Accepted! ~Elle/Fauna

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Your Nickname: Mena
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How did you find us and decide to write with us? SR
If you have written other characters here, list them all: Arius Tristisa, Rocio Adair, Wilma Casanova

Full Character Name: Duna Bhekizitha Gazini
Character Birthday & Age: July 30 1953; about to turn 54
City & Country of Birth: Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (This is the current name of the area)
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn?: Muggleborn
Alma Mater: Towerkuns Akademie
Job: Head of the Office for African Relation within the Department of International Magical Cooperation

Wand: 10” Mahogany with a Dragon Heartstring core. His staff, however, is made of African blackwood with a fwooper core. He acquired the wand when he came to England, trying to blend in with the other witches and wizards. He has problems with it, however, and when possible prefers to use his staff. He is often heard muttering about the “stupid twig” that people expect him to use.

Physical Description:
Duna is 6 feet and half an inch tall. He is of a large build and some people would term it as huggable - though he suggests that no one try to hug him without his consent. Though he was much darker in his youth, the years of living in Britain have taken a toll on him. Duna suffers from a mild form of vitiligo - a disease in which the autoimmune system attacks the skin pigmentation in a person’s cells. Fortunately he does not have the white patches like some sufferers of vitiligo do.

He has black hair which is always kept neat and generally cropped close to his head. His smile, a rarity to see, is marked by a gap between his front two teeth. His dark brown eyes do not usually show any glimmer of joy or mirth and he tends to be serious. His staff is never far even though he does try to use his wand more often he does use it as a walking stick. He hates his wand in fact.

Personality Description:
Duna is not a particularly trusting person, this is due to the hardships that he has faced during his life. He does, however, give all who approach him a fair chance to show themselves worthy of his trust or not. He has certainly warmed up to people since leaving South Africa, though he had to unless he planned on living entirely alone for the rest of it. He does not judge anyone unfairly, he has seen how well that works out in the real world and finds it to be generally fail when put into practice.

Duna has a very high value for freedom and will fight for the rights of just about anyone to be free and not be treated like anything less than a first-class citizens. He defends the rights of all, from the lowliest to the highest, to him there is no difference and we are all people. This generally makes him both friends and enemies for very few agree that everyone should be equal. When he decides on his views he can become stubborn and obstinate about them, reluctant to change his mind.

Although he is very broad-minded in his beliefs, he also tends to be dogmatic, holding firm that his beliefs are true. He sometimes finds it intolerable to be around people who do not wholeheartedly agree with him. Though he does try to open his mind to the views of other people and be accepting of them, he also expects them to be open-minded and accept his own beleifs even if they do not necessarily agree with them.

Due to having suffered extreme poverty in his childhood, Duna is generous to those who he sees as suffering and is not loathe to donate to several charities from what his paycheck allows. He has also been known to take in the odd stray wizard or two into his own home in an attempt to give them a better life. After all, it was done for him and he was not loathe to repay the world for his own good fortune. He may not be especially trusting but he does see the cause of the underprivileged as his own.

He can be very bossy, liking to how that he is in charge and will often interfere in the projects taken on by his workers in order to point out their mistakes or how he would have done it differently. He is a perfectionist and a workaholic, often working from home because he works for something so near and dear to his heart, relations with Africa. He holds the hope that perhaps if relationships are good other countries might understand how precisely they can help Africa.

He is quite extroverted and enjoys new experiences, he claims he will try anything once, twice if he particularly enjoys it. He still holds on to several Zulu customs and enjoys South African food, always ready with rusks and biltong on hand for when he goes to coffee or tea, they simply are not the same meals without these two foods in Duna’s opinion! Biltong is one of the few forms of meat he eats, like most Zulu he has a mainly vegetarian diet.

History:
To understand someone’s personal history, one must first understand the culture they come from. Duna Bhekizitha Gazini was born into a culture of much adversity. In 1948, just five years before his birth, in South Africa one of the gravest atrocities ever to have graced the pages of history became the established rule of law. This system was apartheid, a racial edifice made to keep the native people of the land – the black Africans - subordinate. This would greatly affect Duna, especially since his tribal ties made him a third-class citizen of the country he would live in.

In 1953 he was born in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa, to a strong herbalist within the Zulu tribe. Although many Zulu were Christian at the time they still clung to their old beliefs of ancestor worship and herbal healing. There were families that were more gifted than others, and Duna would later come to learn that it was because Wizarding Blood coursed through their veins. From the beginning he was exposed heavily to very few magical arts. Herbology, healing and divination. These were part of the earthier form of African magic and from an early age he was apprenticed to the head Healer in the village.

They lived in a very impoverished manner, shocking all who came to see them. The government was truly doing a good job of keeping them down. Unfortunately for the government, however, there were people there with other worries more important than race, and that was the matter of blood. They were acting as cartographers, traveling around South Africa to map the African geography when really they were to become activists. They would form the first Wizarding School in Africa, Towerkuns Akademie in 1961.

Their teachings were adapted to the African culture, and they found they loved the folklore and myth that came with everything they saw. They took to African folklore, in particular in teaching students using staffs and not wands. It was a different way of doing things, yes, but what they found was a culture which looked at wands like silly little twigs. It was much more ingrained in the society the idea of the staff as a symbol of magic. From their legends and folklore to their witch smellers and witch doctors, staffs were used in every day society. It was easier to make the African students understand the magic flow through a staff rather than a wand.

It was three years after the founding of the school that Duna got his Towerkuns letter. It arrived precisely on the morning of July 30, 1964. He was amazed to learn that such a place existed and the letter was accompanied by a tall man in purple robes ready to explain it all to his bewildered parents and himself. Patiently it was told to them the steps they would go through and his parents could not help but wonder if perhaps their own skills within the tribe might not be the source of this mysterious magic in their son.

His first step was to go to a staff maker. He was measured and then tested to find the best wood and core combination available. He ended up with a black staff of African blackwood with a Fwooper tail core. It was intricate and beautiful and Duna was mesmerized with it from the first time he saw it. The intricately carved face on the bend in it, the place where he would hold on, enthralled him and he was positive it must be the most beautiful staff ever made with it’s dark black lacquer and design. It was truly love.

He entered Towerkuns Akademie in the fall of 1964, prepared to learn how to be a Wizard and excited about the prospects that his future might bring now. However, there was one small matter that no one had told Duna. Towerkuns Akademie was an institution of Wizarding Arts that accepted students of all races. He did not mind being in classes with the white witches and wizards, but he did mind when they took to throwing their racist slurs at the “third-class” citizen. That was just more than he wanted to handle. His years at Towerkuns were memorable but nothing remarkable as he worked to prove that he was just as good as the white children there.

In 1970, Duna turned seventeen years old, this year was to bring many other changes as well, as the government chose to oppress the Zulu people even further. They opted to form a nation just for the Zulu people, this region was to be called KwaZulu, it was to become their new country and they would no longer be South Africans. Stripped of their national identity they would be forced to create a new one, and Duna could only look on with disgust as Zulu who had lived in other areas of the country were forcibly uprooted from their homes and moved into this new sham of a nation. It was amidst this that he returned to his final year at Towerkuns Akademie.

His final year was spent devising a way to escape the oppression under which he lived and studying for his final examinations. After all, he wanted to have good N.E.W.T.S. scores. No matter what he did with his life, that was going to be the deciding factor.  So he studied hard and passed with mainly E’s though he did recieve an A in Defense Against the Dark Arts and an O in Herbology.

August 1, 1971, Duna left his village in KwaZulu and made his way towards Egypt. He had few belongings and among what he took was an address, scribbled haphazardly on a piece of parchment. One of his professor’s had told him to seek out his family in London and that he was sure they would help. He took a portkey to Egypt, where yet another one was to be set up for his travel to Spain before he could portkey from there to England. It was a long journey and with getting the portkeys set up for use and the difficulty crossing international boundaries with a portkey, the voyage took roughly two weeks.

He finally arrived in London to a fairly secluded destination on the outskirts of the Wizarding World and was soon directed to the address he had, the house of Aquilus Ambrose and his family. They had already been told of his arrival by his professor - a cousin of Aquilus‘ - and were prepared to accept him with open arms.  He was never more grateful to any person in his life and soon took to his new pseudo-family. They taught him about British culture and he in turn enlightened them on the plight of the South African people. Aquilus also aided Duna in applying for permanent residency and finding a job, as a waiter at the Leaky Cauldron.

He worked at the Cauldron for five long years, sitting and biding his time until he could swear fealty to the British government. Finally in 1977, this happened. He had bided his time as a Permanent Resident and could finally become a citizen. He swore his oath to the country on August 1, 1977, six years to the day he had left his village in KwaZulu, and sealing his fate in this culture where there was no oppression for him. It was sixth months later that his papers finally went through and he decided to join Aquilus at the Ministry for Magic.

He applied for a position within the Department of International Magical Cooperation, in the Office for African Relations, wanting to help the West understand his continent better. It was his knowledge of Afrikaans and Zulu which aided him greatly, not to mention his intimate knowledge of the Zulu people, their traditions and their history. He began to work for the Ministry for Magic on March 15, 1978. He began at the bottom, doing cultural presentations and the like for interested wizards in Britaina s well as press briefings on the atrocities happening in Africa - though he quickly found that no one would listen.

He ascended the ranks fairly quickly - as there are very few Wizards who work for the Office for African Relations - and by the age of 45 became the Head of the Office for African Relations, a position which he takes quite seriously. He has held this position for nearly ten years now.

What is your job description? How do you go about your job? ?How did you get your current job? How does your past and abilities justify your current position?:
Duna is the Head of the Office of African Relations within the Department of International Magical Cooperation. He is in charge of doling out projects and ensuring that what needs to get done does. He also acts as liaison between the British Ministry and the African Ministries that come. He can often be seen showing delegations of African wizards around Diagon Alley and other parts of Wizarding Britain.

He worked his way up the ladder, beginning as nothing more than essentially a coffee-jockey. Through hard work and determination he began to move up through the ranks and eventually reached the top position, though there really aren’t that many wizards in the Office for African Relations. He is African, and that is one of the main reasons that they liked him for the job. He has also shown dedication and hard work in his years at the Ministry. His knowledge of African history, religion and languages certainly helped as well.

Writing Sample:?Show your character in a scene that illustrates the best and worst aspects ?of their personality. Include action, dialog and thought.

The sun was just rising over the buildings of London and Duna was already awake, moving around the kitchen in his decently sized London flat. In a saucepan on the stove was a portion of milk for him to mix with the Milo he kept stocked in his house. He drank enough coffee throughout the day, in the morning he preferred rich, chocolatey Milo. There was nothing better with rusks in the morning in his honest opinion. He did not get these British people and their breakfast foods, not at all. He would stick to the same diet he had maintained since he left South Africa all those years before.

He laid out three rusks on a small plate and put them on the counter which served as a kitchen table next to his Daily Prophet and a mug where his Milo would be poured. Putting away the rest of the rusks back in their airtight container. They kept for weeks which was fortunate, it meant that he only had to make rusks once or twice a month. His days off where often dedicated to cooking for when he did have to work. Making delicacies such as milktart, koeksisters and preparing amazi. The flavors of his homeland.

He checked on the amazi that sat now preparing in the gourd, excited for the prepared delicacy. It was far from being done, the milk still had a bit of time left before it would curdle and he could remove the whey. Oh it would be a wonderful treat, yes. If he had family members to share it with, it would be even more exquisite. His parents and all of his siblings were still in South Africa though and while he visited there and sent them a small sum of money as often as he could, it was not the same.

He turned back to the milk on the stove and once it had boiled grabbed the pan carefully with a potholder and poured it into the mug where the malted chocolatey goodness sat at the bottom, waiting to be mixed in. He set the pan back on the stove before proceeding to mix his drink methodically three counterclockwise spins for every three clockwise. He was very methodic about his breakfast and it was always taken like this.

Finally seated at the table with his small meal prepared he opened his Daily Prophet, his eyes darkening at the headline at the top Murder in the Blood. The Prophet seemed to be screaming it at him and it was especially nasty business. The Gibson boy should not have ended up like that, he must have been severely provoked for it to happen. Though he also mourned the deaths of the two men. No one deserved such fates. It was a difficult situation indeed and he could only hope that soon it would be laid to rest.

Sum up your character in one paragraph:
Duna is a South African wizard who fled his homeland in search of a better life, and while he certainly found one, he is also lonely a bit. He has no family to share his successes with. There was never anyone in Britain who really caught his eye, no one worth a whole herd of cattle. He takes his work seriously, and his workaholic tendencies probably would not have made for an especially pleasant home life anyhow. He has tried not to lose his culture, believing it to be an important part of who he is and something to differentiate him from the crowd.