was he the first black Mr. South Africa, but he was crowned by the god of all bodybuilders in Johannesburg, the then Mr Universe, now governor of California Mr.Arrnold Schwarzenegger. 

Ernest came from the township of Mdantsane.

And he still lives there today in NU 10.

"This was me at my prime", he says, while handing me a black and white photograph in a frame under glass,that he carefully had unwrapped first from several layers of newspaper

 "When I look at it now, I want to cry, he says.  I will never be were I was then. I am here now." 

"The pose is in the picture is for the upper arms only, he explains, but I had wanted my whole body shown, so I can memorize this moment."

I have met Ernest today on his 64th.birthday. He works in a store in Buffalo Street and takes care of the security of the shop. He has brought cake for all the employees and his boss.

It was my intention originally to take the picture out of the frame and to scan it. But when holding the photo I felt it should not be removed. So I just took some pictures of it. 

I suddenly realize that all the ladies from the shop, with olive colored, white colored, caramel colored, and black colored skin (the colors are not cited in any particular order), ranging from age 15 to 69 years and older are bending over the counter, where Ernest has placed the picture.

Most of us are studying intensely the part of his body above his waistline.

There is also the occasional sigh!

" Oh my" says then the mother of the Ernest's boss," if I had seen you that day on the beach, my dear Ernest.....

The story of Ernest Mtandeki will be our first short movie on The Mdantsane Tales on YouTube. If you interested what he has to tell us, stay tuned.