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Immense Natural Resources.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

Suriname is a country rich in natural resources in terms of biodiversity, fresh water, raw materials, and cultural heritage.

The mining sector is linked to the extraction of bauxite, gold (which is extracted from the alluvial deposits of Saramacca and Lawa), silver, nickel, and crude oil (which is extracted from an offshore field off the coast of Paramaribo, Saramacca district, connected to an oil pipeline at the Paramaribo refinery). This sector constitutes the most important item of the country’s exports, amounting to 85%. This, however, makes the economy of Suriname subject to fluctuations in the market prices of various goods. In the 1980s, in fact, the fluctuations in the prices of raw materials generated internal political disturbances that resulted in a terrible economic crisis that prompted the country, in the following decade, to resort to international aid granted on condition that the country implemented a development plan including austerity and structural reforms. This plan, however, did not change the state of poverty in which the population finds itself.

Bauxite Factory at Paramaribo. CC BY-SA 3.0/ Mark Ahsmann

Of the minerals present in the subsoil, bauxite is the one that the country has in large quantities with the largest deposits located in the areas of Accaribo, Moengo, and Param. Once extracted, the mineral is partly exported, mainly to the United States, Canada, Belgium, and Norway, and partly processed on site. The forest heritage, due to its great valuable species, is another important item in the country’s economy. Then there is agriculture, where the cultivation of rice predominates, covering more than three-quarters of the cultivated land, and to a lesser extent, we also find crops of sugar cane, bananas, coconuts, citrus fruits, and legumes. Another important element of the country’s economy is the fishing of crustaceans which, once caught, are sold in foreign markets. From an industrial point of view, the country does not display adequate development, due also to insufficient production of electricity but also due to the absence of skilled labour and foreign investment. The exceptions are industries related to mining and those of a rather modest size that deal with the processing of agricultural and forestry products. Internal trade is underdeveloped, given the prevalence of a strong subsistence economy and insufficient road and rail communications networks, limited only to the coastal strip.

Dutch tourists in the Bigi Pan Nature Reserve. CC BY-SA 2.0/ Jan Willem Broekema

Another significant element of the Suriname economy is made up of tourism coming especially from Holland, but also from drug trafficking, cocaine in particular. In 1999, the then president Dési Bouterse was also involved in these trades favoured by the strategic position in which the country is located.
He was convicted by the Dutch court for drug trafficking, while his son Dino, who was at the head of the national counter-terrorism team, was arrested in Panama in 2012 and extradited to the US.
If the raw materials present in the country on the one hand represent wealth, on the other they constitute a threat to the ecosystem since the high profitability has encouraged gold mining, deforestation, intensive hunting, and poaching.
In fact, these activities, if carried out without due attention, can generate a significant impact on the environment, degrade water quality and damage the ecosystems of southern Suriname with a significant impact on indigenous communities whose livelihood is exclusively guaranteed by their customs and traditions: the use of natural resources, hunting, fishing, and the cultivation of medicinal plants.

Street with old colonial buildings in Paramaribo, capital of Suriname. ©mathess/123RF.COM

In addition, Suriname is also threatened by climate change which makes natural habitats vulnerable, generating a negative impact on the communities living in the southern part of the country, but also by the phenomenon of land grabbing. This phenomenon threatens, in particular, both the indigenous communities and those descended from slaves who today find themselves living in territories that we could define as strategic due to the presence of raw materials in the subsoil. Already in the past, in the 1960s, the US company Alcoa worked on the construction of the hydroelectric plant, obtaining in exchange the concession for the extraction of bauxite. The work, which led to the formation of Lake Brokopondo, forced thousands of Maroons (mainly Saramaccans) to emigrate to other areas of the country or to nearby French Guiana. In addition to the Maroons, the Maho community is constantly threatened by these phenomena without receiving any protection from the state. (Open Photo: Teal sky and green trees with Suriname river landscape. 123rf.com)
F.R.

Ukraine war and climate change help Namibia to sell its hydrogen potential.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

The country’s solar and wind huge potential coinciding with Europe’s need to diversify its energy mix away from fossil fuels provides large opportunities which are beginning to materialize with a first large hydrogen project.

As the EU aims at decarbonising its economy and reduce its dependence from Russian oil and gas, it is turning towards sources of clean energy. On the 3 May, at the European Parliament, the spokesman for the European People’s Party on Energy, Christian Ehler stated that “Energy independence has become an absolute priority”. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to “accelerate the roll-out of hydrogen and renewables to ease off dependence on Russia”, he said.
The hydrogen potential is promising. Indeed, hydrogen makes it possible to obtain energy without carbon emissions, either through its direct combustion with oxygen or in the form of electricity via a fuel cell. It may be used to decarbonise sectors which are hard to electrify, such as steel and cement plants and has applications in the transport sector.

According to World Platinum Investment Council estimates, the sector will be worth U.S. $ 2.5 trillion by 2050. Japan alone is planning to import up to 800,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually from 2030. Global volumes could reach 800 million tons by 2050. Potential suppliers such as Chile, Australia, Saudi Arabia are already moving to meet the demand.The EU plans to import 10 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030. to replace fossil fuels in the industry and transport sectors. According to the World Energy Council, the EU demand could even reach 60 million tons by 2050. The European Investment Bank has already EUR 1 billion investments in the pipeline to finance hydrogen projects.
For the trade association Hydrogen Europe, the EU cannot produce all this hydrogen domestically, because it doesn’t have enough sun or wind. Hydrogen Europe considers Africa as its prime partner.
Already, countries like Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are developing green hydrogen plans. Namibia is the more advanced. The country is endowed with huge clean energy potential, and it is one of the best prepared for hydrogen production.

Namibia is uniquely positioned to be one of the largest green hydrogen producers globally.

According to the World Bank, Namibia boasts from a huge 720 GW wind power capacity and could export ammonia at competitive prices. According to German government experts, Namibia should offer competitive prices that would place the country among high-potential green hydrogen producers and exporters. In addition, the country has large reserves of platinum and iridium, two metals used to separate hydrogen from water.
By the end of the decade, Namibia could become an exporter of green hydrogen from both wind and solar power, said James Mnyupe, economic adviser to the Namibian presidency, to participants at the “World Hydrogen Summit” in Rotterdam, in May 2022.
Namibia enjoys indeed over 3,500 hours of sunshine per annum and high wind speeds. Accordingly, the power of giant solar farms can be used to make hydrogen, which can be used for fuel or converted into ammonia to make fertiliser. In order to produce hydrogen, Namibia would use desalinated sea water which would be split into hydrogen and oxygen, by electrolysis. Then, the hydrogen would be piped to a terminal and exported to Rotterdam, Germany or South Africa”.
The solar potential could be developed soon, following the signature in 2021 of a Memorandum of intent (MOI) by the U.S. government to build a 5 GW solar power complex in Botswana and Namibia, with the support of the African Development Bank and of the World Bank Group. This scheme which is part USAID’s Power Africa Initiative could be one of the largest solar power complexes in the world, using both solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar power technologies.

Hydrogen fuel cell in a research laboratory. 123rf.com

A contract for an industrial project which would be the first large green hydrogen project in the country was being negotiated in May 2022 by the Namibian government and the preferred bidder, Hyphen Hydrogen Energy. This company is a joint venture between the British Virgin Island registered investment and infrastructure company Nicholas Holdings and Enertrag South Africa, a subsidiary of German renewable energy company. Enertrag which operates more than one thousand wind turbines around the world.
According to Obeth M Kandjoze, the chair of Namibia’s Green Hydrogen Council, the first phase of the project, which would use both solar and wind power, is expected to enter production in 2026 and generate a 2 GW capacity to produce 120,000 tons of green hydrogen for conversion into green ammonia, at a cost of US 4.4 billion.
Further phases in the late 2020s, will expand the capacity to 5 GW and 3 GW of electrolysed capacity, increasing the combined investment to $ 9.4 billion and hydrogen production to 300,000 tons annually for regional and global markets. That figure compares with Namibia’s annual GDP of $10.7 billion.

Hyphen’s project is part of the Southern Corridor Development Initiative (SCDI) portfolio of projects.

Hyphen’s project is part of the Southern Corridor Development Initiative (SCDI) portfolio of projects. About 4,000 km² were allocated for this project which will be entirely financed by Hyphen. The SDCI comprises a 26,000 km2 area between Lüderitz and Orangemund, on the Southern coast. It has the potential to produce 3 million tons of green hydrogen which would represent the equivalent of one third of the EU’s total import needs by 2030.
The adjudication process was made with the assistance of the Colorado-based NREL national laboratory of the US government and experts appointed by the EU Global Technical Assistance Facility on Global Energy. Once the necessary feasibility processes are concluded, Hyphen will have the rights to the project for 40 years.
Yet, Hyphen’s project is only a start, the beginning of Namibia’s big hydrogen adventure. According to preliminary market estimates by the World Bank, the Kharas region could produce 2 million tons of ammonia, generate $ 800 m. in revenue and house generation assets of 5 GW at less than 3 US cents per kwh.
According to Namibia’s President Hage Geingob, Namibia has identified four potential Hydrogen Valleys across the country. The Hyphen project is just chapter one of the development of the first one: the SCDI.
Namibia’s potential has already attracted many partners.

Namibian Mines and Energy minister, Tom Alweendo and Germany’s Economic Affairs and Climate Action minister and Vice Chancellor, Robert Habeck signed a joint declaration of intent to accelerate the research, development and production of green hydrogen.

On the 11 April 2022, Robert Halbeck, the German Minister of economic affairs and climatic action and Thomas K Alweendoo, the Namibian Minister of Mines and Energy, signed a joint declaration of intent. Germany will finance hydrogen pilot plants up to EUR 30 million in addition to 200 scholarships and the development of a national green hydrogen strategy for EUR 10 m.
In September 2021, beside Hyphen, Namibia received eight more commercial proposals to develop large green hydrogen projects namely from Sasol, Fortescue Future Industries and Tumoneni. By May 2022, the Windhoek government had received 31 bids to develop pilot plants and three to develop the national green hydrogen strategy.
In November 2021, Namibia signed an agreement with the port of Rotterdam which plans to become the Green Hydrogen export hub for Europe and the rest of the world and another deal with Belgium to promote and develop cooperation in the field of green hydrogen, which was sealed after President Hage Geingob’s visit to the Benelux
in mid-February 2022.

Hydrogen renewable energy production. 123rf.com

The first project to come on stream is a pilot plant which will be built by Namibia’s Ohlthaver & List Group and CMB Tech, a subsidiary of the Compagnie maritime belge shipowner (CMB), and which will start production by end 2023. The project which represents an investment of US $ 18 million will be developed by a joint venture called Clean Energy in the Erongo region. Depending on the results of the demonstration plant, a larger production plant will be built in a second phase. The aim is to produce hydrogen from solar power and distribute the fuel to trucks, locomotives, mining equipment and ships.
The government plans to create a National Green Hydrogen Research Institute (NGHRI) with centres to carry out studies on clean hydrogen production and storage, new materials, hydrogen fuel cell technology, hydrogen use, etc. However, Kennedy Chege, researcher on the Mineral Law in Africa at the University of Cape Town warns that the amount of water required to produce hydrogen in such a dry country could be a challenge. Desalination and the cost of electrolysis used to produce hydrogen can be expensive, which could erode the competitiveness of Namibian green hydrogen, says Chege. (Photo: 123rf.com)

François Misser

Climate Change and Advocacy. Planting Bamboos.

Friday, 1 July 2022 11:39

In the Philippines, the missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) are committing to plant 100,000 seedlings of Bamboo by 2022. With an ambitious goal for planting 1 billion bamboos by 2030, collaborating with the local churches of parishes and dioceses in the Philippines. But why Bamboo?

The first reason is climate change. Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than an ordinary tree. A hectare of Bamboo absorbs 12 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Second, bamboos prevent erosion and flooding. A clump of Bamboo will absorb 30,000 litres of water annually. The third reason is that the Bamboo is useful for livelihood.
The shoots are processed and bamboo poles are made into furniture and construction material.

The Filipino government estimates that if we plant a billion bamboos, this will result in 15 billion dollars in annual income. We believe that this is a conservative estimate. We think it will reach up to 25 billion dollars annually if we put the right factories in the right places and have massive bamboo planting.

As Missionaries, we have the hope that we can do this; that we can plant a billion bamboos, absorb gigatons of carbon dioxide from the air, give jobs to a lot of people, and prevent erosion and flooding, which caused a lot of damage to property and even to life.

We therefore would like to call on everyone in the whole Philippines and in the whole world to join us. We are now partnering with the Global Climate Action Project, and they are making an App for us with a geotagging feature to monitor the number of bamboos planted. After joining our baseline data, you can see it in Google Maps afterwards. So, we would like to thank the many people in our bamboo advocacy.

We hope to make a difference because otherwise, climate change will become irreversible. We have no other choice. This is the only planet that we have. Let us take Care of it for ourselves and future generations.

The scientists are saying the year 2030 is the deadline. We must keep global warming at no more than 1.5°C by 2030; otherwise, climate change will become irreversible. We now know that the bamboo can help mitigate climate change, prevent erosion and flooding, and increase people’s economic profit and well-being, especially that of the poor.

Planting one billion bamboos is not an idle dream. In the Philippines, we are responsible only for 2% of greenhouse gases, but we will be the first ones to be hit by super typhoons. We believe, first of all, that awareness is widespread. Secondly, the government has said that every village is to have a seedling nursery. And there is a law called The Philippine Bamboo Industrial Development Act.

The government will fund the seedling nurseries, supporting the building of factories to produce engineered Bamboo. Logging is already outlawed in the Philippines. It’s forbidden to cut a tree without permission from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

We have made our move. As missionaries, we have decided to have 100,000 bamboo seedlings planted by 2022. One interesting initiative is that elementary, high school and college graduates cannot graduate and are not given their diplomas if they do not plant ten trees each.
So that’s it.

That would be a lot because we have 28 million elementary school students. How many will graduate? Then we have college graduates also. We really believe that this is doable. We may not succeed but it is possible. It is not an impossible dream to plant 1 billion bamboos in the Philippines, absorb gigatons of greenhouse gases, prevent erosion and flooding, the loss of lives and property and give jobs to thousands of people. The government is already mobilizing. They only need some help from the developed countries responsible for most of the greenhouse gases that plague us now, especially in the Philippines.

The churches are also mobilizing. Archbishop Emeritus Antonio Ledesma, said he would talk to all the bishops so that the whole diocese and all the dioceses in Mindanao may help in this bamboo advocacy. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Benigno B. Beltran

Economy. Unsustainable Extractivism.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

The oil industry is at the heart of the Angolan economy. But it benefits only the political business elite; it has a great impact on the environment and reserves will run out by 2050.

The Angolan model of economic development – as ‘extractivist’ – based on the exploitation of natural resources, in particular oil, diamonds, phosphates, bauxite – has to come to terms with its own unsustainability. We have before us a model characterized by a deep multidimensional crisis that affects the environment, society, institutions, and politics. Any consideration of sustainability must question the three dimensions that compose it: economic, social, and environmental. In the Angolan case, it is necessary first to identify the characteristics of the extractivist system, then to analyse the political economy of oil (a central element), and finally to outline the environmental issues together with the social ones, prefiguring the need to diversify the production system.

The extractivist system exploits – until exhaustion, the degradation of the land and lack of interest in the repercussions on future generations – renewable and non-renewable natural resources, concentrating the benefits in the hands of a limited number of people, be they national elites, intermediaries or international or foreign elite.
In the case of Angola, it is clear that the vast majority of citizens do not benefit from the revenues linked to the extractive industry, since this industry is in the hands of the corrupt national elite. One of the mechanisms by which this system is perpetuated is the ability to marginalize or eliminate from the political debate decisions about alternative sources of energy. In this way, innovative solutions from which broad social strata would benefit, are blocked, for the simple fact that they do not serve the interests of the political and business elite who hold the reins of the system.

Growth for the few
One of the more relevant aspects of the economy of extractivism is its dependence on continuous economic growth that guarantees the elite the accumulation of wealth, excluding the great mass of the population. This need for continuous growth, typical of capitalist economies, induces unbridled consumption behaviours on the part of the elite and an imitation effect on the part of the Angolan middle class. What should be emphasized is that only a small part of the revenues from mining, oil in particular, is allocated to public investment, that is, to sectors such as health, education and industrial, technological and scientific training. In addition, private entrepreneurs in the oil sector invest relatively little (and often badly) and mainly to maintain extraction levels.
Only in a few cases did entrepreneurs in other sectors invest to refine the production of the few non-extractive goods (such as agricultural ones) destined for export.

As a result, growth depended on oil between 2002 and 2015, while the other sectors deeply stagnated. Only after 2015 did the Angolan government begin to invest tentatively in economic diversification, with little to show for it up to now.
In terms of the public budget, the government invests just 8% of its resources from oil taxes in social sectors (primarily education and health); the rest goes to cover the salaries of the elite and their businesses, the costs of international service companies, the army of consultants. The new urbanization of Kilamba, a district of the capital Luanda, is a contrast to these privileges: the inhabitants, employees of the extractive industry, demand greater public support for the health centre of their neighbourhood.
Even more striking are conditions in many informal neighbourhoods (musseques) in the suburbs of the capital where there is a lack of drinking water, electricity, and a sewage system.

Agriculture and biodiversity
The drastic reduction or even disappearance of the baobab, from Senegal to Angola, is a symptom of serious environmental degradation. Near Luanda, in the municipality of Sequele, there is a baobab park: an area, as extensive as 33 thousand football fields, which should be protected and which instead, since 2020, has lost more than 2,000 baobabs. It was urban pressure that felled them. According to the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation (Inbac), the price paid to cut down a baobab ranges from 25,000 to 30,000 Kwanza, or between 35 and 40 euros, since the operation is relatively simple. The wood is then sold to wholesalers, who resell it in the musseques around Luanda or on the edge of provincial and local roads.

Rural farmer to till land in Cabinda. ©silvapinto/123RF.COM

For many of those who buy it, wood is the only source of energy or the least expensive. This use of wood not only contributes to deforestation, but also to air pollution in the musseques, and is harmful to health. In fact, burns or respiratory diseases are very frequent among children living in the suburbs. This state of affairs reveals the non-existence of a national energy policy.
Solutions, however, do exist. Even the public company Sonangol, which produces oil and natural gas, has developed some solutions, but they have not yet been applied because they are not considered profitable. The transition to a less extractivist and more sustainable economic model is all the more necessary if we take into account that authoritative estimates believe that Angola’s oil reserves will last for another 25 years.

Changing the model is first and foremost a political choice that can only take place gradually but also with the necessary decisiveness. It means increasing sustainable agricultural production, based on smaller production units intended to satisfy first of all the local markets. It means that forests and green spaces must be protected and enhanced for local populations, implementing appropriate policies. It means investing in education and health, which helps create more jobs for Angolans (as opposed to the current model). Finally, it means guaranteeing a better quality of life in the musseques through adequate and targeted investments. Civil society is aware that an environmental policy combined with a social and educational policy would be needed. But to achieve a sustainable economy, decisions cannot be made by the narrow political-business elite. Angola requires that decisions be made more communally and mature in a more democratic context.

Marc Jacquinet

Congo. Sapeur. An Extravagant Identity.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

On the trail of men and women who dress luxuriously without being rich. Weekend dandies convinced they can stimulate emancipation and social criticism with their dress and posture. There is no shortage of proselytes.

“There are no schools to learn to be like me. But you can see a little boy soon manifest the character of a true sapeur. Where did you learn it? It is the spirit. The spirit that is in some special people”. Moutalaoua Emrick Uriel Bienvenue, aka ‘Derrick’, is a 35-year-old Congolese electronics technician with his wife and children. He is busy arranging dozens of ties, shirts and designer suits in a small studio apartment located in the Makélélé neighbourhood of Brazzaville, the capital of Congo.
“With these clothes I attract people’s attention, I awaken consciences by transmitting another possible identity and I leave a coloured trace to follow”, he explains, observing himself in the mirror while trying to match the jacket with a tie.

Derrick is a member of the Society of Animators and Elegant People (Sape), a movement whose adherents wear luxury clothing and accessories in an ostentatious, sophisticated and extravagant way, the African equivalent of 19th-century Oscar Wilde dandyism. It is no coincidence that the name ‘Sape’ refers to the informal French verb ‘se saper’ which means ‘knowing how to dress well’.
The sapeur and the sapeuse are to all intents and purposes ‘African dandies’ who profess the so-called religion ‘ya kitendi’ (the religion of the cloth), which aims to achieve absolute elegance and the search for new forms of style that inspire society.
The origins of the movement are uncertain. According to their accounts, the first sapeur were the so-called évolué of the early 1900s who returned to the colonies from periods spent in Europe dressed in Western clothes and for this they were admired and acclaimed as heroes of emancipation. But the Sape actually spread, becoming popular, in the 60s and 70s between Brazzaville and the Kinshasa front (in the Democratic Republic of Congo).

A social phenomenon that has become a form of rebellion against the Marxist anti-colonial austerity of the then People’s Republic of Congo and against the Mobutu regime in neighbouring Zaire, which banned Western clothing by imposing traditional clothing within the rigid ‘campaign for authenticity’ represented by the ‘abacost’ (clothing approved by the regime). Another important element of the movement is its link with the musical environment which has absorbed its style right from its beginnings. In the lyrics of the songs of stars like Papa Wemba or Emeneya Kester, references to Sape appear all the time. Over time, it has gained further weight in vast regions of Africa thanks to the spread of the Congolese rumba which last December was added to the UNESCO list of the intangible heritage of humanity.

Bacongo Quarter
Derrick’s stereo loudspeakers play the Bakwetu rumba piece from a live 1992 Wemba. After spraying himself with Paco Rabanne perfume, the sapeur carefully polishes a pair of elegant black shoes: “They are fabulous Damir Doma. I bought them on the web and had them brought directly from Paris through friends. If I tell my wife how much I paid for them, she will kill me”.

Sapeur spend a large part of their savings to buy clothes and accessories from the most important fashion houses in the world. In everyday life, they are ordinary people who also carry out humble jobs and live in popular neighbourhoods but make sacrifices that risk ruining themselves for the sole purpose of becoming a dandy and practising what is in effect a sort of cult. “There are ‘commandments’ to follow and initiation practices to be trained and introduced into the clans. Like historical Piccadilly where I grew up”, Derrick explains.
Many sapeur are also dressing advisors for those who want to buy elegant clothes and are invited to parties and weddings to give ‘blazon’ to the ceremonies. “With us, clothes take on a whole new dimension – continues the Congolese dandy – a sapeur never goes unnoticed. You understand it from his attitude, the way he smiles and the tension of his colours. It is the bearing that makes the difference”.

Every weekend, Brazzaville’s dandies gather in clubs in the historic Bacongo district where, in 1978, Christian Loubaki, who is said to have coined the name Sape, opened a clothing boutique called La Saperie. During the rallies, the dandies hold debates on styles and compete in the so-called combat d’esthètes (struggles between aesthetes) during which they parade with artificial and model-like movements, making themselves appreciated in bars and on the avenues by the so-called ngembo, young apprentice admirers.

Continental phenomenon
Sylvie Honorine Boudimbou, aka Nono de Paris, is a 46-year-old employee and has been a sapeuse for over twenty years. She came to pick up Derrick in an old Toyota. She is very elegant and wears sunglasses and a big straw hat: “First we shall go to Chez Uriel and then we go on to the Trocadéro; ok?”, she says, referring to the clubs while she drives excitedly through the green taxis of Brazzaville. Once there, she dives into a lively and colourful crowd of dandies surrounded by admirers and curious passers-by: “It’s always a big party and we are here to animate and communicate messages”, Nono points out. As a veteran, she wants to deepen the objectives and significance of the movement which still has many detractors: “Families and communities may not accept this lifestyle and others accuse us of denying our origins. In reality we make the most of the clothes made by Europeans by imposing our Black elegance“.

Sape is a socio-cultural phenomenon that originally may have been in part a way of detaching oneself from poverty and forgetting it by using a ‘denegrifying’ character quite the opposite to that of the enhancement of ‘négritude’. However, it has always stimulated social demands fed by generations of young Africans in search of points of reference and cultural identity. The number of followers today is growing and one comes across sapeur in other countries as well, from Senegal to South Africa. Thanks to music, Sape has also arrived among African Americans, where the watchword is increasingly ‘Black is beautiful’, and it has undergone a further boost. Testimony to this is the documentary Black Dandy, Une beauté politique by Ariel Wizman and Laurent Lunetta released in 2015, which retraces the stories of emerging designers who see black dandyism as a true declaration of identity independence.

Marco Simoncelli
Text and Photos

Latin America. ‘The Good Living Mystique’, in Daily Life.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

The ‘Good Living’ is an integral way of perceiving and living life: everything is interconnected, and interdependence is the key to ensuring that everyone lives a full life.

The mystique of good living is rooted in community myths that narrate the interdependence of all beings who are part of the common home. It invites us to live fully in the present, remembering the past and learning from the future, taking care of the fabric of life.
The ‘Good Living’ is, therefore, a way of being, of living and of relating in and with our common home.
This being-being is not a completed fact, it is a series of attitudes that try to become every day in order to build a just eco-society where every being has its space in the community, where power relations are symmetrical and where the vital system as a whole is taken care of so that everyone may have clean water, fresh food, the freedom to work and create with a mysticism of joy that is expressed in celebration, in silence and in encounter.‘Good living’ arises from the translation of the vital expressions of indigenous peoples.

In the Aymara peoples, in the Andes, the expression is suma qamaña: ‘suma’ expresses balance, relationship, fullness, it does not only mean good; ‘qamaña’ means life.
In the Quechua peoples of the valleys and of the Amazon the expression is ‘sumaj kawsay’: ‘sumaj’ expresses deep attention, harmony, it does not only mean good. While ‘kawsay’ means life, as in Aymara, but with a slight tinge of continuous movement.
Another less known expression, but frequent in the everyday language of the valleys, is ‘misk’y kawsay’: ‘misk’y’ expresses whatever achieves a pleasant taste, a close relationship, an integral gentle presence, which intensifies the sensation of well-being. By broadening the meanings of these words, starting from their use in the territories, we can show that the ‘Good Living’ corresponds to an integral way of perceiving and living life, where everything is interconnected and where interdependence is the key to symmetrical relationships.

123rf.com

It also enables us to question the translation as good/good, which risks being interpreted as a value judgment that classifies one way of life as good as opposed to another which is bad, a position that reflects a dichotomous view of reality, and allows some beings to be judged as good and others as bad.The Guarani peoples of the Amazon speak of ‘the search for the land without evil’, ‘yvy marané ‘, which expresses an intact, privileged, indestructible soil, where the earth produces by itself, where corn grows by itself and death does not exist; a place of perfection that will erase the expressions of all that is limitation. These four vital expressions support the spirit and the proposal of good living as a way of daily life, which is in tune with the abundant life to which Jesus refers when he says: “I came that they may have life and have it in abundance” (Jn 10:10). ‘Good Living’ challenges us to live a daily mystique with attitudes and actions (personal and social) that co-build an eco-just society, a life in abundance. (Photo: ©dlrz4114/123RF.COM)

Tania Ávila Meneses
Bolivia

World military expenditure passes $2 trillion; increases slightly in Africa.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

Total world military expenditure increased fractionally in 2021 to reach $2 113 billion, surpassing the $2 trillion mark for the first time, new research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has revealed. Military spending also increased in Africa.

SIPRI saw the seventh consecutive year of spending increases, with the five largest spenders last year being the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and Russia, together accounting for 62% of expenditure.

“Even amid the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels,” said Dr Diego Lopes da Silva, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. “There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%.”

As a result of a sharp economic recovery in 2021, the global military burden – world military expenditure as a share of world gross domestic product (GDP) – fell by 0.1 percentage points, from 2.3% in 2020
to 2.2% in 2021.

Military expenditure in Africa increased by 1.2% in 2021 to an estimated $39.7 billion, SIPRI reported. The total for Africa was almost evenly split between North Africa (49% of the regional total) and sub-Saharan Africa (51%). Over the decade 2012–21, African military spending followed three distinct trends. It first rose continuously between 2012 and 2014, followed by four years of decline until 2018 and then three consecutive years of growth until 2021, to give an overall increase of 2.5%.

In 2021 North African military expenditure totalled $19.6 billion, 1.7% lower than in 2020, but 29% higher than in 2012. The long-standing tensions between the two largest spenders in North Africa — Algeria and Morocco – worsened in 2021.
Algeria’s military expenditure fell by 6.1% in 2021, to reach $9.1 billion, while Morocco’s spending grew by 3.4%, to $5.4 billion.

In 2021 military expenditure in sub-Saharan Africa totalled $20.1 billion, 4.1% higher than in 2020, but 14% lower than in 2012. The increase in 2021 was the first in sub-Saharan Africa since 2014 and was primarily driven by Nigeria, the biggest spender in the subregion.
Between 2020 and 2021, Nigeria raised its military spending by 56%, to reach $4.5 billion. The increase came in response to Nigeria’s various security challenges, such as attacks by Islamist extremists and
separatist insurgents.

South Africa, the second largest spender in the subregion, cut its military expenditure by 13%, to $3.3 billion in 2021. The country’s prolonged economic stagnation has severely impacted its military budget.

In 2021 Kenya, Uganda and Angola were, respectively, the third, fourth and fifth largest military spenders in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the decade 2012–21, Kenya and Uganda have both faced insurgencies that have influenced their military spending.

Between 2012 and 2021, military expenditure rose by 203% in Uganda but remained relatively stable in Kenya (down by 4.5%). Military spending by Angola fell by 66% over the same period. The worsening economic conditions in Angola from around 2015 — largely caused by low oil prices and slumps in its oil production — and the slow pace of economic recovery in more recent years were central to the sharp drop in Angolan military spending over the decade.

US military spending amounted to $801 billion in 2021, a drop of 1.4% from 2020. The US military burden decreased slightly from 3.7% of GDP in 2020 to 3.5% in 2021.

US funding for military research and development (R&D) rose by 24% between 2012 and 2021, while arms procurement funding fell by 6.4% over the same period. In 2021 spending on both decreased. However, the drop in R&D spending (–1.2%) was smaller than that in arms procurement spending (–5.4%).

“The increase in R&D spending over the decade 2012–21 suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies,” said Alexandra Marksteiner, Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. “The US Government has repeatedly stressed the need to preserve the US military’s technological edge over strategic competitors.”

Russia increased its military expenditure by 2.9% in 2021, to $65.9 billion, at a time when it was building up its forces along the Ukrainian border. This was the third consecutive year of growth and Russia’s military spending reached 4.1% of GDP in 2021.

“High oil and gas revenues helped Russia to boost its military spending in 2021. Russian military expenditure had been in decline between 2016 and 2019 as a result of low energy prices combined with sanctions in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014,” said Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, Director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms
Production Programme.

The ‘national defence’ budget line, which accounts for around three-quarters of Russia’s total military spending and includes funding for operational costs as well as arms procurement, was revised upwards over the course of the year. The final figure was $48.4 billion, 14% higher than had been budgeted at the end of 2020.

As it has strengthened its defences against Russia, Ukraine’s military spending has risen by 72% since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Spending fell in 2021, to $5.9 billion, but still accounted for 3.2% of the country’s GDP.

China, the world’s second largest spender, allocated an estimated $293 billion to its military in 2021, an increase of 4.7% compared with 2020. China’s military spending has grown for 27 consecutive years. The 2021 Chinese budget was the first under the 14th Five-Year Plan, which runs until 2025.

Following initial approval of its 2021 budget, the Japanese Government added $7.0 billion to military spending. As a result, spending rose by 7.3%, to $54.1 billion in 2021, the highest annual increase since 1972. Australian military spending also increased in 2021: by 4.0%, to reach $31.8 billion.

“China’s growing assertiveness in and around the South and the East China seas have become a major driver of military spending in countries such as Australia and Japan,” said SIPRI Senior Researcher Dr Nan Tian. “An example is the AUKUS trilateral security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States that foresees the supply of eight nuclear-powered submarines to Australia at an estimated cost of up to $128 billion.”

UK/Rwanda. Immigration. A Problematic Agreement.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

An unprecedented initiative that provokes contrasting opinions and evaluations. A double standard in migration policy.

There have been reactions both in favour and against the recent agreement between Great Britain and Rwanda regarding asylum seekers in the United Kingdom and their possible diversion to Rwanda. The agreement was signed on April 14th.

Regardless of whether or not what has been decided happens, it was certainly harmful to hear the comment: “Why are these people being sent to a rubbish country? Why are they diverted to a poor country
like Rwanda?”

Rwanda is a country with its own values and it does not shy away from playing its part in affirming the dignity of those who have suffered humiliation and discrimination, given that there are many Rwandans who know what it means to be rejected and not accepted, having lived for several years as uninvited guests in other countries.

As happened after 1959, with the end of the Belgian monarchy and colonialism, many Rwandans lived as unwelcome refugees and their children could not enjoy a good education and all were discriminated against in accessing good health facilities.

Moreover, after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis, which resulted in the deaths of one million Tutsi and Hutu Rwandans, all Rwandans know that what happened in their country then reflects situations that occurred in many other parts of the world. At the height of the genocide crisis, they felt abandoned by everyone.

Those who believe that Rwanda should not welcome people rejected by powerful nations should therefore read the history of Rwanda. Knowing what it means to be rejected, Rwandans are willing to welcome all those whose dignity is trampled on by wealthy nations.

“Love does not care if a brother or sister comes from one place rather than another – writes Pope Francis – since love breaks the chains that keep us isolated and divided; instead, bridges must be built. Love makes us able to create a large family where one feels at home. Love is expressed in compassion and respect for the dignity of all“.

Considering refugees as normal people, Rwanda has been able to welcome thousands of refugees from different countries: the DR Congo, Burundi, Libya and Afghanistan. These are not just statistics but men and women of flesh and blood.

The Social Doctrine of the Church gives us clear indications as to what to do for those in need. We must invest in people and offer them the space to find the opportunity to live in dignity. The UK and other European nations are certainly to blame for the double standard used in the reception offered to refugees and asylum seekers.

Suffice it to look at the modality in place towards the Ukrainians welcomed with open arms in many European countries.
While it is true that Ukrainian refugees are to be welcomed and supported seriously, the commendable way in which they have been treated by various nations also shows the discriminatory tendencies in place vis-à-vis non-white refugees.

Strong political will is therefore needed to deploy the resources needed to address the reasons why people seek asylum in the first place. In this sense, it must be said that many African leaders have so far done a disservice to their people. And they will be called to account for it. (photo: 123rf)

Marcel Uwineza
Rwanda

DR Congo. An Oasis of Hope.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

The Telema Mental Health Centre in Kinshasa is a place where the mentally ill are welcomed and respected. We saw it for ourselves.

Many mentally ill people roam the streets of Kinshasa. It is easy to see what they are. They walk alone, half-naked, with shabby, dirty clothes and dishevelled hair. They live off people’s charity and are often exposed to aggression and insults, so that their behaviour becomes violent. They can disappear without anyone noticing.In most cases, their relatives, who are often poor, are forced to abandon them due to the impossibility of taking care of them. Not even the state assumes its own responsibility. Kinshasa is not the exception in Africa. In many other cities on the continent, the problem is repeated. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 10 per cent of Africans suffer from some type of mental disorder, but the budget that governments allocate to fight this type of pathology is almost non-existent and neuropsychiatry services in hospitals are very rare.

WHO recommends one psychiatrist for every five thousand inhabitants, but in many sub-Saharan African countries, there is one for every hundred thousand.
Mental illnesses encompass a wide range of neurological and psychotic conditions. The former affects the central and peripheral nervous systems, the most common being dementia, strokes, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and migraine. Psychotic disorders, on the other hand, cause a distortion in the perception of reality and are characterized by the appearance of abnormal ideas and feelings, including depression, phobias, compulsive obsessions, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, etc.

Mental health
To bring hope to Kinshasa patients affected by these pathologies, the Hospitaller Sisters of the Sacred Heart have founded the Telema Mental Health Centre, which in Lingala means ‘get up’. The first hospital sisters arrived in Kinshasa in 1989 at the request of the local Church, which saw itself helpless and wanted to offer a solution to the sick who wandered the streets. Two years later, in 1991, the Telema Centre was inaugurated in the Matete district of the Congolese capital.
This mental health hospital has already grown. More than 50,000 consultations are performed each year, and about 4,000 new patients were registered last year alone.

Sister Christine Laure is from Cameroon; she graduated as a nurse in her country and specialized in psychiatry in Burkina Faso.
She arrived in the DRC in 2005 and since 2018 she has been the director of Telema.
According to her, the main problem they face is people’s lack of awareness of mental illness. “When someone shows symptoms of a mental disorder, the family doesn’t think about coming to the hospital in the first place. They think it’s a spell, a matter of witchcraft and they go either to the sorcerer or to a priest to pray to free the sick from the evil spirit, so that when they arrive at the hospital, they have already wasted precious time”.
This finding justifies the awareness programs that the Centre carries out through a bulletin on mental health, radio programs and visits to schools and churches to sensitize students and parishioners. “The goal is to prevent the marginalization of the mentally ill – says Sister Christine -, so that they understand that mental illnesses are like all the others and that they have their causes and their effective treatments”.

Telema is also a multifunctional mental health centre and organizes training sessions for the health personnel of other medical institutions in the city, through which it provides valuable knowledge in neuropsychiatry. In Kinshasa, there are private psychiatry clinics – available only to patients with financial means – and also the Centre Neuro Psycho Pathologique (CNPP) of the University of Kinshasa, though it currently has very few activities. This fact makes the Telema Centre practically the only one in town that takes care of the mentally ill. “We came to Kinshasa to be close to the poor – says Sister Christine – everyone can access it because a consultation never costs more than 3,000 Congolese francs – less than two euros – and when families do not have the means to pay for medicines, we help them too”.
Medicines for neuropsychiatric diseases are highly controlled and not all suppliers can facilitate their importation. However, thanks to the collaboration of various pharmaceutical companies and numerous internal and external benefactors, the Telema pharmacy meets the needs of its patients. Sister Christine acknowledges that during the pandemic, due to the shortage of medicines, various patients had to suspend their treatment.One of the priorities of the hospital sisters is not to isolate the sick in hospitals or reception centres, but to sensitize families so that they learn to live with their loved ones and take care of them, despite the fact that the treatments are prolonged and require a lot of patience.

The director of The Telema Mental Health Centre, sister Christine Laure,

To ensure its functioning, the hospital has around 25 health workers, including the Sisters Hospitallers. “All the staff have specific training in psychiatry. Furthermore, we require a minimum of religious training from our staff because we want those who work here to know our charisma and spirit of work. In the case of the sick, all are received without any distinction”, says the nun.
In a wing of the Centre, there is also a professional workshop where around thirty people are involved in sewing, embroidery, and the creation of objects of all kinds with a dual purpose: therapy and self-financing. Its famous cloth dolls are the flagship product of the workshop.

Enrique Bayo

Climate Change and Advocacy. Planting Bamboos.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

The first reason is climate change. Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than an ordinary tree. A hectare of Bamboo absorbs 12 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Second, bamboos prevent erosion and flooding. A clump of Bamboo will absorb 30,000 litres of water annually.
The third reason is that the Bamboo is useful for livelihood. The shoots are processed and bamboo poles are made into furniture and construction material.

We have made our move. As missionaries, we have decided to have 100,000 bamboo seedlings planted by 2022.
One interesting initiative is that elementary, high school and college graduates cannot graduate and are not given their diplomas if they do not plant ten trees each. So that’s it.

That would be a lot because we have 28 million elementary school students. How many will graduate? Then we have college graduates also.

We really believe that this is doable. We may not succeed but it is possible. It is not an impossible dream to plant 1 billion bamboos in the Philippines, absorb gigatons of greenhouse gases, prevent erosion and flooding, the loss of lives and property and give jobs to thousands of people. The government is already mobilizing. They only need some help from the developed countries responsible for most of the greenhouse gases that plague us now, especially in the Philippines.

Benigno B. Beltran

Morocco. Tazert. “Our doors are open to all”.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

Four African Sisters have restored life to a monastery founded in 1931 by a French Franciscan in the Berber village of Tazert.

We are in Tazert, a Berber village of 3,500 inhabitants sixty kilometres from Marrakech. “This is an oasis of peace for anyone who comes to visit”, says Sister Noellie Kabore, a Burkinabé nun at the head of the small Franciscan community which for two years has given new life to a place with a long history of Christian presence in Islamic lands. The monastery of the Visitation was founded in 1931 by Father Charles-André Poissonier, a French Franciscan fascinated by the experience of Charles de Foucauld, a hermit among the Tuareg who will be proclaimed a saint in May. The unique experience of faith and dialogue of Poissonier, who became known among the Berber communities as ‘the man with hands of light’ who helped the sick and the poor, was born from the fusion of the spirituality of the poor man of Assisi with that of the ‘universal brother’. He died of typhus in 1938 at the age of 40, having left the monastery to the Franciscans, who were replaced four decades later by a community of Melkite Poor Clares, who carried on the commitment of closeness and support to the people.

A traditional berber village high in the slopes of the Atlas Mountains. 123rf.com

In 2013, however, faced with the lack of new vocations to guarantee their presence, the nuns, now elderly and weak, left Tazert, explains Sister Noellie. The monastery, now owned by the diocese of Rabat, would have succumbed to the wear and tear of time if the Belgian foundation Coeur Maghrebin, committed to the development of the local community, had not taken steps to protect and restore it. Eventually, in late 2019, the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, a congregation whose motherhouse is located in Montpellier and which already had a presence in Mohammedia, responded to the appeal of Cardinal Cristobal Lopez Romero, Archbishop of Rabat, not far from Casablanca.
At the foot of the Atlas Mountains, in a rural and traditional context marked by material and educational poverty, a group of African women made their home, ready to revive what was to be both a place of prayer and interreligious dialogue, a contemplative reality but also a reception and spiritual retreat facility with a guesthouse of about twenty rooms.

“Our doors are open to all”, confirms Sister Noellie, whose previous mission was in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “There are foreign pilgrims and tourists, religious and laypeople from Moroccan parishes, young people who come for retreats or periods of formation. Muslims from the area also come to visit us or just to look round”. The monastery, inspired by native architecture, is in fact a familiar presence for the people of Tazert especially since the nuns who live there certainly do not remain closed inside its clay walls. Sister Martine Ko, a thirty-year-old Togolese who is the youngest of the group (the ‘eldest’, the Burkinabè Sister Annie Bamogo, is only fifty years old), works at the village dispensary as a nurse. Sister Prisca Simtaya, also from Togo, works instead at the embroidery workshop created by the Coeur Maghrebin foundation to offer the 90% illiterate inhabitants opportunities for income and emancipation. “This is a reality which today involves almost a hundred women”, says Sister Prisca.
“In the workshop, they make hand-quilted linen sheets, tablecloths, tunics, which are then sold both in various shops in Marrakech and abroad, through solidarity channels that also promote the production of items at the customer’s request”.

In addition to training in traditional embroidery techniques, the workshop provides literacy and computer science courses. The craftwork, from which the entire village benefits, is also an opportunity to get together and form relationships between the nuns and the seamstresses. “As the women work, they chat, laugh and sing, while the children play on the patio. This is how friendship is born”. “We share the difficulties and aspirations of the people, who welcomed us with great affection when we arrived. People were really happy to see the monastery reopen! When we walk through the streets of Tazert there is always someone who greets us, who offers us a coffee”, says Sister Prisca.
In Morocco, the Catholic Church has about 30,000 faithful, 0.1% of the population, which is almost totally Muslim. Catholics are mainly Europeans and young people from sub-Saharan Africa, who come to study, and migrant workers. The faithful, in the two archdioceses of Rabat and Tangier, belong to 35 parishes and are assisted by 46 priests and various religious orders. Among the main areas of the Church’s commitment are education, social assistance and the promotion of dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

Chiara Zappa/MM

The Spider and the Sky God’s Stories.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

The Chief of the Sky Gods had many stories to tell. As Spider listened to the stories of the Sky God, he said to his wife, “I am going to the Chief of the Sky Gods and buy his stories. Then the people will call them Spider Stories. And all the people will remember me.”

Spider went to the Chief of the Sky Gods and bowed before him. “Great God of the Sky, I wish to buy your stories.” “What makes you think you will be able to buy my stories? – said the Sky God -. Many wise men have tried to buy my stories.”

“I know I shall be able to buy them,” said Spider. The Sky God looked at Spider a long time. Then he said, “The stories can only be bought for Python, the Big Snake, and the Hornets who can sting you to death and Leopard who is very fierce and can kill you.”

Now Spider was very small but he and his wife were very smart. He went home to his wife and told her what the Sky God had said. They talked together for a long time. Then the wife said, “Cut a long branch from a tree and cut some vines that are like rope. The Water Spirit will tell you what to do with it.”

Spider cut the branch and the vines. He went to the stream where Python, the Big Snake lived. He sat by the stream and started to sing. “It is as long as he is No, it is not as long as he is Yes, it is as long as he is.”

Python heard Spider singing and called to him, “What are you singing about, Spider?” Spider laughed. “My wife says that you are as long as this branch. But I say that you are not as long as this branch.” Python, the Big Snake said, “Measure me,” and he came out of the stream and lay out straight on the bank.

Spider laid the branch beside Python’s body. He quickly tied Python to the branch with the vines that were like ropes. Spider said, “I shall take you to the Chief of the Sky Gods.”

The Sky God looked at Python tied to the branch and he said, “Spider, you have brought Python. But there is still something that you must do. Bring me the Hornets.”

Spider went home to his wife and said, “The Chief of the Sky Gods looked at Python. Then he said, `Bring me the Hornets.’ I am afraid the Hornets may sting me to death.” “Spider – his Wife said -. Get a large gourd and fill it with water. The Spirit of the Water will tell you what to do.” Spider found a big gourd and filled it with water. Then he put a big leaf on his head.

In the forest the Hornets were flying in and out of their nest. Spider sprinkled half of the water over the Hornets. He poured the other half of the water over his head. Spider cried, “The rains are coming. The rains are coming, and I am all wet.”

“It is too early for the rains – cried the Hornets.” “But you are all wet and I am all wet,” cried Spider. “Come get into this big gourd so that the rains will not hurt you.” “Thank you, thank you,” cried the Hornets as they flew into the big gourd.

Spider closed the gourd with the big leaf that was on his head. Then he took the gourd full of Hornets to the Sky God. “You have brought me the Hornets who can sting you to death – said the Sky God -. There is still a thing to be done. Bring me Leopard. Then you can have my stories.”

Spider went home to his wife. He told her what the Sky God had said. “You must still get Leopard,” said his Wife. “Go and dig a pit.” “I understand,” said Spider.

He went off to the forest and found the path where the Leopard went down to the pond to get a drink. He dug a deep pit in the middle of the path. He put brush on the top of the pit. That night Leopard fell into the pit when he went to get a drink.

Early the next morning Spider went to the pit and found Leopard. “I have told you many times not to get drunk – said Spider -. You were drunk last night and you fell into the pit.”“Dear Friend, – cried Leopard -. Help me out of this pit.” “If I should help you out of the pit,” said Spider -, you would kill me.”

“No, No – cried Leopard -. I would not kill you, Spider. Please help me out of this pit.” Spider went and cut two small branches from a tree and put them at the top of the pit. “Leopard – said Spider – put one paw here and the other paw there.”

Leopard started to climb out of the pit. When his head came up to the top of the pit, Spider hit him so hard that his eyes closed, and Leopard fell back to the bottom of the pit. Then Spider got a ladder and climbed down to the bottom of the pit. He tied Leopard up so he could not move.

As Leopard opened his eyes, Spider said: “Fool, now I shall take you to the Chief of the Sky Gods. You are the last thing that I have to bring to him. Now he will let me buy his stories.”

When the Sky God saw Leopard tied up, he called the other Sky Gods and said to them, “Many wise men have come to me wanting to buy my stories. But none of them but Spider could do the things I asked them to do. Spider has been able to buy the Sky God’s stories.

Spider is little, but he is very smart. He has done the three things that I asked him to do. From now on no one will call them the Sky God’s Stories. They will be called Spider Stories.” And that is why in Africa there are so many Spider Stories. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Folktale from West Africa

Photo Gallery – Jubilee 2025. Pilgrims of Hope

Advocacy

Baobab

Youth & Mission