LOVEBIRDS

Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel are still very much in love, writes Jovial Rantao

At that moment, Mandela jokingly interjected: “She doesn’t even give me a kiss.”

“Hau! But you get kisses every day,” came the reply, also with a smile. Here it was, right in front of us, an exchange of two lovebirds. They had gone on with their lives, but they remained young and in love.

As they spoke, their eyes met, and the electricity – billions of megawatts of it – was there. Spurred on by the talk of romance, Machel asked photographer Debbie Yazbek to shoot a frame of them kissing.

She was, however, quite clear on the condition under which the photo is taken: “This is for our private (collection) and not for you guys.” Click. Click. Click. We witnessed an extraordinary moment. Mandela and Machel looked at each other. They smiled. Their eyes seemed to close... and they kissed. This was one special moment. I had witnessed and captured Mandela in all kinds of situations, from political rallies, negotiations at Codesa and state of the nation speeches. I never thought I would see one of his most intimate moments: kissing the woman he married on his 80th birthday.

So special was the moment that even the photographer froze and forget to press the shutter. She blushed and pleaded.

“Please do it again,” requested our award-winning photographer. They obliged.

And it dawned on us that, in addition to Mandela’s birthday, the couple were celebrating their 8th wedding anniversary.

On July 18, 1998, Mandela and Machel tied the knot after a love affair that is likely to go down as the best-kept secret in South Africa and Mozambique.

The marriage came not too long after Mandela’s lifelong friend and neighbour Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the time had come for the former president to get a wife.

“He needs someone to get him his slippers in the morning,” Tutu had said.

Through her marriage to Mandela, Machel rewrote the history books.

She became the first woman to be married, at different times, to two heads of state.

But Machel is a leader in her own right. She is known to be fiercely independent and

Nelson Mandela celebrates his 85th birthday with Graça Machel. He married her on his 80th birthday, and she became the first woman to have been married, at different times, to two presidents

Nelson Mandela relaxes with Graça Machel at home after casting his special vote for the 2011 local government elections.