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Herbs & Plants. Cola Acuminata. The Beverage Flavouring Plant.

It is an evergreen tree, native to tropical Africa especially West Africa. It usually grows to an average of about 13-20 meters in height with a diameter of about 50 cm.

The plant produces a star-shaped fruit which contains between 2-5 kola nuts. About the size of a chestnut, this little fruit is packed with caffeine, tannin, and theobromine phytochemicals.
The tree is seen as a symbol of hospitality, cultural beliefs, social ceremonies and, as well, is grown as an ornamental.
In West African countries, Cola acuminata is prized for its effects as a central nervous system stimulant.
Cola acuminata nuts have a bitter taste when chewed fresh but the taste becomes milder in dry nuts. The nuts can be roasted, pounded, or chewed, and can be added to drinks, such as tea, milk, or porridge.
In traditional medicine, the Cola acuminata plant is used against numerous diseases including atonic diarrhoea, dysentery, vomiting, high fever, piles, stomach ulcers, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, melancholy, lack of normal muscle tone, exhaustion, constipation, and migraine headaches.

CC BY 2.0/Dick Culbert

Cola nut is used for the treatment of whooping cough, malaria, asthma, and acts as a bronchodilator due to the caffeine in it. The nuts are known to have antimicrobial, analeptic and lipolytic properties and can stimulate gastric juice secretion as well. Traditionally, the leaves, twigs, bark, fruit follicles, and flowers are used in the treatment of dysentery, diarrhoea, coughs, vomiting, and chest complaints. Cola nuts have been linked with natural fertility regulation.
The plant is also used in treatment and management of cancer, as an antidote for poisoning, increasing alertness, and motion sickness. It is used by native people as a stimulant, chewed to alleviate fatigue, hunger, and thirst, especially when on long hunting trips. Due to its astringent properties, Cola acuminata is used as a non-addictive stimulant in the treatment of diarrhoea and dysentery and to prevent vomiting in cases of high fever. It has also been used in the treatment of headaches and migraine.

Cola nuts on the central market of Ouagadougou. Burkina Faso. CC BY-SA 3.0/Marco Schmid

In some communities, Cola acuminata has been used in folk medicine as an aphrodisiac, an appetite suppressant, to treat morning sickness, and indigestion. It is applied directly to the skin to treat wounds and inflammations. The tree’s bitter twig has been used for cleaning the teeth and gums.
The fruits are used as tonics, stimulants and concoction from the fruits used for the treatment of fever, dysentery, and exhaustion.
Cola nuts contain caffeine and hence believed to counteract overstrain and depression thus improving the physical and mental state when taken. The crushed nuts may be boiled together with the leaves of Moringa lucida and the resultant infusion taken internally to cure piles. The nuts ground to a fine paste, together with the leaves of Scoparia dulce, are dissolved in a little water and a few drops are administered orally to babies for treatment of headache. An infusion of the bark mixed with ginger and a little pepper is taken internally to cure stomach ulcers.

Dried kola nuts and chewing sticks harvested from Cola acuminata. CC BY-SA 4.0/T.K. Naliaka

Apart from its medicinal activities, Cola acuminata aromatic seed is rich in caffeine and is often chewed or ground into a powder and made into a drink and taken to give energy, increase alertness, retard hunger and fatigue, aid digestion and increase stamina. When the whole nuts are chewed, they taste bitter at first, but they leave a sweet taste in the mouth later that affects other foods or drinks that are consumed.
Thus, chewing Cola nuts before drinking water helps to render the water sweeter. An extract, prepared from the dried kernels is used to flavour non-alcoholic soft drinks, ice cream, candy, and baked goods among others. The kernels can be red, white, or pink. In fact, the red kernels can be used as a natural food colorant. Its usefulness for traditional purposes especially in West Africa span from social life and religious events, to sealing business contracts.
The chemical contained in Cola acuminata including catechin-caffeine, theobromine and kolatin may explain the numerous uses of this plant throughout its distribution range. (Photo: CC BY-SA 4.0/ Scamperdale)

 

Richard Komakech

 

Africa. “Our social commitment”.

Three young African women from different backgrounds recount the story of their social commitment as they become a reference point for many African women.

The personal and professional future of Kamil Ahmed, born in Somalia in 1999, depends on the government of Kenya, which announced the closure by 2022 of the refugee camps of Kakuma and Dadaab, where about 420,000 people, mainly Somalis, live.
Dadaab is one of the oldest refugee camps on the continent and has long been the largest in the world. There is a great deal of excitement among the people, some are thinking of returning to Somalia while others are preparing to emigrate to a neighbouring country.
Among the thousands of people facing this dilemma is Ahmed, who arrived there with her mother in 2008 after her father was killed in Mogadishu. “I lost my father, I had to leave my village and my school”, recalls Ahmed, who adds that she, however, had managed to find “peace and hope in Dadaab”.

From the age of nine, all that Kamil heard while listening to the modulated frequency of the small radios that accompanied countless families to Dadaab, was just a strange and foreign soundtrack. That sequence of words and music was Star FM Radio Gargaar, the only radio station in the camp.
Day by day, those words and music began to bring the girl closer to the world of radio. When Ahmed finished primary school, she enrolled “in a year-long youth program offered by the Norwegian Refugee Council”. There she learned the basics of journalism. And soon after she began her connection with Radio Gargaar, which in Somali means ‘Help’. The station programs, in which service information predominates, did justice to the name they broadcast every day. A container became an unattractive but effective study. It is from there that Ahmed addresses an audience that now exceeds 200,000 potential listeners every day.

The young Somali woman has long been the only woman on Radio Gargaar, which at first was not well received by the people in the refugee camp. They said she should leave the radio and get married. In this regard, the Somali presenter said: “I am proud of my work, for which many people respect me. But there are other people who don’t like what I do. They put a lot of pressure on me, but when they insist on getting married, I laugh and pay them no attention”.
Her voice, together with those of her colleagues at the station, seems to be essential in the coming months, in which the future of Dadaab is at stake and, above all, that of the thousands of people who live there. “The imminent closure of the camp – she said – has affected everything, our business, our livelihood…. The radio is important to keep an eye on the changing political decisions of the Kenyan government”. However, she seems to have clear ideas. She is considering and wants a future life in Somalia. She wants to study and practice journalism in her homeland, despite the dangers that her colleagues run in the country. “I know how dangerous it is for someone like me to go back and be a journalist in my country. But my future will be Somalia”. The present, here and now, is called the Star FM Radio Gargaar.

 Mércia Viriato: “I am not different”

The ninth legislature began in Mozambique on 13 January 2020 and the 250 elected deputies took possession of their seats. Everything happened as usual except for a young deputy: Mércia Viriato Licá. At just 24, this young law graduate from Maputo’s Pedagogical University has become the youngest parliamentarian in the country’s history.
Her attention was not focused only on her because of her young age but also because of a congenital disability; she was born with no arms. She writes, uses the computer, or turns on the light in the room at home with her feet. Despite everything, she insists on acknowledging that she does not feel different “and much less special”.

The strength she has shown throughout her life has made her a point of reference for people who, like her, suffer from a physical disability. When Mércia Viriato took office, Mozambican activist Benilde Mourana said she hoped she “would not be just another MP, but would bring the real concerns of people with disabilities to Parliament and that this wave of inclusion would spread in other key sectors in the area of ​​disability”.
For now, the MP has already stated that her priority for the legislature will be education. After collecting the minutes of her seat, the Mozambican woman expressed the hope that she may contribute to the development of the country “through education. I want to encourage young people to never stop studying because education is the way to real life”.
The day after the parliament opened, a local newspaper entitled: “Mércia, de menina renegada a deputada” (Mércia, from rebellious girl to parliamentarian) and a photo of eight-year-old Mércia sitting on the school floor, together with her companions, bending over some half-written pages and clutching a blue pen with the tip of her right foot.
In 2003, when her mother went to enrol her in elementary school, the leaders of the centre advised her to find a special school. But her mother did not have the money to enrol her in a special school and so after much insistence, she was accepted into the school like any other pupil. She began to write with her foot. Years later, in an interview, she acknowledged that “Even now, I still wonder why I should have gone to a special school”. Abandoned by her father when she was just a child, Mércia grew up under the exclusive tutelage of her mother, with whom she still lives today.
However, as she herself points out, she wanted every difficulty to become an opportunity and an obstacle to be overcome.

National Assembly of Mozambique.

If there is anything that explains her presence in the House of Representatives, it is her tenacity, which led her to address the country’s president, Filipe Nyusi. Through social media, she asked him to do everything possible to facilitate living conditions and access to education for people with disabilities. President Nyusi has invited her to carry on her battles in defence of the disabled through politics. Mércia took up the challenge; she stood as a candidate for the province of Téte and succeeded in reaching her goal.

 Ndeye, dancing to the rhythm of the yembé

Imagine people in a circle looking into each other’s eyes and gesticulating as they follow the frantic pace of their yembé, an African percussion instrument that has its origins in the Mandingo empire. Tradition has it that it was played by the numus, the blacksmiths, who were attributed extraordinary powers and who participated in the initiation ceremonies into adulthood.
Often, one of the drummers would stand out from the others by playing a solo with which he challenged the others. Such solos are a display of power and endurance.
Ndeye Cissé, born in Senegal, began to play the yembé professionally at the age of 18. “There are men who feel intimidated and embarrassed when they see a woman playing the yembé; I understand them because this instrument is always linked to male strength. After all, they feel inferior when they see a woman who sounds as good as they do”, explains Ndeye.

Ndeye Cissé. (Photo: Alicia Justo)

She started playing the yembé at the age of 8, supported by the figure of her brother who had never seen a woman play that instrument like any of the musicians. The male environment marked her childhood, in which in addition to watching her brother making music she also joined the fans of a football team in the Las Palmas de Dakar district, becoming the only girl to be considered the best fan of the team. “In the beginning, we had to animate our fans during matches, but when we saw that it could be a job, we started a professional music group, and that’s how Djembe Rythme was born”.
Her debut on international tours was accompanying the Senegalese football team (at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan).
Later she was part of the musicians who accompanied Youssou n’Dour, a popular singer and composer of mbalax music, in which traditional and European instruments are mixed.
A feminist without having to proclaim it, Cissé is convinced that “at some point, there will be a change and women and men will share the zone of success”. Meanwhile, she is proud to belong to Jigeen Ñi, the first Senegalese group made up entirely of women. The messages of their songs have already become a reference point in the national awareness of gender equality.
Cissé is an example for young women who shyly and fearfully approach a yembé or a sabar. For this, she decided to live in her own country with her mother, and to give percussion lessons to a group of students with whom she hopes that, little by little, it will become normal for a woman “to have a love and passion for these instruments”. She advises them to “believe in themselves and be aware that it is a job that involves sacrifice”, without losing the smile and the innate rhythm that spreads with their yembé. (Open Drawings: Tina Ramos Ekongo.

Carla Fibla García-Sala  – Javier Fariñas Martín

Africa. African Art. Recovering Its Own Story.

At least 90% of African cultural heritage is currently outside the continent, mainly in European museums. But a recent campaign for the repatriation of African art is helping to make restitution of looted artefacts a reality and finally restore heritage to the African cultures that made them.

The debate about the return of valuable historical cultural artefacts that were smuggled out of the African continent during colonial rule is not new, but the discussion has increased over the last four years.  At the end of November 2017, in a speech delivered on a visit to the West African republic of Burkina Faso, French president Emmanuel Macron, addressing a large audience – mainly made up of students, promised to make the restitution of French-owned African heritage a priority over the following five years. France is estimated to hold at least 90,000 African artefacts in its museums and galleries, as many as 70,000 alone in the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum in Paris. Within a few months President Macron commissioned Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr and Parisian art historian Benedicte Savoy to prepare a report on the very sensitive issue of renditions of works of art to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and how this goal should be accomplished.

According to the authors of the report ‘All transfers of art, the building of the art market, inheritance, donations to museums – are based directly on immoral seizures and continuing exploitation’. Sarr and Savoy also point out in the report that Western museums have a highly disproportionate number of sub-Saharan African objects compared to collections left in Africa. The Sarr-Savoy Report sparked a heated public debate. Sarr and Savoy suggested that Macron return permanently and gradually the African artefacts: starting with the restitution of some 46,000 pieces looted until 1960, the beginning of the era of African independence. The authors of the report also suggested a reproduction of the returned works in order not to suddenly empty the French museums. The restitution modality outlined in the document provided for the signing of bilateral agreements between France and each requesting country.

Advances and more claims
The plan began to move forward. Senegal, a former French colony, signed agreements with Paris for the restitution of works that were looted during the colonial era. In November 2020, the French Senate approved the commitment to return two objects, which were exhibited at the Army Museum in Paris: the saber and scabbard belonging to El Hadj OumarTall, the 19th century Islamic leader and founder of the Tuculor Empire in West Africa. He was a key figure in the resistance against the French colonization. In 2021 another West African country, Benin, the former colonial Dahomey, also made a request for the restitution of part of the well-known Béhanzin Treasure, 26 relics, looted from the Royal Palaces of Abomey in 1892, which were held at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. The restitution of artefacts to both African countries was supposed to be accomplished within one year from the signing of the agreements.

The Tervuren Museum in Belgium, on the outskirts of Brussels houses one of the largest collections of African artefacts in the world.

The official announcement of the return of the aforementioned Benin treasures was made at the end of October last year. Macron’s words and deeds encouraged other former French colonies in Africa to ask for the repatriation of looted artefacts. Chad has requested the restitution of some 10,000 objects.  Algeria, which was a French department and part of metropolitan France until its independence in 1962, also signed agreements with Paris for the restitution of looted works and, in October 2020, the Government of Paris announced the restitution to Algeria of a bronze cannon, of 12 tons, which was taken by the French in 1830, at the beginning of the colonial occupation. According to some information, the Macron administration was interested in trying to rebuild relations with a country with which France had been at war for almost a decade. This and the other examples show a profound revision of the French colonial role during the19th and 20th centuries.

Other countries
The request for the restitution of looted artefacts by former African colonies does not involve only France but also several other countries, since the Savoy-Sarr Report made it possible to update inventories and figures of artistic heritage held outside of Africa, such as those in the Tervuren Museum in Belgium, on the outskirts of Brussels, which houses one of the largest collections of African artefacts in the world. The museum, in fact, holds a collection of 180,000 African artefacts, while the Humboldt Forum in Berlin displays 75,000 African artefacts, the Quai Branly some 70,000, and the British Museum 69,000. Even museums in countries outside of Europe that did not colonize Africa, such as Russia and the US house African looted artefacts.

The French example has been followed by other countries. European museums have long been reluctant to restitute African heritage objects but now they are under mounting pressure to return the irreplaceable artefacts plundered during colonial times. Ethiopia has urged the return of some 3,000 pieces. Some objects, such as a bible and several crosses, among others, seized in 1868 by British troops, were returned last September. Much earlier, in 2005, the famous obelisk of Aksum, taken away from Ethiopia in 1937, during the occupation by fascist Italy, was repatriated.
Angola also joined the list of requesting countries, urging Portugal to return several artefacts. Portugal committed itself to helping to return its former colonies not only the African artefacts held in the Portuguese museums but also other objects housed outside the country: in the USA, Germany, France or Brazil. The Portuguese initiative sparked a new debate. This year, Germany, whose colonial empire did not survive the First World War, has proposed the return of hundreds of cultural artefacts that were smuggled out of Nigeria in 1897 by British troops, and which are currently held in German museums, the famous ‘Benin bronzes’, one of the most valuable among African art collections.
In May 2019, following the 2017 request of Namibia, Germany announced it would restitute a centuries-old stone cross. The limestone cross bearing the Portuguese coat-of-arms was erected in 1486 on the coast of today’s Namibia to assert the country’s territorial claim. It was taken to Germany in 1893 when the area was part of the German colonial empire, and it was held in the German Historical Museum in Berlin.
At the end of October 2021, the University of Cambridge returned a looted bronze rooster to Nigeria. The statue, known as Okukur, was looted by British colonial forces in 1897. Cambridge University was the first British institution to return African cultural pieces; the initiative marked a very valuable precedent.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

In June 2021, the Met, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced it would return three works of art that were looted in the 19th century from Nigeria. The two 16th-century brass plaques and a 14th-century brass head from the Kingdom of Benin — part of modern-day Nigeria — were taken from the Nigerian Royal Palace during British military occupation in 1897, and moved to the British Museum in London until 1950 when the UK repatriated them. After their return to the National Museum in Lagos, they re-entered the art market and ended up in the hands of a private investor who donated them to the MET in 1991, where they were exhibited for years.
At the end of November 2020, the Netherlands returned a 600-year-old terracotta to the Nigerian Government. The terracotta was smuggled through Ghana in 2019 to Holland. In November 2020, it was officially announced that a new museum would be built in Benin City, Nigeria. The museum is intended as a place for the most comprehensive display in the world of Benin bronzes, including the collection to which the aforementioned bronze rooster belongs. The Benin bronzes were looted by British soldiers and sailors in 1897 and are mostly in western museums and private collections. The British Museum has more than 900 bronzes and has long faced calls for them to be returned. Details have been announced of important steps towards these treasures being loaned or given back with the creation of the EDO Museum of West African Art in Benin City.

Doubts
There are also arguments against the repatriation of African stolen art, many of which appear to suffer from a ‘colonialist mindset’. One of the most patronizing arguments used by supporters to defend museums’ rights to keep such artefacts is that, due to lack of resources and infrastructures, there are not the minimum conditions for the preservation of cultural heritage in many African states. Another argument is: if colonial powers had not taken these objects, they would have been destroyed in the conflicts and disasters that subsequently erupted in several African regions. And since these institutions preserved them, they have the right to keep them. This is a simplistic and distorted way to tackle the issue of the African reality. However, the two examples cited of Dakar and Kinshasa are an antidote to these pessimistic objections.

However, there are institutions that are reluctant to the restitution and/or loan of looted African artefacts, such as the British Museum. They insist on the fact that the artefacts legitimately belong to their current owners, since many of the goods were acquired through legal means, so there would not be sufficient reasons to restitute them. Another argument against repatriation is that the issue should be tackled from a global perspective. Besides African art, the process of restitution of stolen art would force a complete review of universal history, which documents multiple examples of illegal appropriation and looting of cultural pieces in many regions of the planet. However, the restitution of African art is an essential step towards the recovery of historicity and subjugated dignity. Repatriation of stolen art is also a tool for improving relations between African countries and their old metropolises and other countries. That is why the process should be accelerated, since much still remains to be returned. (Open Photo. The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the British Museum).

Omer Freixa

Mission. Our Life with Our People.

Three Comboni Missionaries talk about their missionary experience.

My name is Gédéon Ngunza Mboma from Democratic Republic of Congo. For the last eleven years, as a missionary Brother I have been working with young people at Comboni Technical College (CTC) in Malawi. The CTC is a Catholic technical school open to young people of all religious denominations, created, developed, organised, and managed by the Comboni Missionaries, in collaboration with local staff.

It is a non-profit organisation, which aims at building a better future for the youth of Malawi, by offering them training in technical and human skills. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in southern Africa. Economic hardship has a serious impact on the majority of Malawians who are low-income earners. One of the most negative effects of this is the inability of many families to educate their children.

The Comboni Technical Centre was created precisely to try to respond to this situation, through an integral education capable of helping young people to become leaders and agents of transformation in their families, communities, and workplaces, thus contributing to the development
of their country.

The CTC aims at providing the young people who come to us, with high quality and practical training in welding and manufacturing end products, carpentry, and electrical installation, leading up to the government exams for the Craft and Advanced Craft Certificate.

We also provide them with human skills, in view of their personal growth that leads to true maturity, so that they become good and responsible citizens. But this is not enough. We also think about their future.

We offer courses that provide them with entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to start businesses once they leave the CTC. Moreover, we make sure that they will not think only of themselves; that would
not be a Christian training.

We want our young people to feel they have a duty to take an active part in building their communities. To support them in this, we promote Gospel values, which motivate them to commit themselves with all their talents to promoting the Kingdom of God.

I have now lived for 11 years together with 150-180 youth, to whom I teach entrepreneurship, basic accounting, and human development. Being a member of the administration, I spend most of my time with them, trying to get to know them better and to establish a relationship of trust between them and me.

I am happy to be here, and I wish heaven would allow me to stay here for many more years, because, in this fantastic place of youth formation, I feel totally fulfilled as a Comboni Brother.

Fr. Justin, “I consider myself a ‘gardener of the Word’ ”

I am Fr. Justin Martinez, from Spain. When I was asked to work in the city of Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, I remember saying “I view Manaus favourably!” Later, I had the opportunity to get to know the city, and on my return, they asked me what I thought. I answered a bit metaphorically: “Here the challenges are few and small. Few like its rivers and small like the Amazon. We will need five or six generations to solve them”.

Since 2019 I have lived in Manaus and despite the pandemic that we are experiencing, my conviction has not changed: I view Manaus favourably! Before arriving here, I spent ten years in Salvador de Bahia working with Afro-descendants and in dialogue with the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomble. I also spent nine years in Fortaleza located in North-eastern Brazil and between these two Brazilian presences, eleven years in Spain. The challenges I have encountered were not on my agenda, but I am not changing Manaus for anything.

I consider myself a ‘gardener of the Word’ because my presence in the heart of Brazil has as its main purpose biblical and theological formation at the Institute of Theology, Pastoral and Higher Education of the Amazon (ITEPES), where seminarians, permanent deacons and lay people receive some of their formation. I also teach biblical subjects in a Pauline Centre and in various parishes, in addition to participating in radio programs and other pastoral activities. It is a joy to share the Word of God with multicultural communities.

This was not always the case during my years in Salvador de Bahia, because many times my listeners were all of African descent. I remember a meeting of black consciousness and awareness with about 70 adolescents in Salvador in which I was the only non-Afro. We were all in a circle and Raquel, one of the animators, asked: “Here, are we all black?” “Everyone”, the adolescents answered unanimously.  Raquel repeated the question and the answer was the same.

The young woman pointed at me. “Justino is black too?”  There was silence in the room. Anderson got up and said: “Yes, he is black!”  But she did not give up: “Anderson, is Justino also black?” Anderson then responded with ease: “Sure, if he behaves like us, Justino is also black”.  I always remember that anecdote with great joy.

Following Pope Francis in his encyclical Querida Amazonia, I try to motivate children, youth, and the elderly to become passionate about the Word of God and discover that it is a mine that must be explored with love, passion and competence.

This is my dream and what keeps me happy: to take the Word of God to the heart of all Christian communities of the world.  Animation and missionary biblical formation are the way, taking into account that it is not about ‘knowing’ but about ‘savouring’.

It is necessary to provoke a thirst for the Word, to quench it and that is something that requires passion, time, and dedication, as with Jesus towards Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the blind man from birth or his disciples. It is hard work, but it’s worth it.

Among those who speak about the Bible in Manaus there are charlatans who conquer multitudes of people with sweet words that do not give life, joy, or hope, and who do not help to face the innumerable mourning of this pandemic that is leaving so many people injured, without
comfort and hope.

We see and feel all this and it hurts to see so much indifference and arrogance by government officials who have not fulfilled their obligations. The consequences translate into suffering and death. Therefore, maintaining or regenerating hope thanks to the Word of God in the midst of this situation is a missionary duty.

Fr. Francesco. A Heart for the Pygmies

My name is Fr. Francesco Laudani from Italy. I arrived in Africa fifty years ago in 1972. I was assigned to what was then Zaire,
now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and more precisely to the mission of Mungbere, a community in the middle of the jungle in the north-east of the country.

A year later, purely by chance, I saw, for the first time, groups of pygmies on the streets of Moley, Dodi and Dingbo. I also witnessed the baptism of the first pygmies in the parish.

Two years later, I was assigned to the parish of Nangazizi and then to that of Rungu, where I spent most of my time in the bush visiting the 95 Christian communities of this huge parish; the furthest chapel was 110 kilometres from the central church. In 1984, I was assigned to the parish of Gombari, where the Comboni community was engaged in pastoral work with the Pygmies.

From 1984 until 2018, my missionary life was centred upon this village. For ten years I was the diocesan head of Pygmy pastoral care. Our work with the Pygmies focused on two fundamental and complementary areas: evangelization and education, although there were also health support programs and more specific training in agriculture and other fields.

The forest is the natural habitat of the Pygmies. As they are often on the move, one of our commitments has been to set up small schools near the larger camps so that, for at least a few months, the pygmy children could study alongside other children to help them integrate. We felt that this was the only way to enable Pygmies to go to secondary school.

The Pygmies are the poorest people in Congolese society, but the school has allowed them to better themselves. Many have learned to read and write; some have been able to go to college and now work as midwives or teachers. I am very happy with the progress the Pygmies are making.

One of the highlights of our work was when we organized a march in 2005 to demand respect for the rights of the Pygmies. About 2,500 people started out and travelled, in some cases, up to 300 kilometres, to the city of Isiro. Despite this, difficulties remain and much remains to be done to ensure that the Pygmies may be Congolese citizens with the same rights as everyone else.

As for myself, it takes much more than a lifetime to accompany these people who, being one of the poorest and most abandoned, are a priority within the Comboni charism. My memories are of thanksgiving to God because I have never felt alone.

The people, especially the Pygmies, welcomed me very warmly. God has been with us in all circumstances, even during the war, when I was taken prisoner and held for 14 days; I never felt abandoned. The Pygmy people always protected us and took care of us. I keep in my heart the love for Africa and the love of Africans for us missionaries. (C.C.)

 

 

Mexico. The people of the sacred rains.

The people of the rain, Ñuu Savi, in the Nahuati language of the Mestizos, live in the states of Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero in central-southern Mexico. To the present day, they have persisted with their daily practices, their forms of social organisation, their language, health system, respect for nature and their religiosity in
their view of the world.

One of the most important aspects of these people is their view of the world that consists in thoughts, ideas and concepts that are transformed into words, actions and practices which earn them the name of men and women of the rain, as a people and a culture, and enables them to establish accords and respect, to reaffirm the ties of the community and with nature. This philosophy also gives meaning to life, to time and to the expectations in the Ñuu Yivi, the world and the practices
that are followed.

The people of the rain, Ñuu Savi, are closely correlated to the sacred divinity Savi which means ‘rain’ but which, in terms of sacredness, acquires the meaning of ‘sacred rain’. The mother tongue is Tu’un Savi, Word of the rain.
The people of the rain live in three states: Oaxaca (Ñuu Nduva), Puebla (Ñuu Ita Ndio´o) and Guerrero (Ñuu Koatyi). Some of the places where the members of the people of the rain are found are: in Kiu’un (the mountain), Ñu’u Ñi’ni (warm country), Ñuu Ndivi (coast) and in the diverse geography of the vast territory where they coexist and which they share with other indigenous populations, the Mestizos and people of African descent.

Social and ritual organisation
The word Mestizos is of Nahua origin and refers to ‘the people of the place of the clouds’. Since the coming of the Spaniards, this term has been used by other peoples and cultures to refer to the Ñuu Savi people and the cultural region known as Mixtec. The people of the rain, Ñuu Savi, today number about half a million.The identity of the Ñuu Savi is based upon their language, history, vision of the world and community ties. For centuries they have kept their system of social and ritual organisation that reaffirms their identity with such sacred entities as rain (savi), lightening (taxa), wind (tatyi), hills (yuku), clouds (viko), plants and trees, animals (kiti), caves (kahua), rivers (yita), the earth (ñu´u), the dead (ndií), seeds and cereals such as maize (nuní), beans (nduchi), pumpkins (yikin), the spirits of the mountain and other divinities.

The symbolic nucleus of their identity is rooted in the rain. Yoko Savi is the spirit of the sacred rain who is invoked during the month of April, provides water, food and blessings, ensures life and makes seed germinate so that life may be born in the world.Feasts and rituals rotate around two centres: the dry season and the rainy season. In October and November, the feast of the dead, Viko Ndii, is held. This feast involves the meeting of neighbours in various places and is the day on which the authorities are chosen since it is a propitious moment that has the spirits of the ancestors as guests of honour. These acts revitalise and reinforce the collective historical memory expressed in the assumption of community mandates. The authorities must carry out their duties; otherwise, the spirits of the ancestors will bring justice to the community by conceding harmony or inflicting punishment. In religious life, Catholic saints have been reworked to adapt them to their system and their own calendar of feasts Ñuu Savi. Thus we have Saint Mark connected to Yoko Savi, the entity and the spirit of the rain and Saint Michael with that of fertility.

Our land, Ñu´u yo
As the symbolic and sacred character of the relationship between earth, nature and the people of the rain, Ñuu Savi is demonstrated through various ritual or ceremonial practices. The land and the territory have a symbolic and sacred meaning in the world view. For this reason, people, land and territory are closely intertwined with their understanding of the universe. At the origin of the world, it is precisely in the caves that the original myth is created and, according to the elders, where water, wind, fire, the land and the mountains are articulated, as well as the grains of maize and other divinities to give food to the Ñuu Savi villages.

In line with their world vision, the cult of the Savi, the rain divinity, is carried out in the open, on top of the highest hills and in the caves from where new water springs, the original water that rises from the depths through subterranean infiltrations and springs. Thus, the rain is initially born of the earth to which it is closely tied since both together constitute the germinal force par excellence. On the other hand, this same germinal power present in the caves is the element that sacred Mestizo history is described as that which gave life force to the founders of their more important lineages. Therefore, both vegetative life and human lineages have their origin in the sacred caves that exist in the Ñu’u Savi.
Ñu´u is the concept that refers to the earth, the material space in which we find ourselves. Thus, in line with the linguistic root: Ñuu yo is the people and what encloses the earth and the material elements in which we find ourselves, but refers to our land as the collective space where life is lived. Therefore, Ñuu yo is our people and also our earth. Then we have the Gnu Yivi: the People of the People, but the connotation is that it refers to the world, the place where living people, humanity, dwell. Then there is the Ñuu Ndii, the place of the dead.

The hills are the places where the divinities and spirits live and they are considered sacred and to be respected. In the geography of the Mountain, there are many places of this sort. The population go to the tops of the more important mountains to carry out prayers and invocations. There are encounters with spirits and the forces of nature.
The struggle for the defence and re-claiming of the land means fighting against aggression towards the land and the plundering of natural resources. For the people of the rain, Na Savi, is a matter of: Na kundoyo, na ku taku yo va´a xiin na ntaan yo, xiin na vee yo, which means ‘Living well and getting along with our brothers and those of our house or family’.
‘Living well’ means living together in a social or territorial space in personal and collective harmony and having the resources necessary to live with justice.
Kuu taku yo refers to existence, to germination as Na yivi, people and human beings in their own land. This is why it is commonly said: An sivi ta yivi kuun?, ‘Are you not people?’ Therefore, to be a people means having a name, a place, a sense of attribution, and a land.

Pedro Santacruz

Angola. A Country and Its Contradictions.

In the African context, Angola, a country with a population of over 33 million inhabitants, has always represented in one a mirage and a contradiction: the mirage of overflowing riches from oil and diamonds but also a contradiction due to the poverty of its peoples.

War has always been the master: from 1961 to 1975 to free itself from the Portuguese colonial yoke; from 1975 to 2002, the year of the death of the leader of the main opposition party-army, Jonas Savimbi of Unita, in the form of civil conflict. Internal conflicts were already the order of the day before gaining independence. Suffice it to say that the liberation movements – MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), FLNA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) and Unita (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) – simultaneously declared independence, on November 11, 1975, in three different points of the country. This was the premise of the long civil conflict that sorely tried the country for so long. Tensions only relaxed when, at the international level, the People’s Republic of Angola was recognized. Led by Agostinho Neto of the MPLA, the new republic was supported politically and militarily by the Soviet Union and Cuba. The United States did not officially recognize the former Marxist-Leninist Angolan government until 1993, after the constitutional change the previous year.

The Angolan contradictions are all to be found in this long conflict, the result, in large part, of the Cold War, but also of the thirst for personal power of its different protagonists. The main interpreter of the civil war, Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, leader of Unita and a great admirer of Che Guevara, found himself forced into accepting the embarrassing help of the racist South African regime and, in the background, that of America.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the international picture changed dramatically, and at the end of 1999 the British Foreign Secretary, Peter Hain, declared that Savimbi was one of the main British targets, similar to Saddam Hussein or the Serbian Slobodan Miloševic. In short, a war criminal.

Jonas Savimbi, leader of Unita. He was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002.

The MPLA, with Soviet protection, had established a climate of terror, symbolized by the tragic events of May 27, 1977, when Agostinho Neto and his closest collaborators ordered the capture, torture, deportation, and immediate shooting of a number of people ranging between 40 thousand and 50 thousand. The reason? The alleged support of the victims for the policy of the Minister of the Interior, Nito Alves, expelled from the MPLA and the government with the infamous accusation of ‘factionalism’. This dramatic page in Angolan history led to the hardening of the regime of Agostinho Neto and his successor, José Eduardo dos Santos (in power from 1979 to 2017).
The latter established a model of state now seen as an example of kleptocracy, neopatrimonialism and corruption for all of Africa. Even today, under the presidency of João Lourenço, the harmful effects of that model for the population are being felt. Economically, this meant privileging in public policies two fundamental axes: oil, as the driving force of the economy, and defence, as a crucial sector.

A moving picture
Angola is making a transition from a personalistic and familial regime – centred on the figure of José Eduardo dos Santos and his closest family members, his daughter Isabel in the first place – towards a system in which the party is trying to take back the reins of power for too many years monopolized by the ‘emperor’ dos Santos.
However, the contradictions are exploding, leaving, for the first time, ample and interesting room for manoeuvre for the opposition, in view of the next elections this year. The main contradiction concerns precisely the first term of the Lourenço presidency. Started under the best auspices, with the attempt of a fight without quarter to corruption, also with trials moved by the Angolan judiciary with a high symbolic value against the children of the former ‘emperor’ – Zenu and Isabel dos Santos  – the fight against corruption quickly lost its effectiveness. The party and state apparatus, accustomed to lavish prebends, ‘extra’ emoluments deriving from widespread and profound corruptive practices, have in fact stopped the action of Lourenço, also involved, recently, in some financial scandals that have tarnished his image.

The former Angolan President, Eduardo dos Santos.

Together with his wife, Ana Dias Lourenço, and other senior Angolan officials, he is in fact being investigated by the American justice system – according to Pangea Risk –  for corruption, illegal banking practices, bank fraud linked to the purchase of real estate in the United States, and an attempt to defraud the US Department of Justice. If all this were to be proved, then Angola would no longer have access to the more than 2 billion euros already agreed with the World Bank, within the debt suspension program. A figure that represents 4.3% of Angola’s GDP, and that would give breathing space to the coffers of a state that no longer has the wealth of the past and to a public budget whose debt has now exceeded 135% of gross domestic product. The opposition – led by Unita and its leader, Alberto Costa Júnior – united under an electoral cartel, the United Patriotic Front (FPU), are entering into this political crisis of the MPLA and the government. On the other hand, popular discontent – which has repeatedly resulted in strikes and public demonstrations, including violent ones, against MPLA and the government, as well as in very critical positions by several local rappers – have helped to increase awareness of the need for greater civic consciousness and changes in the politicians’ approach to public affairs.
All these movements that intersect civil society and political opposition would like to reverse a situation that sees Angola as a country classified by Freedom House as ‘not free’, with a score of indicators related to its democracy of just 31 points out of 100, and a result on the transparency of electoral processes of 0 out of 4.

The end of oil as the only resource
José Eduardo dos Santos’ system of power was based, in large part, on the exploitation of oil. To date, the latter contributes 50% to the country’s GDP, and almost 90% of exports. However, this model, in fact monocultural, has long since entered into crisis, and a rethink is necessary.  Angola’s largest oil company, Sonangol, reduced its earnings by more than half in 2020, from a capital gain of more than $17 billion in 2017 to just $6 billion in 2020. This is due, to a large extent, to the decrease in the price of crude oil, while Fitch’s forecasts point to a steady fall in oil revenues, due to the government’s inability to invest heavily in the sector.
Faced with this picture, the only possible choice is the reconversion and diversification of the economy: a very complex process that will take time and require the political and technical skills to bring the country out of dependence on oil. But it is an inevitable process, if we consider that Angola has recorded negative growth of its GDP since 2016, accentuated by the pandemic (-4% in 2020).

Angola’s greatest contradiction is that, despite being the third-largest oil producer in Africa after Libya and Nigeria, its population is still in sometimes extreme poverty. About half of Angolans are considered poor, with a high concentration in inland regions. Cunene, Bié, Luanda Norte, and Huíla are considered the poorest regions, according to official data published in 2020 by the government. That year is considered catastrophic for the south of the country, with Huíla as the most affected territory. Here, the drought that has continued since 2012 has led to a drastic reduction in food supplies, and several humanitarian organizations have repeatedly denounced the absolute lack of initiatives on the part of the government.  Strategic sectors, on the other hand, have traditionally been marginalized by government policies. The most obvious example of this is agriculture.

As confirmed by the same words of the former Minister of Agriculture and Forestry himself, Marcos Nhunga, this sector is far from receiving – as established by the Malambo Declaration of 2014 – at least 10% of the public investments established by the financial institution. On the other hand, the defence sector continues to absorb many public resources. While, in 2016, it absorbed 13% of public spending, today the figure is close to 8%, and still very high, considering that education receives just 5.3%, health 5%, and social protection 3.27% of the budget. The path towards a more balanced and equitable model of development, in short, is still a utopia, given that the oil-defence pairing continues to monopolize the Angolan government agenda.
The transition that has begun seems to be proceeding at a pace and timing that is far too slow for people who continue to live in miserable conditions, with no concrete prospects for any immediate improvement in their lives.

Luca Bussotti

Pope Francis to WYD 2023 volunteers: “Take courage and strive ahead!”

Given the many challenges the world is facing, next year’s World Youth Day should be a gathering filled with life and strength, Pope Francis said to the Portugal event’s organizers.

“In the midst of all these crises, you have to prepare and help so that the August 2023 event is a young event, a fresh event, an event with life, an event with strength, a creative event,” the pope said recently
in a video message, to young people involved in preparations
for World Youth Day 2023.

Pope Francis encouraged members of the international event’s organizing committee to be inventive in planning the gathering, which will take place on Aug. 1-6, 2023, and not just to fall back on the format of past World Youth Days.

“Do not live on the returns, on what has been done in the other meetings,” he said. “You have to create the meeting. If you are not creative, if you are not poets, this meeting will not work, it will not be original, it will be a photocopy of other meetings.”

World Youth Day was established by Pope John Paul II in 1985. The multi-day gathering usually attracts hundreds of thousands of young people. The meeting is typically held on a different continent every three years with the presence of the pope.

Pope Francis announced that the Portuguese capital would host the global Catholic gathering of young people at the closing Mass of the last international World Youth Day in Panama City in January 2019.

Lisbon, a city of 505,000 people, is around 75 miles from Fatima, one of the world’s most popular Marian pilgrimage sites. Pope Francis said he was looking ahead to August 2023 and the event in Portugal, and he acknowledged the difficulty faced by the volunteers organizing the event from all over the world. “It is not easy,” he said. “It is not easy because we go from crisis to crisis.”

“We came out of a pandemic crisis, we entered an economic crisis, and now we are in the crisis of war, which is one of the worst evils that can happen.” He said that “crises are overcome together, not alone. And crises put us to the test so that we come out better.”

Pope Francis added that he was following the planning from Rome and praying for all those involved.

“And I pray for all the young people who are going to participate, either in person or by telematic means,” he added. “I pray that this meeting may be a fruitful one. May each one of us leave better than we arrived. I ask you, please, to pray for me, because I also need you to support me with prayer.” “See you in August,” he concluded.

The churches. Lost engagement.

They have lost the prophetic voice they had in the days of apartheid. They have no longer been able to effectively guide the action of politics. Too many gaps to bridge.

The death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu on St Stephens Day 2021, occasioned many reflections on his public witness, his prophetic leadership in the anti-apartheid struggle and his pastoral discernment in leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in those early years after the advent of democracy, as South Africa sought to find its bearings in a post struggle reality.
He remained till his death, the moral compass of the nation, a fearless articulator of truth to power and as many observed, he was as critical of the pathologies of the democratic government as he was of the apartheid regime, a stalwart in crafting a theology of repentance and forgiveness and a citizen of the world. His solidarity with oppressed people everywhere was one of his traits. We saw it in his closeness to the Rohingya people and the Palestinians. He was a man of prayer and of deep spirituality.  In so many ways his witness as it has been recalled and lauded over these past months, also constitutes the ongoing challenge to the broader faith communities and to the Christian family in particular. It also stands, twenty-six years into democracy, as a benchmark for the success of the church’s engagement with our context.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (centre) leads some 30 clergymen through Johannesburg to police headquarters in 1985 to hand in a petition calling for the release of political detainees.

Twenty-six years is obviously not long enough to measure the church’s contribution to the reversal of the injustices and inequalities of a system that was rightly called a crime against humanity. The very fact that corruption has robbed this country in recent years of a trillion rand of public money – a theft from the poor – that poverty remains as a wound on our body politic and that unemployment affects over 36% of the population, that schools are dysfunctional and that we minister in unchanged apartheid defined spaces, all means categorically, that to an important degree, we as the moral compass of the nation, as the prophetic voice in the midst of abhorrent situations, have not raised our voices loudly enough to give politicians and business concerns who grow rich off low wages and exploitative practices, reason to change their ways.  They have not felt challenged enough or morally chastised by the faith communities’ ministry of standing with the poor and naming social sin, to change their ways. That must spell a failure on our part.
It is true that the faith communities have been good about raising red flags, about drawing attention to the multiple wrongs in our country.
It is true that in times of dire need the faith communities have responded with charitable care.

We saw it in the hard times of the pandemic. That this is true is shown by the activities at levels that generally make for social change, namely, education in its broad sense, advocacy and activism. There have been good examples at different times over the past years – and those have been stellar moments – of marching, of standing in solidarity, of advocacy around critical issues. But it seems that those moments have remained moments. As faith communities, as churches, it seems we still need to find a coherent overall understanding of justice issues that allows us to analyse and act coherently, that allows for larger buy-in from those who fill our pews and that is so persuasive that we understand that these words from the Final Message of the Synod of Catholic Bishops of 1971 saying that ‘working for justice is a constituent element of preaching the gospel,’ is something that applies to all.  It seems that we are content, as in the apartheid era, to leave the work for justice to a few. We are also challenged by Archbishop Tutu’s testimony to see that all injustice is part of a whole. Abuse and domestic violence, xenophobic utterances, poverty, just wages; all these issues belong together and as long as we separate them out, we rob them of their force and their potential to touch some areas of our lives, and thus we find it easy to absolve ourselves from responsibility for righting our wrongs. It might also be that the church and faith communities’ own complicity in race and class exploitation, in cultures of abuse and elitism, finds it harder to call others out while vestiges of its own
sins are still evident.

Stellenbosch. Altar girls from church with a cross in Kayamandi township©dvsakharov/123RF.COM

Archbishop Tutu once said that the church is a slumbering giant and sometimes it wakes from its slumbers and growls a little. Possibly the positive point in its growls is that the small noises and acts might acquire the power to take on greater potency as the world and our country’s outlook gets bleaker. It is possible that the best the church can do is to amplify the growls till they become a deafening noise. History has shown that such incremental moments and actions can indeed change the tide of history. It might well be that the church cannot become a home for all until it, with others, has put the effort in to transform the myriad of structures that keep people apart and perpetrate injustice and only then will spaces of worship become homes to all, communities of justice, witnesses to hope and examples of peace. It is a dream and one that we strive to achieve but it is still a long way off. (Open Photo: Outside Hector Pieterson Memorial Museum in Soweto Johannesburg. ©sunshineseeds/123RF.COM)

Peter-John Pearson

 

 

 

 

Can Africa offer an alternative for Russian oil and gas exports to the EU?

The EU’s plan of an oil embargo on Russia and to reduce its gas imports from this destination is offering opportunities to African oil and gas exporters. But only to a certain extent. Limited infrastructure prevents Africa to provide a complete alternative in the short-term.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the EU is trying to diversify its energy supplies from Russia. Concerning natural gas, the EU is so dependent that it cannot afford sanctions. During the first quarter of 2021, Russia’s share of the EU market reached 46.8 %, ahead of Norway (20.5 %) and Algeria (11.6%). Russia’s grip on the market is enormous.
Gazprom is keeping prices at a historical high. Since last autumn, it doesn’t supply additional quantities on the Rotterdam spot market. It also retaliated to EU sanctions by cutting exports to Poland and Bulgaria. At any rate, during the first quarter of 2022, Russia sold less gas to the EU but cashed more money from its sales.

Ship unloading at liquefied natural gas terminal. 123rf.com

There have been attempts to diversify supplies. In 2022, the EU will be importing 15 billion cubic meters (bcm) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from United States and might raise imports by 50 bcm by 2030, according to a deal signed in March 2022.
But US supplies alone cannot solve the problem since Russian supplies are three times higher (155 bcm).
The EU is also negotiating with gas producing countries about expanding LNG supplies. Following the visit to Algiers in late February of the Italian Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maio, the Italian corporation ENI signed on the 11 April an agreement with Algeria’s state-owned company Sonatrach to import up to 9 bcm/year more gas through the Trans-Mediterranean-Pipeline via Tunisia, bringing Algeria’s supply to Italy to 30 bcm in 2023.
The EU also turned to Nigeria as alternative. When the war was looming, in February, the European Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and the Nigerian Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo agreed to explore options for increased supplies of LNG to the EU.
There are also grandiose plans for the future, but they might not materialize soon. On the 17 February 2022, Nigeria, Niger and Algeria signed a common declaration for the development of the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline (TSGP) which aims to export up to 30 bcm to the Mediterranean area. A rival project under discussion is the expansion of the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) along the Gulf of Guinea to Morocco. But experts consider both projects as hypothetic. Their implementation could take years and the security context is extremely adverse owing to the jihadist threat in the Sahel region.

Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio with the President of the Congolese Republic Denis Sassou N’Guesso.

In April 2022, the Italian Foreign Minister, Di Maio announced another deal between ENI and Congo-Brazzaville which would allow a new LNG project to start up in 2023 with a capacity of up to 4.5 bcm a year.  During the same month, ENI inked also an agreement with Angola to import an additional 1.5 bcm/yr to help Italy’s efforts to reduce its dependence from Russia which supplied in 2021 over 40 % of its imports. The crisis could accelerate as well the implementation of projects in Mozambique and Tanzania with the construction of new LNG trains. Tanzania, which has Africa’s sixth-largest gas reserves is working with Shell to carry out the huge Lindi liquefaction project LNG scheme. Mozambique, one of the world’s most prospective gas regions with 2.8 trillion cubic meters, accounting for 1 per cent of global reserves, is another option. But the jihadist insurrection in the northern gas-rich Cabo Delgado province, hindered progress on a projected US$50 billion project, led by ENI, TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil in the Rovuma Basin. Exports should not occur before 2027. Equatorial Guinea sees itself as a regional gas hub to supply Europe while Mauritania and Senegal have high hopes for their Great Tortue Ahmeyin LNG development, writes the UK-based Africa Energy bulletin. In addition, current gas fields developments and an ambitious exploration program may allow Egypt to remain a net gas exporter from its LNG terminals.

Trans-Saharan gas pipeline.

However, there are limits to these diversification attempts. According to Benjamin Augé of the Paris-based French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), everything that can be exported on the world markets is already being exported, except Iran’s production. In other words, there cannot be a short-term solution to fully compensate a halt of gas imports from Russia.
Moreover, Africa’s potential contribution is limited compared with Russia’s reserves. According to British Petroleum’s Statistical Review of World Energy, in 2020, Russia and other CIS states accounted for 30.1 % of the world’s natural gas reserves as against 6.9% for Africa. Russia represented with 638.6 bcm 16.5 % of the world production, nearly three times more than Africa’s total of 231.2 bcm, including Algeria (81.5 bcm), Egypt (58.5 bcm), Nigeria (49.4 bcm) and Libya (13.3 bcm).
Considerable investments are required to construct pipelines to provide access to Europe. There is also a lack of investment in gas production, says Anne-Sophie Corbeau, global research scholar at the Columbia University. Africa must also liberalize the energy sector to address the infrastructural crisis. African Energy also stresses that Algeria’s gas output is hampered by significant production problems.  Algeria is confronted to difficulties to step up its production, owing to a halt of investments triggered by taxes on exceptional profits which deter companies to develop new capacities.
As a result, large amounts of extra gas are unlikely to be available in the short-to-medium term. Algeria’s gas output has even decreased from 93.8 bcm in 2018 to 81.5 bcm in 2020.

Plans to use the Medgaz pipeline to Spain whose capacity may reach 12 bcm/year are obscured by the sudden deterioration of relations between Spain and Algeria. Indeed, on the 27 April 2022, Algeria threatened Spain to stop its gas supplies through the Medgaz pipeline if Madrid sells gas to Morocco, after Spain declared on the 18 March 2022 that it was henceforth supporting Rabat’s sovereignty over the former Spanish Sahara and Madrid’s announcement that it plans to supply gas to Morocco through the Maghreb Europe Pipeline (GME). The Algerian authorities warned that any sale of Algerian gas to another destination than Spain would be a violation of the supply contract and could lead to its cancellation. Alternative sources of supply to Europe are also confronted with the lack of gasification terminals in the main EU economy, Germany, which puts limits to LNG exports to the EU.
In February 2022, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced to the Bundestag, the government’s decision to fast track the construction of the 8 bcm Brunsbüttel terminal near Hamburg, of the 10 bcm Wilhemshaven terminal and of a 12 bcm third facility called Stade Import. But the completion of these projects could take between three and five years.

Africa oil
Concerning oil, the dependency rate from Russian crude is also high with a total of 29% in 2020, according to the EU statistical office Eurostat, well head of other suppliers such as the US (9%), Norway (8%), Saudi Arabia and the UK (8% each), Kazakhstan and Nigeria (6%)
However, due to the greater flexibility of the transport of oil and petroleum products, the European Commission thinks it can diversify more easily the EU’s oil imports than the gas one, which can only be very progressive and could take years to change the trade flows. This is why, on the 4 May, it proposed a phased embargo of Russian oil, in order to tighten its sanctions package against Russia.  Despite proposals of derogations until end 2023 to the most dependent countries from Russian oil, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria are against the embargo because of its potential damage to their economies. Malta, Greece and Cyprus are concerned on the effect of the embargo would have on their oil tankers’activities.

In the event of an EU embargo, problems remain. Refineries running on a specific type of crude, such as Russia’s prime export grade Urals, need to be revamped to accommodate other types of crude including West African ones which can be blended but this can change their yields. In addition, African producers can only substitute Russia as suppliers to a certain extent. Altogether, they only account for 6.8 million barrels of the world production, well behind Russia (10.6 m. barrels).
Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, is facing serious production challenges. It had to close recently a number of oil wells to keep criminals at bay. For many months, Nigeria has produced 20 % less than capacity due to oil bunkering. At the moment, Nigeria is unable to meet its OPEC quota of 1.73 million barrels per day, according to the OPEC monthly oil market report for April 2022, Nigeria’s production only reached 1.35 mpbd in March.

Photo: 123rf.com

Libya is struggling to meet its production targets and has not yet recovered the level achieved before the destructions inflicted by NATO countries in 2011.
Soaring oil prices cast doubts about the embargo’s efficiency on Russian economy. Indeed, since last December, the Brent price rose by 68 % from 79 $/barrel to 113.3 $/b on the 6 May 2022 while the gas price more than doubled during that period.
OPEC members including African producers have no interest to increase their output because of the negative effect it could have on world prices. Moreover, OPEC members have an agreement with Russia and Central Asian partners, to constrain supply growth to 0.4 mb/d per month. In particular, Africa which produced 6.8 million barrels in 2020 or about 7.7% of the world total, behind Russia whose share on that year was 12%, faces infrastructure constraints which limit its ability to supply Europe with energy products. (Open Photo: ©khunaspix/123RF.COM)

François Misser

 

Guinea-Bissau. The Gospel and Social Promotion.

Schools, female entrepreneurship, microcredit. These are some of the initiatives of the Oblates of Mary in this small African country.

Cacine is a village of mud-brick houses, covered with metal sheets or palm leaves, built side by side along two dirt paths, where hens, goats, and pigs roam, and where children play. This small town of two thousand inhabitants, surrounded by forest, overlooks an inlet of the sea that from the Atlantic Ocean insinuates itself like a snake among the mangroves in the south of the country. The Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate went to Guinea-Bissau in 2002.
Cacine is the third mission of the Oblates in Guinea-Bissau. One is in the capital Bissau where they run the parish of Antula and the other is that of Farim in the north of the country on the banks of the Chacheu river where various development projects have been under way for years, ranging from schools to medical clinics passing through the entrepreneurship of women whose work is the dyeing of fabrics.

Father Carlo Andolfi, an Italian with 34 years of missionary life in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, gazes towards the horizon of the sea when the sun turns red in the warm African winter. Every day the missionaries ask themselves how to help improve the lives of these people, how to continue the work of proclaiming the Gospel and developing Christian communities and how to give the new generations an opportunity to grow spiritually and as people.
The answer is their daily commitment that starts with the school. Father Carlo recalls that in one of the nearby villages, Quetafine, a man had started a school under the shade of a tree, to give basic education to the children of the village. Seeing the commitment of this man and the growing interest of the people, the missionaries, together with the local people, decided to build a school and entrust this man with the task of running the small structure. Today that small structure has grown and now there are 6 classrooms and 270 students; with two shifts each day, there is room for all of them.

Sadjo, their teacher, takes care of the little ones in the nursery, while her colleagues patiently teach the older ones: some of those in the second grade who are old enough for secondary school. On each desk, there is a notebook and a pen to copy what the teacher writes on the blackboard. That is all the school material there is. Since the government stopped paying the publishing house that printed the textbooks, it has become difficult to find anything better than a few photocopies.
Outside the school, a concrete base waits for the church to be built; while waiting, the goats sleep there, and some people spread out their rice on it to dry. There is also a school in the village of Cafal, but we are only at the beginning. To visit it, Father Carlo must take the morning boat to cross the sea inlet; he leaves around 10, sometimes even later. There is no precise time so everyone waits on the shore, some with piles of chickens with their legs tied so they can’t run away and some selling fish balls floating in a green broth in small plastic bags.

The crossing takes a quarter of an hour and, on the other bank, we take moto-taxis for the hour-long trip along forest paths, dodging the vines with our heads and holding on to the young and reckless drivers. At last, we reach the small village of Cafal. In addition to accompanying the Christian community, the missionaries also started a school there.
On the waterfront, among the cows licking the salt left by the high tide, there is a group of fishermen. One is from Sierra Leone, another is from Liberia and a third is from Ghana. They have come from neighbouring Guinea: they left Conakry with two fishing boats which were confiscated after they were caught fishing without a permit in Guinea-Bissau waters. For twelve days they have been waiting on the small concrete pier for their boss to send the money to pay the fine and be able to set sail. Even for local fishermen, it is not easy to get something from these waters. Since the Koreans bought the fishing rights, the bulk of the catch is frozen and shipped to Asia. And so, the pirogues made from very light fromager wood, so agile on these placid waters, rest on the sand bringing very few fish for the cooking-pots of Cacine. We are satisfied with rice, at least that is not lacking. Farm animals are slaughtered only on important occasions; chickens are eaten a little more often.

While one young woman draws water from the well to bathe her child, another prepares her bag for the savings group meeting.  Her name is Damiana, the animator of five groups of the SILC project (Saving and Internal Lending Communities), in three villages. It is funded by the CRS (Catholic Relief Service – Caritas USA). One of the biggest shortcomings is education in how to save: what you have in your pocket, you spend. Father Carlo says: “Those who join the project deposit a weekly sum, creating a fund which they can then draw on to make important purchases for their families or to start profitable activities, such as buying seeds to produce a crop for sale”. This is but a first step for the new generations in understanding how to become independent and how to bring new development to their community. Open Photo: ©tiagofernandezphotography/123RF.COM

Andrea Cuminatto

Peru. Marriage. An Agreement Between Two Families.

Marriage is related to the continuation of the family and the community among the Asheninka, an indigenous population who lives in the central forest of the Ucayali district in the province of Atalaya in eastern Peru.

Both types of marriage, the monogamous and the polygamous, are practiced among the Asheninka. If a man opts for the monogamous marriage, he makes a preliminary agreement with the parents of the woman he intends to marry. This agreement can remain in effect for a few months, or half a year, the time necessary to the couple to get to know each other, at the end of which they decide whether to formalize their union or separate.
The final decision is made not only by the couple but mainly by their parents who observe their behaviours and give suggestions.
For this reason, the young couple is supposed to visit each other’s parents and spend time with them, because they are the ones who will have the final say over whether or not the couple can get married or must separate. If the couple gets married, they will remain together until death separates them.

Some Asheninka men, mainly the heads of the community, the curacas, choose the polygamous marriage. In this case they must talk about their decision with their future first wife and make sure that she will accept her polygamous marriage. If men want to marry more than one woman, they are supposed to show that they are skilled farmers, skilled hunters (mitayeros) and good fishermen because they must show that they will be able to sustain their family. Once they can prove they have all these requirements they are allowed to have several tsinanis (wives).
Among the Asheninka communities, one of the man’s fundamental duties to his family is to build a house. Those men who intend to marry more than one woman, are supposed to build a house for each wife, in this way, each woman will be able to have her own space where she can raise her children. Men must also provide food for each wife, so they are supposed to hunt, fish and plant cassava, banana, beans, rice, and other products. Polygamy is accepted among the Asheninka in order to increase the number of the members of their communities so that they can better defend themselves from the dangers of the jungle, from the attack of neighbouring communities or from any other evil that may threaten their personal, family and community life.

According to oral narrations, the Asheninkas were, once, nomadic peoples who moved from place to place as a way of obtaining food, finding pasture for livestock, or otherwise making a living. They were often in conflict among themselves and neighbouring communities. Any disagreement was a good reason to fight and even to kill. Death, therefore, was not infrequent among this population, so, having several wives and many children meant to guarantee the continuation of the lineage and clan.
The parents of the future spouses make a preliminary agreement before the celebration of the wedding and then schedule a date. Before the day of the wedding ceremony, the groom is supposed to go into the jungle to hunt and bring game for the day of the celebration. On her side the bride makes masato (yucca drink). On the day of the wedding, at noon, the groom brings the animal that he has hunted and offers it to his future wife, in the presence of invited guests. The bride, in turn, offers the groom a pachaka (pumpkin container) containing the masato she has prepared. The bride wears a new kushma, the Asheninka traditional dress, painted with achiote pasta obtained from the achiote tree, more commonly known as annatto, whose seeds have a covering of yellowish orange to reddish orange powder. She also wears a crown decorated with beautiful flowers. The groom, after drinking the masato, goes to bathe and get dressed. He also wears a new kushma and a crown adorned with macaw parrot feathers.

The head of the community declares the spouses husband and wife, and the sheripiri (shaman), performs the ancestral spiritual ritual of pusanga (drink prepared with aromatic herbs). He offers the drink to the couple and puts small bracelets in their hands. The celebration continues and the guests sing and dance to the rhythm of music and enjoy the food: yucca with cooked green plantains accompanied by roast meat. Later the invited guests give the new couple gifts such as hunting, fishing, and cultivating tools, kushmas, animals, fruits and those essentials for a new couple starting their life together. The absence of a godfather or other wedding witnesses is a particularity of the ancestral Asheninka wedding ritual. The agreement between the two families is enough.

Jhonny Mancilla Pérez

Economy. The COVID-19 Challenge.

The country is divided between two worlds, the world of the poor and the world of the middle class. To understand South Africa, it is important to recognise this. The economy, health care, education and the social life of South Africa is divided into these two worlds.

When COVID struck, the impact on these two worlds was different. The middle class had a buffer, the poor bore the brunt of the pandemic and its effects.  In some ways, it can be argued, COVID accelerated was inevitable in the South African reality. The already sharply divided country and a failing state was further exposed by the pandemic.
South Africa’s already fragile economy was brought to its knees. The already dysfunctional health system was thrown into crisis and the huge gap between the rich and poor grew. To make matters worse, widespread corruption and looting of public funds, intended to buy protective gear for the medical sector by politicians, were revealed.
The health minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, resigned from his job in the middle of the worst of the pandemic when it was shown that he siphoned off millions for himself and his family from public funds intended to fight the pandemic.

The COVID highlighted South Africa’s biggest challenge – one that was already a challenge pre-pandemic: its economy. Even in ‘good’ times high levels of unemployment and inactivity – especially amongst young people – was a problem. Out of a working-age population of 40 million, only 15 million South Africans are employed. This includes about 3 million jobs in the public sector (government).
COVID-19 deepened this crisis because low-wage workers suffered almost four times more job losses than high wage workers. Within months of the crisis, many low-wage earners lost almost 60% of their income.

The informal sector
In May 2021 Statistics, South Africa’s quarterly labour force survey revealed that in the first months of the hard lockdown (March/April 2020), about 2.2 million people lost their jobs. South Africa’s labour market lost about 200-million working hours between the first and second quarters of 2020. This is equivalent to more than 4.4-million weekly working hours.
South Africa’s poor bore the brunt of the fallout from the pandemic. The shutdowns by government and the lack of economic activity – as in many parts of the world – caused many businesses to close their doors permanently; they were not able to survive through the lockdowns. Many of South Africa’s poorest engage in and survive by working in the informal sector. Almost 18% of the total employed workforce in the country are working in this sector.

Informal businesses do not have savings and live ‘from hand to mouth’. There is no safety net, they have no recourse to government aid. They do not make a contribution to the country’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and they are not entitled to the basic benefits of those protected by the country’s labour law. People in the formal sector who make a contribution to the UIF had recourse to some income through this fund.
It is estimated that one in two informal workers in the country lost their livelihoods during the pandemic. To complicate matters more, we must take cognisance of the fact that many workers have a number of dependents – older people, children and extended family. So, the loss of jobs may not only affect the nuclear family but the extended family too; this can at times amount to 30 people or more.

This is especially pertinent in the rural areas and many of the so-called ‘townships’ – the spatial/geographical separation created in the apartheid era to keep black and white people apart. Many of the townships, because of the legacy of apartheid and the incompetence of the government in South Africa’s democratic era, are still underdeveloped and therefore mostly inhabited by the poor.
Self-employed workers in the informal sector experienced nearly three times greater negative effect on employment than the overall average according to a study done by the School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (WITS). The COVID-19-induced employment loss essentially erased the last decade of employment growth in the country. The economic disaster brought by COVID will take a long time to recover.

Health Care
Like the economy, South African has a two-tiered, highly unequal health system. The majority of the country’s poor are catered for by the state-funded system – around 71% of the population. The private system is largely funded through individual contributions made to medical schemes and serves about 27% of the population. The public sector is underfunded and most people cannot afford the cost of private care. While the country’s Constitution would say all have the right to health, this is certainly not the reality in South Africa.

During the pandemic this was acutely shown in the fact that those with money had far more access to testing, oxygen and other necessary COVID-related treatments.
Just over 3.5 million cases of the virus have been reported in South Africa. 96 thousand people, according to statistics, have died. How accurate these numbers are can be disputed. Some would say, due to poor administration and no testing or non-reporting in rural areas, the number could be much higher.
An examination of the numbers per province shows that the poorest places in the country had much higher death rates. In the poor and most rural Eastern Cape (population of 6.7 million) there were 758 excess deaths per 100 thousand people in 2020. The most populous province, with the best infrastructure, Gauteng (population 15.4 million), had a lower death rate. There were 373 excess deaths per 100 thousand people in the same period.
One of the biggest lessons COVID taught South Africa was that poor health care at lower levels meant an increased risk of severe illness and death. The poor, because of their economic position, are generally malnourished and hence have less immunity to infection.
Comorbidities are a huge risk for COVID-19. If the health sector was more efficient and diagnosed and treated people living with, for example, diabetes at the community level, the outcome would have been better. If the country had a strong primary health care network with well-trained and competent health workers, the poorest would have stood a better chance when COVID struck.

Entrance to Dr George Mukhari University Hospital in Ga-Rankuwa area, north Pretoria©sunshineseeds/123RF.COM

The health care sector has massive problems: first, the health care needs of the population exceed the capacity of the system; second, the vast majority of people do not know their health needs (they have no access) and so aren’t treated; third, the way the system is funded perpetuates massive inequality.
The very fabric of many state-run hospitals is poor. Buildings and infrastructure are falling apart and medical equipment is old. Many poor and sick people wait hours or even days for treatment in state facilities.
In order to deal with the pandemic, many hospitals stopped other services and focussed on COVID patients. People could not get treatment for basic health issues and some people could not access drugs – like antiretrovirals for HIV/AIDS. The drugs were simply not being dispensed or people, who had lost income, could not get to places to collect them. Many services like blood-pressure management, tuberculosis, diabetes and even cancer treatments were stopped to cope with the pandemic. This would impact life expectancy beyond COVID.
The already frail public health care system has been stretched beyond crisis proportions. There is a massive backlog of treatments that need to be done.The COVID pandemic has been bad news for South Africa. The burden on South Africa’s poor before COVID was by no means light. They now carry a heavier burden, one in which their basic humanity stands little chance of ever being realised.

Russell Pollitt

 

Photo Gallery – Snapshots from Africa

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