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Nigeria. Avocado, the black pear.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

Some African countries are on their way to becoming the main avocado exporters of the future due to the particularly favourable environmental conditions of the continent. The crop may take the place of coffee and create more jobs.

The avocado is certainly one of the food products more in demand in the West in recent years both for its culinary and aesthetic properties. The Latin American countries are the main exporters. There, the avocado is seen as nothing less than ‘green gold’ and it is a source of riches for the regional economy but it has come to be the symbol of environmental degradation and the exploitation of the cultivators. Recently, the market for this fruit has been expanding also in the African continent with modalities that are completely different from those of Latin America and give reason to hope for a mode of production that is both profitable and eco-sustainable. In Africa, in fact, the avocado is cultivated on small farms in areas of high rainfall that renders unnecessary the use of harmful pesticides and avoids creating water supply problems
for the local population.

Kenya is already among the top ten producers in the world, while other African countries have only just discovered the characteristics of this new crop. This applies to Nigeria where there are fields of various species of avocado, especially in Plateau State, but trade is more international than local. This is due to different factors, one of which is the lack of information among the population which is reluctant to cultivate a plant that takes several years and a lot of water before producing fruit as compared to cultivating maize and potatoes. Furthermore, starting a cultivation of avocado trees often requires imported seedlings which raises the cost of production. However, some cultivators have established themselves in this new sector and are collaborating with the Nigerian government to sensitise public opinion about the avocado, the modernisation of the agricultural system, rotating various crops so as to render the soil more productive.

Woman selling fruit in the market. Compuinfoto/123RF.com

The Avocado Society of Nigeria (AVOSON) is the main organisation at the national level devoted to developing the avocado market, guaranteeing the integrity of the environment and new jobs for the citizens. Besides various training projects, AVOSON also promotes outlets for the sale of seedlings so that the small farmers do not have to pay high prices for imports. There are still, of course, many questions to be answered, the first of which regards the effect of climate change on rainfall and the model of the future development of Nigerian farms, but at present there seems to be a real possibility of a new market for the country
and the surrounding region.

An alternative to coffee
Even though the export of agricultural products was, in the sixties, the largest source of income for Nigeria, since the seventies, agriculture has been neglected in favour of the petroleum sector. Only in recent years, due to the collapse of oil prices, is agriculture emerging from a long period of stagnation.

The government is now aiming not only to increase agricultural production but also to diversify and modernise it. In this context, the role of the avocado is becoming increasingly important. Coffee is another agricultural product that has been present in the African market for many years. Like the avocado, it is produced for export rather than local consumption. The African coffee plantations face strong competition from Latin American countries known for the excellent quality of their coffee as well as climate change due to which rainfall has become unreliable and endangers the fields of millions of African coffee cultivators. The government is therefore making investments to develop new techniques of coffee cultivation as well as diversifying production while relying on avocado plantations.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo (L) holding an Avocado while speaking Sola Adeniyi, chief executive officer, of Avocado Society of Nigeria. (Photo Business Day).

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo defined the avocado as ‘the new Nigerian oil’ during a meeting of the Avocado Society of Nigeria and hopes that the country will become its largest exporter before the end of 2030. Income from the export of this fruit increased by a third from 2019 to 2020 in eastern Africa. The ‘African pear’ – as the fruit is sometimes called in the continent – is being seen not only as an antidote against malnutrition and some diseases but also against poverty since it creates work for many of its citizens. The schools are also providing information about this fruit so rich in beneficial properties, and the government is enthusiastically supporting initiatives in the sector, confident that the hopes of the former President may be realised.

Alessandra De Martini/CgP

Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya. Death of the Moses of the Congo.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

Like Moses, Cardinal Monsengwo, who died in France 11 July last aged 81, fought for most of his life to lead his flock to the promised land of democracy but did not see it himself.

Most of those who knew him consider Mgr. Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya who just passed away in a hospital near Paris, to have been one of Congo’s greatest figures and even one of Africa’s most important church leaders of his generation.
Born into a family of traditional chiefs of the Sakata tribe, in the Mai Ndombe province, near Kinshasa, Laurent Monsengwo, the son of a carpenter, was a brilliant student at the Kabwe Major Seminary where he studied philosophy. A few years later, he travelled to Rome where he was ordained to the priesthood at the age of 24.
The young priest soon became quite a figurehead among African Roman Catholic intellectuals. He was the first African doctor of Biblical Exegesis which he was awarded in 1971 and the first of his continent to become the special secretary of a Synod of Bishops in 2008. Later in 2021, he co-chaired with Pope Benedict XVI the synod on the New Evangelization.

Laurent Monsengwo’s cultural achievements are impressive. He spoke more than 12 languages including his mother tongue Kisakata and also the Congo’s main linguae francae, Lingala and Swahili beside those of the Belgian colonizers: French and Dutch. In addition, he learnt Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese. He was also familiar with the languages of the Scriptures: Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek and Latin. Moreover, Laurent Monsengwo composed pieces of organ music and celebrated Holy Mass according to the Zairian ritual which includes dancing in accordance with the inculturation theology he was promoting to spread the Gospel in Africa.
After he was consecrated bishop by John-Paul II in 1980, Mgr. Monsengwo became archbishop of Kisangani and later of the capital, Kinshasa until 2018. In 2010, Benedict XVI made him a cardinal. He also acquired an international dimension after he became the chairman of Zaire’s bishops’ conference, was elected chairman of the symposium of bishops conferences of Africa and Madagascar and chairman of Pax Christi International. He also represented Africa in the College of Cardinals appointed by Pope Francis to reform the Curia.

In many ways, Mgr. Monsengwo played a pivotal role in the Roman Catholic Church on the African continent. But his political involvement in Congo itself provided him with even more visibility and celebrity. Indeed, as a promoter of the basic ecclesial communities which were spreading all over the country, Mgr. Monsengwo became one of the main authors of the Roman Catholic bishops’ memo which urged Mobutu to abandon the single-party system and pave the way for a democratic state. In 1991, he acquired a leading political role when he was elected chairman of the Sovereign National Conference, whose task was to lead the democratic transition, while exposing at the same time, the properties misappropriated by the Mobutuist tycoons and cronies. Eventually, Laurent Monsengwo was elected chairman of the transition parliament called the Higher Council of the Republic. From this position, between of 1992 and 1996, he tried but did not succeed to force Mobutu to leave power in a very tense period. Those were the times of the massacre of Christian activists by Mobutu’s security forces during a peaceful demonstration for democracy on 16 February 1992.

But in 1997, the rebellion of Laurent Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire put an end to Monsengwo’s predominant role in Congolese politics and from then on, he devoted all his efforts to his Kisangani dioceses.
However, in 2000, the occupation of the city by Ugandan and Rwandan troops and the battle between them for the control of Kisangani and the looting of its resources prompted the prelate to get involved again in politics to expose the “martyrdom” of his compatriots and call for the creation of an international criminal court to judge the predators and the perpetrators of the crimes.
Ten years after Joseph Kabila was sworn in as the successor of his father Laurent, who was assassinated on the 16 January 2001, in an almost dynastic way, Mgr. Monsengwo criticised sharply the massive rigging of the 2011 presidential elections. He spoke of results that were not in conformity with truth or justice. He resumed the fight for free, fair and credible elections in 2016 at the end of Joseph Kabila’s mandate when the incumbent president was using all sorts of pretexts to delay the vote and stay longer in office. As protest demonstrations were growing, Congo’s Roman Catholic Church offered to mediate but Kabila used all sorts of tricks and managed to postpone the elections until December. At the time, Monsengwo’s address calling for the “mediocre people to step down,” met with tremendous success and gathered support all over the country. The cardinal said that the victims who died during these demonstrations wanted to remind us that “Pacta sunt servanda”, (Commitments must be respected). He also spoke against the “barbarity” of Kabila’s police who entered the churches including the cathedral, using tear gas.

Journalists will remind Cardinal Monsengwo as a man who, despite his monotonous voice, fascinated them with his vast culture and the relevance and humour of his statements. Few Congolese intellectuals have described as sharply the corrupt and versatile Congolese political class, which was going through an “ethical crisis” he said, distinguishing two main types; the very few “vertebrates” who rely on the support of a party, of a region, or of a cause and the chameleon-like “invertebrates” whose weakness is owed to their difficulty to stick to their word. “I almost have the impression that there is a cult of mediocrity in the country”, he said once to Vatican Radio.
To those who accused him of seeking power for himself, Cardinal Monsengwo retorted: “Political power does not interest me. I have said several times that we want a Congo of values and not a Congo of anti-values”. His successor as archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Fridolin Ambogo says: “He is convinced that you cannot believe in God without believing at the same time in the human person, in his or her dignity”.

François Misser

Kenya. Nairobi’s thirst for a future.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

Short of water and housing, with spreading criminality and a pandemic that seems difficult to bring to a halt, Nairobi is in search of a ray of light. With its lively underground scene fed by a young, dynamic society and a futuristic smart city plan, the Kenyan capital is trying to quench its thirst for a future.

Before the formation of the metropolitan area with more than ten million inhabitants, there was a vast swampy area where various peoples lived, the best known of which were the Maasai. It is from the Maasai language that Nairobi takes its name: enkare nyirobi, the land of cold waters. When the British arrived in 1899, it was necessary to open East Africa to colonisation, join the internal regions of the continent with Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean. Nairobi was then founded at the beginning of the twentieth century as a railway depot for Uganda Railway. This marked the start of a population explosion from 25,000 inhabitants in the early twenties to 4.5 million today and an annual growth projection of more than 4% at least until 2030.

So little remains of those cold waters that, since independence, Nairobi has often had to come to terms with serious difficulties in providing water, due especially to the rapid rise in the urban population and a high rate of loss. The situation is so critical that, despite the large dam on the Thika River (with a capacity of 70 million cubic metres), the city is still exposed to the cycle of the seasons and only 50% of the population has direct access to the mains while 40% of the water is lost. Apart from the possibility of boosting the urban network, (64% financed by foreign donors according to USAID estimates), the government has launched a project to connect to the pipeline 193 wells dug by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services, a public entity, with an investment of 1.7 billion Kenyan shillings (about €13 million).
According to the Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation, Nairobi needs a further 260 million litres of water per day which, with the financial help of international institutions, the city intends to obtain by means of important infrastructure serving the entire metropolitan area, such as the Karimenu Dam (23 million litres per day) and Ruiru Dam (32 million litres), the Northern Collector Tunnel (140 million litres) and the Kigoro water treatment plant (140 million litres).

These projects could provide the Nairobi metropolitan area with more than 500 million litres per day, increasing the percentage of citizens with access to potable water which already rose from 72% to 76% in the last three years. While the shortage of housing has become a chronic affliction for the well-off western metropoli, the phenomenon assumes dramatic proportions in Nairobi. According to the World Bank, Kenya would need to build around 200,000 new homes every year to keep up with population growth but the situation shows a housing deficit of about two million units. As a result, Nairobi has an abundance of slums full of misery and poverty, with no essential services where conditions are ideal for the incessant spread of the pandemic which has already reached 70,000 cases in the city. The crisis is aggravated by the constant coming and going to and from the rural areas of the country from where thousands of people come to the capital in search of a better life.

Overcrowding in the slums of the periphery also contributes to the intensification of existing criminality, a very dangerous phenomenon for the capital of a country in the front line of the fight against international terrorism. However, the housing crisis has also been produced by the real estate bubble that has held Nairobi in its grasp for years. Around 75% of the workforce of the city earn less than 500 dollars a month and 91% live in rented accommodation due to high interest rates on loans. This creates a wide gap between those who earn enough to buy a house and to change the face of entire quarters. An example of this is the ongoing process of gentrification in Eastleigh, in the eastern part of Nairobi now in the hands of the Somali diaspora while the original population increasingly falls victim to authoritarian evictions enforced by the police as happened in the spring of 2020 when, from one day to the next, the Kenyan government removed around 8,000 people from the Kariobangi and Ruai. The urban and housing dynamics, an emblem of the rapid increase in inequality, have led to a stratification of classes and groups in a regime of substantial coexistence which has amplified the perception of the marginalisation of the poorer segments of the population, especially the young who are trapped between the dream of riches and the disenchantment of deprivation, often co-opted by criminality. In a country where youth unemployment is almost 40%, the young people frequently face a lack of education and training, despite the government having started various initiatives within the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, Vision 2030 and the former Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation.

The vitality and complexity of Nairobi is also shown by the vibrant music scene which is going beyond the confines of Kenya, especially regarding hip hop and electronic music, with productions by artists like The Cosmic Homies, Khaligraph Jones, Karun and Octopizzo. The parabola of Nairobi hip hop has its roots in the slums, in contexts of social conflict and contestation, poverty, violence and discomfort. The song ‘Wajinga Nyinyi’ by King Kaka, for example, is one of the soundtracks of youth protests against corruption, misgovernment and the feeling of being deprived of a future. The former group Ukoo Flani has made the suburb of Dandora, the site of the largest dump of the city and the centre of dubious business between Italy and Kenya, into one of the main rap scenes of the country. All this is accompanied by the coloured graffiti culture which, in defiance of the law, is to be seen on the matatu, the privately-owned minibus taxis. In the midst of such a scenario, not many people would connect the concept of a ‘smart city’ with a metropolis like that of Nairobi. Yet, an experiment is taking place to use technology to modernise the city and render it more visible, also helping it to face the dangers posed by climate change.

The project ‘Konza City’ was born in Nairobi.

The terms and conditions are dictated by a society where the average person is young, where new technologies are slowly but inexorably taking hold thanks to the development of telecommunications and digital technology in the field of banking and finance. It is no coincidence that the project ‘Konza City’ was born in Nairobi. This involves the idea of creating a sort of Kenyan-style Silicon Valley, a project worth 14.5 billion to be built 60 kilometres from the city that could create about 20,000 jobs. It is planned to function as a real smart city capable of collecting data on traffic, transport, energy, and construction. Like the Konza Technopolis, a hub of innovation and research which, though rather late in comparison with others, is proceeding by leaps and bounds.
These are small signs of hope in a difficult context, forging ahead and making up for lost time. Perhaps they are but a drop in the ocean, but they may help Nairobi to quench its thirst for a future.

Luca Cinciripini – Beniamino Franceschini/CgP

Gerewol. The festival of Love.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

The Gerewol is the festival of bodily beauty. The young Bororo, after spending ascetic months in the savannah, paint their faces with the most extravagant designs to accentuate their extended lines.

On a pre-selected plain, the various groups set up camp with small huts made of branches and mats. The enclosure for the livestock is close by. At dawn, a woman sings: ‘The morning star has risen. O you, most beautiful girls, and you, charming youths, arise. The great of the Gerewol begins’. Both the youths and the girls dress up for the feast: ethnic tattoos, abundance of necklaces, bracelets and rings. Narrow black, white or yellow lines from forehead to cheeks help to make the noses appear still longer and sharper. Each one looks at himself or herself in a mirror and is pleased with his or her beauty. What matters for the young Bororo is to differentiate oneself as much as possible from what distinguishes the appearance of the Africans of the central west.

The signal for the start of the feast is given by a second song. The young men, unmoved, with painted faces, smiling and with their lips painted black, begin the first moves of a ritual dance. Hand in hand and forming a circle, they begin to sing a monochord song based on a single, continuous note. In a few minutes the harmony becomes almost hypnotic; the appearance of the young people creates a hallucinogenic vision. The dance consists of a series of slow upward jumps in which the body is bent, almost in an arch, while the face assumes bizarre expressions. The dancers roll their eyes, show their teeth, puff out their cheeks, and grimace with their lips, turning them outwards in impossible ways or making them tremble. Their aim is to show off their attractiveness, their magnetism, their personality. The eyes fascinate and frighten. Some are able to roll one eye while keeping the other still like that of a fish.

Four men, winners of former ‘editions’ and now appointed judges, observe and urge on the dancers. Novices and beginners soon give up and go to one side, leaving the true champions to continue the contest. Excitement grows. The challenge is hard. Some surrender and the remainder rejoice. They change their ostrich feathers for others; they touch up their paint or go over it again, increasing the magnetism of their faces.The girls have hitherto confined themselves to watching and commenting on the appearance of different dancers. Now, however, an elder approaches and offers them his hand. Now free to approach the dancers, their presence adds fuel to the fire. Covering her critical eyes with her left hand, the first girl chooses a youth with a gracious gesture of her shoulders. He is ‘her’ togu. But he is not necessarily the most interesting of all. That decision belongs to the judges and will be made at the end of the festival.

The Wodaabe believe the heart is the seat of the togu. A person with togu speaks with the heart. Togu is a way of being, based on behaviour that is noble and refined behaviour but is also courageous and warlike. The dancers continue to dance. The second girl comes on the scene, then the third and all the others. Each one chooses her young man. ‘Married’ to a man not of her choosing, the girl is now free to have the man who made her heart beat faster. At least for one night! Nevertheless, the Gerewol is also the appropriate occasion for a true teegal marriage. The union will be sanctioned by the results of the first night of love spent together. If a child is born, it will be a ‘love- child’. Once the seven days of the festival are over, filled with memories and renewed in spirit and in body, each one returns to their usual way of life. “We are not afraid of the difficulties of life like drought or death. As long as we have feet to walk with, we will take our herds where the land is fertile. Our life is like the sand of the desert, always moving, without end. And when we die we shall continue to walk and to watch over from above the herds of our children”.

Text & Photos. Francesca Mascotto

People and Values are Interconnected.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

Advocacy is both defending people, especially the poor and vulnerable ones, and actions promoting values. Splitting the two, people and values, however, brings advocacy to a cleft stick of becoming a tricky ideological issue. Insofar, a clear set of values on the background of any advocacy is of acute need. Two significant examples are on the front page during these weeks.

On the NGO/CSW website, has appeared a document advocating and supporting the position that “sex work” is a feminist principle. The statement provoked a counteraction through a proposed letter for signing by organizations and individuals from across the world.
In the letter, a statement out of concern opposes this initiative supporting inclusiveness and intersectionality in the women’s movement to promote prostitution.

“The notion that sex work is work –states the document- is one we believe to be fundamentally incompatible with the values laid out in a statement called The Affirmation of Feminist Principles which claims to oppose exploitation and discrimination in all its forms. We know that the sex trade systematically preys on poverty and disproportionately harms women of color, children, trans-women, and other marginalized communities. Any effort to legitimize it as an alternative to education and employment is counterproductive to our collective long-term
goal of gender equality.”

At the same time, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, archbishop of Newark (NJ-US) expresses his concern because the proposed federal budget of the United States wants to eliminate the Hyde Amendment, “which, for 45 years, has prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion.” He explains, “The Hyde Amendment is credited with saving the lives of millions of children. Now, the powerful pro-abortion lobby and members of Congress are calling for the elimination of this Amendment and the implementation of a policy that would designate billions of taxpayer dollars for elective abortions,” even in foreign countries.

“Taxpayer-funded abortion represents a failure to recognize the sanctity of human life and promotes a culture in which human life in its most vulnerable moment is perceived as disposable. Such a proposal targets poor women as needing an expedient solution to a complex problem.”

Cardinal Joseph’s concern, however, stops short. The suppression of the Hyde Amendment and all action promoting abortion in Africa, for examples, would be not moral but a social tsunami. It will enforce the idea that rich countries ‘want to kill people’ in poor countries to decrease the world population.

As a result, for instance, South Sudan is about to send back the 124,000 doses of the anti Covid vaccine because for Africans, Covid and vaccines are, like abortion, European policies to kill African people. Which, by the way, would create in Africa the dreaded large pocket of infections that would then spread across Europe and the world through migrations, the exact contrary result of what many world organizations would like to achieve by sending vaccines free-cost to Africa.

As Pope Francis said, abortion “is not a primarily religious issue but one of human ethics,” and let us add a social issue. Think of China: after their one child policy, it allowed two children and now three. Without eliminating selective abortion, however. China is having 120 males for 90 females, with serious social hardship.

The solution? What the Romans did, the Sabine women’s kidnapping. For China, the solution is from Thailand and Myanmar through women and girls trafficking.
Are we then surprised why China vetoes UN intervention against the military dictatorship in Myanmar? China sells weapons to and steals women from Myanmar, and China, let us remember it, plays a prominent imaginary role in the social and public consciousness in Africa.

Going back to the first example, the quoted letter goes on, affirming, “Prostitution is a clear expression of the patriarchal systems of power”, oppressing women. However, it goes on, “We must recognize that male entitlement to the bodies of other people is a hallmark of slavery, colonialism, and other forms of racism, genocide, and domination. The system of prostitution is antithetical to equality.”

The advocacy aims at the universality of human rights, to non-discrimination, and freedom from violence, as well as to the understanding that human rights are inherent to every person, regardless of their sex or gender. Therefore, it is becoming clearer by the day that the presumption of defending any social group, even a minority, without setting the advocacy on the solid bases of universal and accepted values is just a sterile ideological action. “It cannot be emphasized enough,”

Pope Francis says, “how everything is interconnected.” The Pope applies this principle to explore the root causes of environmental degradation, linking it with corrupt social structures, human failures, injustice, and inequality. We cannot either separate the advocacy addressing human right from the defense of human values, people and values are interconnected.

John Paul Pezzi, mccj – Photo: © Can Stock Photo / hanohiki

Living without destructive plastic.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

Plastic was and is a magical invention. It is a material based on oil and has thousands of excellent and life-saving uses. In the medical world, in construction, in tool-making, manufacturing of phones and other gadgets, cars, household items, furniture and almost everything you see has plastic in it.

Our modern world depends on plastic to sustain its present lifestyle. But that lifestyle built on the plastic revolution has its dangerous dark side. Everything we humans use and discard can have dire consequences for the planet. Garbage is everywhere and it is damaging our health. Plastic pollution is destroying many creatures and poisoning our air and rivers and oceans and people don’t seem to care.

It is dangerous to health because it is a destructive chemical-based pollutant and it is the one-time use of disposable plastic stuff that is so dangerous and damaging to our lives, our health, our environment. The fish we eat have plastic in them because the vast oceans are filling up with discarded plastic. If you Google ‘Plastic Pollution in Manila’ you will get a sight that will make you cry or angry. You will see photos of the esteros, canals, rivers and Manila Bay choked with millions of discarded plastic bottles, cups, straws, bags, nets and wrappings. Eventually some drifts into the far ocean.

These single-use plastic items make up 40 percent of all annual plastic production worldwide. They are with us forever, you might say, and will not disintegrate for about 400 years. The millions of tons of floating plastic will eventually join the great Pacific garbage patch that covers a surface area that is 1.6 million square kilometres. That is three times the size of France. It is swirling in ocean currents between California and Hawaii and elsewhere. There are many other lesser known floating garbage islands where our discarded single-use plastics end up.

The ocean currents sweep up the floating plastic in gyre regions as they are called. An estimated 297 million tons of plastic is out there on the ocean currents distributed as follows: in the North Pacific (36 percent), Indian Ocean (22 percent), North Atlantic (21 percent), South Pacific (8 percent) and the South Atlantic (4.5 percent). The Mediterranean Sea has 8.5 percent. We humans sure dirty
our own planet.

What is most dangerous to all living creatures in the short and long term is the damage to our health from micro-plastics. The plastic bottles, cups, straws and bags eventually breakdown into tiny micro-plastic particles and even Nano-plastics.
A massive eight million tonnes every year float into the oceans and tons of plastic dust are blown into the atmosphere from the tons of plastic in open pit garbage dumps. We breathe the dust into our lungs. It may be necessary to always wear a mask.

The micro-plastics get into everything- our throats, lungs and stomachs- and they harm wildlife, too. Fish are found dead their stomachs filled with plastic bags. Tests have shown micro plastics are in many caught fish on our dinner tables. I have gone vegetarian.

Birds are dying by the thousands from eating plastic items. Penguins, albatrosses and many sea gulls have died as a result of eating floating or submerged plastics. Thousands of dolphins, sharks, whales and turtles are caught in the drifting discarded plastic fishing nets of the commercial fishing industry.
What incredible damage we are doing to wild nature, ourselves and our children by such irresponsible I-don’t-care behaviour.

Discarded one-use plastic is a culture of death and destruction. Researchers have found items from almost every continent floating in the garbage patch and cast up on remote Pacific islands. They have been found in the deepest part of the ocean to the highest point on earth, Mount Everest, no less. Europe and the United States have their garbage and plastic disposable and recycling challenges yet Asia is the source of most of the plastic garbage.

The plastic garbage monster is coming not only from the Pasig in Manila where most of it stays in coastal waters but mostly it is coming down the five major Chinese rivers and also from the Nile in Egypt, the Ganges in India, the Indus in Pakistan, the Niger in Africa and the Mekong River that passes through Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.

There is one way to solve this: a worldwide ban on single use plastics like plastic bags, cups, bottles, drinking straws stir-sticks, cutlery and food containers. There are laws in place in some countries banning plastic bags. In the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, plastic bags are banned in stores and super markets. More restrictions are coming in the US and the EU but not soon enough. The Philippines needs such laws to save our beautiful islands and rivers and beaches. Burying the garbage in the sand is not the answer.

Beach and environmental clean ups are good and we see youth cleaning up other people’s dirty environmental mess that is destroying the ecology. Speeches are important but action is more effective.
It will be so much better to prevent the plastic pollution by passing and implementing laws to get all stores, supermarkets, and food establishments to use only recyclable bio-gradable packaging
and wrapping.

Each of us can do our part. We can always have your own reusable water bottle, demand restaurants give a glass, ceramic or paper cup and paper straw and refuse to order if they use plastic. Look for bio-degradable materials. We can bring a shopping bag to the supermarket and never use plastic that is not biodegradable. At home or in the office, we separate all discarded materials and make a weekly trip to the recycling bins. If we all did these things, it would make a big difference. Let’s make a start. But we have to persuade government to act and pass stricter laws to end the plastic pollution in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Fr Shay Cullen (Manila, Philippine)
Photo: © Can Stock Photo / Zinkevych

“We are the ‘most beautiful’ of all”.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

The cult of physical beauty is most important. The rules of aesthetics are followed by the entire group.

Gently but firmly, the mothers try to shape the physiognomy of the new-born child in the hope of affecting the collective appearance of the group. From birth, the head of the child is delicately squeezed between the hands and the nostrils are compressed.
The Bororo believe they are the most beautiful people in the world.

The man is tall and slender with a straight nose, large eyes, white teeth and a high forehead. These are the rules of beauty for the male nomad. The woman also has soft and gentle lines and wants to have a concave spine and lengthened breasts. She wears her hair in the form of a bun plaited on her forehead. The scars on her face and the sides of her mouth denote the clan she belongs to and protect her from evil spirits. Her jewels and ornaments make her even more good looking. For her, beauty represents the joy of life.
The social position enjoyed by the woman within the family renders her tranquil. She has the same status as the husband: she may share her man with three other wives but she may easily abandon him.

The young Bororo spend much of their time taking care of their bodies. They adorn themselves with earrings and multi-coloured necklaces and cover their eyes with a blue veil. They live as young people up to the age of sixteen. When a man asks for a young woman as his wife, he must accompany his request with a gourd full of milk: if he is accepted by the family of the girl, the future spouse must offer his in-laws three Zebu cattle for the great marriage feast. Every palio, a word denoting a single Bororo, gives the greatest attention to respecting the norms of behaviour handed down from father to son: strength, courage, pride, honesty. When he goes against them he becomes a pulaku (meaning ‘you are outside’, you have gone beyond the norms of the fathers and you must therefore leave). Another serious offence is that of the septundum, lacking respect for the wife or not satisfying her desires, including her loving advances.
“If her heart is already far from you, a mother may say to her son, you must not keep her because her sorrow will also become yours. Her beauty will fade. It is better that others should see her while she is beautiful rather than have her become unhappy staying with you”.

According to the Bororo, man and woman are like two poles that naturally attract each other. When she is ‘ready’, when she is neither pregnant nor breast-feeding her child and finds someone who attracts her, she must immediately halt, even if her herd is moving with the entire group. She stops in order to be with her young man who will never call her by name since this is prohibited by tradition. ‘The one you love, you must respect’, they say. One form of respect is not to show love openly. This is really a matter of avoiding the semteende, ‘the shame’, that strikes whoever breaks the taboo.
The Bororo woman is, however, free and independent. She has no regard for virginity and may reject the man her mother and father offer as her future husband. If her husband is unfaithful, the demands of culture determine that she is in no way faithful since this would be unjust. (F.M.)

South Africa at the crossroads.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

Now is a critical time for South Africa, a major test of its institutions and leaders. Former President Jacob Zuma (79) is finally behind bars.

The Constitutional Court, the country’s Supreme Court, will hear his appeal against a sentence of 15 months imprisonment for contempt of court. By refusing to testify Zuma, the very stereotype of leaders in Africa, defied a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture (systemic corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes for financial gain).

South Africa’s constitution includes important institutions intended as protections for democracy and guarantor of citizens’ rights. The office of Public Protector, reporting to Parliament, is an independent body designed to monitor government maladministration and corruption.

In March 2016, the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, set in motion an investigation into allegations against Zuma. It was widely believed that three businessmen brothers, the Gupta family, in cahoots with Zuma had been selling top ministerial appointments in exchange for highly favourable business deals and contracts.

The investigation itself was the result of a civil complaints procedure initiated by Father Stanislaus Muyebe, the vicar-general of the Dominican Order in southern Africa, and a second complaint by the main Opposition Party, the Democratic Alliance. The final lengthy report of the investigation was worrying enough for the Constitutional Court to implement Madonsela’s recommendation to set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry. Zuma was finally forced to resign in 2018 after nine years in office.

I only met Zuma once some forty years go. He suddenly appeared from behind a bush in the then Salisbury capital of Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe. I was with Rev. Frank Chikane, the future secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), then and now a prominent and courageous advocate of human rights and democracy. Frank was meeting his brother, an active member of the external ANC.

At the time, the ANC camps in Angola and Zambia had been infiltrated by apartheid agents and in an atmosphere of paranoia scores of alleged ‘sell-outs’ had been executed. Zuma was head of ANC Intelligence. Even in that fleeting encounter he struck me as a frightening
and dangerous man.

In 1994, not long after he stepped down as President of Zambia I accompanied the late Kenneth Kaunda (KK) monitoring South Africa’s first fully free elections. His recent death reminded me of so many unanswered questions about the leaders of the African liberation movements. How had they managed the transition from political activist or guerrilla fighter to holder of high office in an independent State?

Why in the case of Kaunda, a pious Christian and a thoroughly decent man, was the one-party State a natural default position? In the case of Zimbabwe, did its first President, Robert Mugabe, impart a sense of entitlement to wealth through power the result of suffering, persecution and prolonged imprisonment under collapsing colonial or settler rule?
A kind of reward?

The heady atmosphere of optimism and idealism, the euphoric crowds voting during the 1994 elections, are long gone. Even then there were serious threats. Kauda was assigned to KwaZulu-Natal where Inkatha, the Zulu tribal movement, was shaping up for a war with the ANC. Violence that could derail the process of the elections. Kaunda had a retinue of two: a Zambian bodyguard impeccably turned out in military uniform and myself as bag-carrier and general factotum. We were lucky.

The Zulu leader Gatsha Buthelezi backed off after intensive lobbying . Instead of carrying machetes and guns the young men we met in our first small town were having a wonderful time talking into walkie-talkies and acting as if they were a Presidential protection unit. Sadly intercommunal violence was to pick up after the elections.

Kaunda stopped at Pietermaritzburg for a night-time vigil in an Anglican church. We had a row of pews to ourselves with the bodyguard seated two places away on the left of Kaunda and myself on his right. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Denis Hurley, the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, were to give short homilies. During a silent period for prayer out of the corner of my eye I saw a stocky white man barreling down the left aisle. He stopped at the end of our row. He looked disturbed. It didn’t look good. As he pushed along the row towards us it looked bad.

To my amazement the bodyguard let him pass, sit down next to Kaunda and start sobbing. Kaunda handed over his signature handkerchief and held the weeping man’s hand. The man blurted out that he had come to ask forgiveness. He had been on a South African commando raid into Zambia which had killed several people. Kaunda said a few gentle words. Somehow both the bodyguard and Kaunda had known this white intruder was intent on confession, truth and reconciliation, not assassination. It was a mysterious moment but in retrospect caught something significant both about South Africa in 1994 and Kaunda’s personality and leadership.

Kaunda and my friend, the SACC’s Rev. Frank Chikane, owed much to a Christian humanism that allowed them to move seamlessly between the political and the religious. Chikane survived neurotoxin poisoning by the apartheid security police and became in 1999 Director-General in Thabo Mbeki’s presidential office. In July 2010, Frank courageously publicised his insider blow-by-blow account of the de facto coup by which Zuma forced Mbeki’s resignation and came to power as President. Chikane now has a leading role in the nationwide Defend Our Democracy Movement, a coalition of NGOs, religious bodies and lawyers.

Chikane is both consistent and persistent. His position is simple. South Africa’s future had fallen into the hands of politicians who looted the country and enriched themselves at the expense of the people. Now is the time for the people to mobilize ‘as the last line of defense’, Chikane’s words, to protect South Africa’s democracy. Against this background of a popular movement, and Zuma in prison despite support in the ANC, the role of the judiciary takes on a particular significance. Meanwhile Mandela’s spirit of reconciliation and enormous self-sacrifice for his country remains a political ideal.

Younger readers may think of distant South Africa and the 1990s themselves as ‘another country’. But there are lessons for Britain’s contemporary political problems. We need some of that early post-apartheid political creativity, the infectious hope that things can change. We need a concerted movement that draws different parts of society together to support our institutions and defend our democracy. And we need Church leaders with the courage and confidence to recognize our problems as both ethical and political who will speak truth to power and act accordingly.

Ian Linden
a visiting Professor at St Mary’s University,
London.

South Africa has been rocked by the worst violence since the nation achieved democracy in 1994.The unrest began on July 8 when former President Jacob Zuma started serving a 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court. Supporters in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal set up roadblocks on major highways and burned about 20 trucks. The protests closed the N3 and N2 highways, which link the Indian Ocean ports of Durban and Richard’s Bay to the industrial hub of Johannesburg and to Cape Town.

The unrest spread within KwaZulu-Natal, where shopping malls and centers were ransacked by mobs that took food, electronics, clothes and liquor. Attacks on retail centers also spread inland to Gauteng province, to Johannesburg, the country’s largest city, and to Pretoria, the capital. In Durban and Pietermaritzburg, crowds attacked warehouses for major retailers and factories, which were set alight. Several burned until their roofs collapsed. The unrest lasted for a week until 25,000 army troops were deployed.

At least 215 people died in the unrest, and more than 2,500 were arrested on charges including theft and vandalism, according to government figures.
Extensive damage was done to 161 malls and shopping centres, 11 warehouses, eight factories and 161 liquor stores and distributors, according to the government. An estimated $680 million was lost in stolen goods, burned trucks and destroyed property. (c.c.)

Israel. Nevé Shalom – Wahat al-Salam. An Oasis of Peace.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

On a hill between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem stands a village that is an oasis of peace. Its dual name Nevé Shalom – Wahat al-Salam respects the two communities that live there, one Hebrew and one Arabic, in a land where peace has been wanting for more than seventy years.

The name Nevé Shalom– Wahat al-Sa-lam is a bilingual expression meaning ‘Oasis of Peace’ and signifies a dream that has existed since 1974. It is a village founded by the Dominican priest Father Bruno Hussar, a Catholic convert from Judaism and an Israeli citizen. His idea was to ask Jewish and Arabic families to live together in the same place and so create a single community. For 47 years, the village of Nevé Shalom– Wahat al-Salam shows the whole world that Jews and Arabs can live together respecting and understanding each other and seeing others as an enrichment and not as a danger – and to do this in a society where Israeli-Palestinian conflict has lasted for more than seventy years and where hatred has caused people to question deeply the idea of a village where different people live together on a daily basis.
This is demonstrated by the various acts of vandalism perpetrated each year against Nevé Shalom – Wahat al-Salam. Despite all this,
the experience goes on.

The aims of Nevé Shalom– Wahat al-Salam are to face up to the complexity of the different situations, to break down divisions and stereotypes, to focus upon the relationship between power and prejudices, to become aware that each person has a role in the construction of a more just society and fraternity, where each person has their place and their role. There are tens of thousands of young people who have been involved in the School for Peace as well as the adults who have learned in this place how to manage situations of conflict and are now active in organisations involved in resolving the conflict.
Nevé Shalom– Wahat al-Salam wishes to be an experience of resilience where people are continually starting over again in the face of difficulties. Its strength derives from the relevance of a message that has its roots in the founder, Father Bruno Hussar, who used to say he had four identities since he was a Catholic priest, a Jew, an Israeli citizen who was born in Egypt and lived there until he was eighteen. Furthermore, Fr. Hussar held four citizenships during his lifetime: Hungarian, Italian, French and Israeli, as well as having been born in Cairo into a Jewish family that was well integrated into the Arabic world.
While in France studying engineering at university, Hussar met the figure of Jesus and in 1935 was baptised after a troubled journey. He would have like to embrace the priesthood but decided to postpone matters since he had to look after his mother and siblings. In 1945, he joined the Dominican Order, changing his name from André to Bruno.

He was sent to Israel charged with founding a Catholic centre for Hebrew studies. Once he had arrived in Israel, Fr. Hussar began to understand more and more the importance of his Jewish roots and his feeling of belonging to the Jewish people. He studied the Hebrew language and history including the attitude of the Church towards the Jews. He became increasingly convinced of the need to bring about a change in the teaching of the Church and the position and attitude of Christians towards Jews. In his early years, Father Hussar met other formerly Jewish Christians and some Christians who agreed with his views. In 1955, the Work of Saint James was founded for the purpose of deepening the encounter with the Jews. But Fr. Hussar felt it was not enough. He says: “There is the main conflict between Jews and Arabs…then there are countless other conflicts between Jews and Christians, Muslim Arabs and Christian Arabs, between Jews and Jews […]. They never see the faces of the others and they are not interested in seeing them”. Since it would have been impossible to deal with all conflicts, Fr. Hussar confined his attention to the two peoples that within the state of Israel confronted each other as enemies, and started to dream of a village called ‘Nevé Shalom – Wahat as-Salam (Oasis of Peace)’ where Jews and Palestinian Arabs can live together in equality, peace, collaboration and friendship. And so it was that, in 1974, the experience of the village of Nevé Shalom– Wahat al-Salam came into being.

The key to the experience of Nevé Shalom– Wahat al-Salam is dialogue. It is lived out daily between neighbours whether Jews or Arabs and also in the primary school attended by children who do not live in the village but in the surrounding areas: the educational system there is the only one in Israel where teaching is done in both Hebrew and Arabic. It is marked by the continual and spontaneous encounter between the children of the two peoples and guarantees reciprocal knowledge and respect as well as respect for the culture and traditions of the others. But dialogue also involves religious identity since the Arabs living in the village are partly Christian and partly Muslim.

On the hill the village is built on, there are no buildings for worship: the families practise their faith outside the village. However, a House of Silence (Bet Dumiain in Hebrew and Bet as-Sakina in Arabic): it is an architecturally very simple structure dedicated to reflection, meditation and prayer. It is neither a mosque nor a synagogue nor a church but a large, white-painted sphere with a simple entrance. Within it there are no religious symbols denoting one creed more than another: there is just a rock in the middle with an olive branch – a universal sign of peace – a lighted candle and some mats and stools. The House of Silence is dedicated to all faiths, a sign that unites in a land where religions divide people. Despite everything, the dream goes on.

Chiara Pellicci/PM

Africa. The Giraffe. ‘Higher than the trees’.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

Giraffe, in the Sindebele and Zulu languages, is Ndlulamiti, meaning literally ‘higher than the trees’, is one of the most iconic animals of the African continent. The tallest animal in the world, it can reach a height of six metres. The characteristics of this mild herbivore have enabled it to survive by blending in with its surroundings. However, the giraffe is in serious danger of becoming extinct due to the continual reduction of its habitat.

The giraffe is an artiodactyl of exceptional dimensions with the female weighing as much as a ton and the male 1200 kg. It is the only one of its kind, not only because it belongs to an almost unique family (that of the Giraffidae, which includes giraffes and the rare okapi), but also because its physical characteristics distinguish it unequivocally from any other mammal. While its height represents its more evident characteristic, its outer covering and irregular-shaped blotches make it no less unique among herbivores. The giraffe’s long neck, which may exceed a weight of 200 kg, enables it to reach the highest branches of trees beyond the reach of most other herbivores, with the exception of the elephant, and to carve out a specific alimentary niche for itself where it finds few competitors. Nevertheless, the bone structure of its exceptional neck is composed of only seven vertebrae, just like any other mammal, including humans. The exceptionally long, slender legs enable the animal to take long strides and to reach remarkable running speeds, even though the giraffe’s movements may appear elegantly slow.

The scientific name of the giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis, reflects an ancient myth that describes this animal as a cross between a camel (its mouth is like that of a camel and it also chews like a camel) and a leopard (due to the blotches on its skin). Its numerous sub-species are similar, though different, as regards the appearance of their hides.
From the dark brown blotches with irregular outlines of the southern African giraffe and those of its cousin the Thornicroft (endemic to South Luangwa, in Zambia), to the network markings of the Kenyan reticulated Giraffe, each sub-species has a characteristic skin but the pattern of the markings is a characteristic that is unique to each individual within
any given sub-species.

These dark markings are a most effective camouflage that fragments the outline of the animal and, at the same time, makes it blend in with its environment, often making a motionless giraffe in the bush become invisible, even from a few metres away.
Giraffes have at least one pair of horns composed of bony protuberances covered in hide and skin (unlike the keratin covering that antelopes have), but the males also have a third horn in the occipital zone that is less noticeable than the other two. The two main horns are, from birth, separate from the cranium – to facilitate calving – and become attached to it only after a few weeks.
The tongue of the giraffe also has unique characteristics: it has a bluish colour, more than a metre long and capable of freely grasping and manipulating even the branches of the karoo and white acacias covered in long, sharp thorns.

The ‘problem’ of height
The height and dimensions of the giraffe, together with its ability to launch deadly kicks in all directions, render the individual practically invulnerable to predators; only a large and experienced pride of lions can successfully hunt – and not without danger – an adult giraffe. However, the giraffe’s height also creates a problem that it had to face and resolve during its evolution. Sending blood to a height of six metres requires a good pump and the giraffe’s 12 kg heart fulfils this task efficiently; nevertheless, such a pump means pressure is high and this, in certain conditions, may cause dangerous on the ‘pipes’.
When a giraffe lowers its head to drink, it experiences the added pressure of gravity which would possibly cause the blood vessels in the head to burst. To counteract this pressure, evolution provides a remedy by means of a complex network of capillaries located in the neck of the giraffe: the wonderful network. This organ instantly balances the pressure of the blood, avoiding excessive pressure when the animal lowers its head and any drop in pressure if it suddenly raises it.

The legs, too, may suffer the negative consequences of high blood pressure: this is why the hide of the giraffe is so elastic in these areas and functions as a containing measure to avoid damaging blood vessels close to the skin. Being so well equipped, the giraffe may sleep soundly; but how and where does a giraffe sleep?
Giraffes spend from 16 to 20 hours feeding every day and so there is not much time for sleep. When they can, they crouch down with their legs folded under their breasts (the typical position of ruminants). Alternatively, they may rest their heads in the fork of a tree and enjoy forty winks. They never lie down completely because, as ruminants, they would be choked by the liquids in the reticulorumen, and they never really sleep. Like all ruminants, giraffes never sleep in the ordinary meaning of the word but enter a sort of ‘energy-saving mode’ during which the brain waves assume characteristics that are very similar to those produced by a non-ruminant during sleep.

The social system of giraffes
Despite their fame as formidable adversaries even for the most powerful predators, giraffes are essentially meek animals. They are very quiet (they make but a few sounds and these are not easily heard by the human ear), they live gregariously without, however, forming stable herds or groups. The social system of giraffes is, in fact, based upon temporary associations; they associate for short periods in groups without fixed ties from which, at any time, one or more individuals may separate to join another group or live a temporarily solitary life.

Consequently, they do not defend territory but during the mating season, the dominant males clearly vaunt their status by means of an ostentatious pose which they show off in all their majesty, threateningly approaching any potential male rival. If the latter does not show subordination, they may engage in violent blows of their horns driven home by their long muscular necks, while rivals maintain parallel positions. This is but a small break, essential for procreation: an interval of time after which the giraffes again become meek and peaceful. Unfortunately, however, despite their meek character, fate has not rewarded them: today the giraffe is in grave danger, caused by the continual reduction of its habitat by human expansion and its population decline has reached alarming levels, bringing it to local extinction in many areas of the continent.
The grassy savannahs punctuated by acacia trees or the open forests and riverbanks of Africa would not be the same without the long sinuous figures of these herbivores that, from time immemorial, traverse the continent. Like many of their similars, they have not managed to resist the implacable pressure of human expansion.

Gianni Bauce/Africa

Niger. The Bororo-Wodaabe. The Beauty of Liberty.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

The Bororo belong to the large ethnic family of the Peul, better known as the Fulani, Fulbe, Poular, Fula, and Fellata.

The origins of the Peul are still a mystery though there is no shortage of theories, some rather imaginative, in this regard. One theory, for example, says they came from Mesopotamia, having crossed the Red Sea. Others say they are descendants of a Hebrew-Egyptian group, forced to move south during the Roman conquest. Their language, Fulfulde, is in many ways similar to other idioms of the Dravidian branch and they have even been compared to the nomads of Iran.
However, the more credible version still is that the Peul originated in Ethiopia. About 5,000 years ago, these nomadic pastoralists seem to have expanded from the regions of the Horn of Africa, into North Africa, or more precisely, the Tassili Plateau in Algeria, and then emigrated towards the south west, moved especially by pressure from the Berber peoples (around 3000 AD).

Henri Lothe, the French explorer and ethnographer, in his account of the archaeological expedition undertaken in the fifties into the Tassili desert, examined hundreds of rock graffiti of inestimable historical and paleo-ethnographical value, discovered in the area, and noticed that many of these drawings showed surprising similarities with the somatic and clothing characteristics of the present-day Peul. Others who subsequently studied this rock art speculated on the presence of proto-Peul cultural elements in the region as long ago as the fourth millennium BC. The famous Mali author Hampate Ba, had no doubt about the presence, in some painted scenes, rituals and practices still to be found among the present-day Peul. In one of them, from the Bovidian Period, around, 4,000 BC, he recognised the lotori ceremony, a celebration of the aquatic origins of the ox, once practised by the Peul of the Diafarabe region in Mali, but which fell into disuse due to Islamisation. Another motif depicting fingers, convinced him that he had found a representation of the myth of the hand of the first Peul pastor Kikala. Finally, in a rock inscription found at Tin Felki, Hampate Ba was sure he could recognise a hexagonal jewel, very similar to the ‘Cross of Agadez’, a fertility talisman still used by the Peul women.

It seems certain, therefore, that the proto-Peul experienced a golden age on the Tallili Plateau in Algeria. Pastor artists like the Peul, in fact, must have been the authors of the many Saharan rock paintings showing water-loving animals (giraffes, hippopotami and buffalos) and very slender human figures. As the meadows dried up and the desert advanced, those nomadic pastoralists must have moved south with their herds and reached the region that extends from southern Mauritania and Senegal as far as Lake Chad.
The expansion of the present-day Peul peoples originated in the region of Futa Toro, which is roughly the territory of the valley of the Senegal River and includes the areas in the north of Senegal and the south of Mauritania. There, from the mixture of Berber pastoralists, Caucasians and sedentary blacks, the Peul ethnic group was born.

The black Peul gradually abandoned the nomadic life and became herdsmen and farmers. They live a sedentary life in large villages and mostly converted to Islam and mixed with other ethnic groups. Since the XV century, their warrior and conquering elite gave rise to numerous kingdoms and empires, from Senegal to Cameroon. They are the recognised founders of the great Sokoto emirate in Nigeria, after waging a long jihad, or holy war, led by Usman Dan Fodio. Where they did not form the royal family (as in the Hausa sultanates), the Peul held the posts of counsellors, lawyers and court officials. The Berber-Caucasian Peul, physically tall with a straight nose, smooth hair, narrow lips and reddish skin, have always avoided the mixing of blood or any sort of cross-breeding. They have remained pastoralists, very close, both in spirit and in habits, to the great Sahara and Sahel nomads.

A small minority of this group has kept intact the ancient traditions, moving with their herds among the sunny plains of the Sahel, seeking water and pasture. They are called Bororo, a name which, on the lips of other Peul, means ‘those who do not wash themselves and live in the bush’. They themselves are proud to call themselves Wodaabe (sing. Bodaado), which means ‘the people of the taboo’.
Islam has scarcely touched them. After a somewhat superficial conversion, they returned to their traditional religion (cult of the ancestors, belief in spirit or ‘djiins’). This caused the great Islamic warrior Dan Fodio to be ‘banished’ from the Islamic community; even today, in some Hausa emirates, they are believed to be infidels and are therefore ‘banished’. In turn, the Bororo Wodaabe consider the sedentary populations as their inferiors. They especially despise the black groups of the south which they call by such names as ‘hyenas’, ‘monkeys’, or ‘donkeys’. Mixed marriages with blacks are deplored and described as ‘eating the fruit of the bitter prune’. (F.M.)

Being Together and Sharing.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

Two Comboni missionary sisters from DR Congo share their experience. Compassion, commitment, and hope are the ways they share their life with people.

My name is Sr. Bernadette Idey, my missionary vocation brought me to live in the Middle East, Zambia, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, my native country, where I have been for five years now. I live in Mungbere, a town situated 138 km from Isiro, the capital of the new province of Haut-Uélé, in the north of the country.
Mungbere stands at a crossroads between important cities such as Isiro, Wamba, Mambasa, Watsa and Dungu. It has more than 20,000 inhabitants belonging to different ethnic groups: Mvu, Budu, Logo, Zande, Mangbetu, Yogo, Lokele, Luba, Boa, Mbuza and Hema. There is also a considerable number of pygmies who here are called bambote. Many other people have been coming here to work in the fields or cattle rearing, to engage in commerce, to have better access to health care and education or to escape from places where security was not guaranteed. With so many languages being spoken, French is still the official language, though Lingala is the medium in daily use.
Most of the people are Catholics though there are some who belong to other Christian denominations and there is also a Muslim minority.

The parish of Our Lady Consoler of the Afflicted, is part of the diocese of Wamba and administered by the Comboni Missionaries. The parish has a number of primary schools – including one just for pygmies – three secondary schools, a hospital which is also run by the Comboni Missionaries, and social structures for the promotion of women.
I am the headmistress and a teacher at the Mavuno Institute, one of the Catholic High Schools. My job is to plan and coordinate the curriculum and extra-curricular activities. My responsibilities also include supervising all the teachers and the students who aspire to taking up teaching in primary schools. Teaching provides me with an opportunity to keep in contact with young people. They sometimes need someone to listen to them, and the fact that I am an African and Congolese Sister helps them to trust me. They feel at ease with me and they sometimes share their anxieties, sorrows and joys. I am here to instil in them human, moral, Christian, and professional values and I endeavour to create a favourable environment for their development.
Compassion for children coming from areas of violence encourages me to welcome them and enrol them in school, sometimes contrary to school regulations. I see them as ‘lost sheep’ who have a right to education. This educational pastoral is a vocation that requires much patience, flexibility, availability, sacrifice, faith, and love but also firmness in facing up to certain situations. The best thing of all is being surrounded by young people who give me the joy of living.

In the rural and multicultural context of our school, I try to promote unity in diversity, religious tolerance, mutual respect, and the family spirit. We pay particular attention to the education of the girls, and especially that of the Pygmy minority since they are quite vulnerable and easily tend to abandon the school.
I encourage them to persevere in their studies as it is not easy for them to integrate into a structured educational system.
Despite everything, there are some reasons for optimism. Last year, for the first time in the history of the Institute, we had a Pygmy candidate for the state exams, which he passed. It was a cause of great joy for all of us and I hope it may serve as an example and inspiration for the other Pygmy students still attending the school.
One of my joys is to see how an increasing number of girls succeed in finishing secondary school, with good results in the state exams at the end. Those fortunate enough to go on to university are doing well and this is very encouraging. Only a few years ago, the girls would study much less than the boys and often gave up their lessons while still very young.Finally, I believe the Mission is everywhere. I am happy with my work in the field of education since it provides me with a vast field of apostolate and the opportunity to spend time with people of different social levels, sharing their sorrows and their joys.

Living with the people.
From Africa to Latin America. Continuing my studies in Mexico and now living in Texas. I am Sr. Isabelle Kahambu Valinande, a Congolese sister. After my religious profession, I was assigned to Mexico where I lived for nine years in three different places. I spent a year in Guadalajara working with the sick and elderly as well as in the parish. In Costa Chica, in the state of Oaxaca, I devoted two years to African-Mexican youth ministry. That was a beautiful experience during which I felt the joy of missionary life. It taught me to allow myself to be guided and I learned much from the young people. It also allowed me to really get inside the reality of the country and to open myself up to what was new and different while sharing what was mine.

The diocese of Puerto Escondido did not have sufficient pastoral agents, too few priests and, as a result, many young people were not being sufficiently assisted. Our parish in Huaxolotitlán had about 32 communities and just one priest who could not visit all the places during the year. The communities, therefore, organised the celebration of their faith themselves. I was one of four Sisters and we shared the territory of the parish among ourselves. While accompanying the people, I was deeply moved by their testimony of faith.
I must admit that this situation surprised me, knowing that Mexico is a country with more than 500 years of evangelisation. In my diocese of Butembo-Beni there are many priests and religious congregations. Even though it is not long since the coming of the Gospel, there are pastoral agents trained to accompany the Christian communities and the celebrations are very impressive.
In Costa Chica I had to turn my hand to all sorts of work. On Sundays, I would go to different communities for the celebration of the Word of God. I was also deeply moved by the celebration of funerals.

Traditionally, the dead are not buried without a blessing so the people go in search of a priest, a sister or a catechist. They say these people are ‘closer to God’ and that the prayers and blessings bring the deceased person close to God. They have one ritual which is a mixture of African and indigenous traditions. As soon as a person dies, while the body is still warm, they place it on the ground in contact with Mother Earth. “From the earth they come and to the Earth they return”, they say. When the body is cold, they believe that Mother Earth has received it. They then adorn the place with marigold flowers and lime, placing the dead person on a bed in preparation for the vigil after which they go to the chapel, something sacred for Catholics, and carry out the burial. The community then gathers to share food. The communities where I worked also have the custom of having a novena of prayers for the happy repose of the deceased. I appreciated very much this way of celebrating the life and death of people.

Lastly, I lived in Mexico City for six years. There, while studying Religious Sciences, I dedicated myself to missionary animation and ministering to migrants. At the Casa Mambre, I helped them with their administrative formalities and to study the language, especially those coming from Africa. At the Cafemir Centre, I collaborated in the psycho-spiritual accompaniment and manual therapy for migrants to facilitate their social integration. I am now in the United States where we are going to open a community in Texas to continue our work with the youth and migrants. (C.C.)

Photo Gallery – Jubilee 2025. Pilgrims of Hope

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Youth & Mission