Music, book and film reviews from the last 3 months
Piliostigma thonningii, common name ‘camel’s foot’, is a leguminous, deciduous tree with a single stem, native to tropical Africa. It grows in open woodland, savannah regions, and wooded grassland in low to medium altitudes. It is a multipurpose tree of vast importance for health. This evergreen species is a good shade tree that fixes nitrogen…
Read moreAimed at Africans and the diaspora, the Pan-African Museum of Heritage and Culture in Accra (Ghana) is a project in the name of black pride and memory. Opening in 2022. The man who thought up the idea of the project is Kojo Yankah, former MP and minister in the government of president Jerry Rawlings (in…
Read moreIn the African context, Ubuntu is a religious belief which concerns the need for humans to live together positively. This belief is found throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa. Africa on the whole did not develop a written means of communication. African traditional religion is handed down orally. Unlike the other great ancient religions, for instance…
Read moreOn the Madagascar plateau the bodies of the dead are exhumed from their tombs and brought out for a day of celebration which, with singing and dancing renders homage to their dead. Close to the edges of the rice fields connecting the valleys of the central highlands, flickering lights can be seen in the darkness…
Read moreThe wars in Syria and Iraq are (mostly) over, but the region’s rich cultural heritage remains at risk. Mosul, Aleppo, Baghdad – whose Iraqi Museum was looted after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 – Damascus and Palmyra are some of the oldest cities in the world. Life and civilization have continued and evolved…
Read moreSyria is the Arab country that has best preserved the physical evidence of its pre-Islamic past: from the proto-Semitic cultures of the Levant (such as the Phoenicians to Mesopotamians and Assyrians) to Greek and Roman (the city of Palmyra, as well as Damascus and Aleppo, exemplifying this multifaceted aspect of the Syrian heritage). In fact,…
Read moreThe head of a musical movement that is both cultural and profitable, Michael Kwesi Owusu Addo, known professionally as Sarkodie, achieved this position due to the stylistic ductility and the quality of his texts in the Twi language. With the international emergence of modern African music, in the eighties, a number of stars of that…
Read moreThe Qhapaq Ñan is an extraordinary set of roads constructed by the Incas. This network connects several Andean villages and sites that highlight the Inca ancestral architecture. This road system was a route of trade and it contributed greatly to cultural exchanges. The Qhapaq Ñan is a set of roads, which is said to be…
Read morePlants have been a source of effective therapeutic agents for various diseases. Globally, there is a growing interest in the development of drugs of plant origin. Lantana camara (Family Verbenaceae); common name lantana, is one of the plants known to have great therapeutic potential. It is an erect or subscandent, vigorous shrub which can grow…
Read moreWearing a mask is essential when faced with a virus like Covid-19. The notion of human protection from disease by the use of masks is a practice that goes back thousands of years in the traditions of great civilisations all over the world. A glance at African cultures. In Africa, various traditions have used masks…
Read moreEvocative music, blending ancestral melodies and pop rhythms. “I hear our ancestors encouraging us to find our Promised Land and challenge injustice.” The Shona People of Zimbabwe love the mbira, a Sub-Saharan musical instrument. The mbira is a small wooden tablet (often about the width of two hands beside each other) on top of which…
Read moreThe Dream Catchers Academy is an organisation that helps street children. To give them some dignity and a future. Lagos is the biggest city in the whole of the African continent and one of the most densely populated in the world. It is so big that other ‘cities’ have formed within Lagos itself. In the…
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“We want to create a federation of international journalistic organisations that collaborate in this effort, starting from the global South,” says Filipino journalist and 2022…
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Once upon a time, there was a leopard. He had a huge walnut tree that was full of nuts. Stingy as he was, however, he forbade…
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Three young Comboni missionaries from three continents share their vocation stories and missionary experiences. Fr Victor Cunanan Parungao from the Philippines reflects on 15 years of…
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