Rebuilding Angola's Rural Schools

Angola's 27 years of civil war ravaged much of the country's interior infrastructure. Notably, rural schools virtually disappeared leaving an entire generation to grow up being unable to read or write. With the present concentration of building in urban areas and it is estimated that it will be years before the same efforts reach rural areas.

Rise International, (http://www.riseinternational.org/) a christian non-profit organization, has a mission to partner with Angolan churches, community leaders and the Angolan Ministry of Education to build primary schools in rural Angola. 

Since 2003, through the assistance of donated funds from global partners, RISE has:

• Funded and built 126 schools in rural Angola since 2003;
• Provided the opportunity for 55,000+ students to go to school;
• Supplied 49,500 textbooks;
• Received government recognition and facilitated partnership;
• Facilitate workshops for over 1000 teachers and leaders.

RISE states that its concentration of building physical school buildings in remote and nearly inaccessible villages, faciliates many other secondary programs. They explain that only when a school building is present will the Ministry of Education send teachers, will there be protection from the sun and rain, will NGO feeding programs initiate, will there be some textbooks and supplies, will there be a place for adult education and literacy, and will other healthcare classes and community gatherings be enabled.

Letter to Manuel - Video

The Institute for Internal Medicine (INMED), recently produced a touching video highlighting the CEML Hospital and the great medical needs in Angola.  INMED is a non-profit, educational corporation who has a mission to equip healthcare professionals with the unique skills to serve forgotten people around the work.   Please see the video below.  Enjoy!

Overcoming Angola's Doctor Shortage

Since its inception in 2006, the CEML Hospital has been staffed by resident and visiting expatriate doctors and medical personnel, who are able to operate a consistent and growing medical service to the southern region of Angola. In a strategy to create sustainability in operations and personnel, CEML is concentrating on training and implementing Angolan non-physician clinicians to meet the immense healthcare needs in the rural areas.

A Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail, recently published a revealing article outlining the extreme situation in Angola, where government hospitals have been built but with no doctors or medical staff to operate them.  Read this interesting article on this website..............

Ovimbundu Wisdom! No. 4

Here is more Ovimbundu wisdom pertinent for the upcoming Mother's Day.  Enjoy.

Proverb: Ina yukuene ndan onin ndekumbi, la kalisoki wove.

Literal Translation: Even though the mother of another shines like the sun, you will never replace your own mother.
 
Meaning: Nobody can substitute the tenderness and dedication of one's mother.

Malaria's Toll on Angola

The CEML Hospital is committed to providing prevention solutions to the blight of the deadly malaria virus; still the number one killer on the continent of Africa.   The recent statistics concerning malaria infections and deaths confirm the need for our continued efforts.

The co-ordinator of the Programme of Combat to Malaria, Filomeno Fortes, said this Monday in Luanda that Angola registered 3.1 million cases of malaria during the year 2009, which resulted in 8,000 deaths.

The official was speaking about the situation of malaria in Angola and the national strategic plan in a forum about the role of journalists in the fight against malaria. He said that the transmission of the disease in not uniform, having added that the central, coastal Benguela province was the most endemic of the country's 18 provinces with 28% of the cases of 2009.

According to the physician, Angola has two of the most violent species of mosquito of the world, the giant anopheles mosquito and the anopheles spontaneous mosquito, which can adapt to various circumstances living inside and outside residences and can also feed from animal blood.

The Angolan Government wants to gain control and reduce the disease by 2015 and eradicate the disease by the year 2030. To reach this goal, the Ministry of Health aims at reducing the cases of malaria by 60 percent, by the year 2012, and cover 80 percent of children below the age of five and pregnant women with malaria.

The treatment of pregnant women through quick tests, the use of mosquito nets and an integrated control are the objectives of the CEML Hospital and the Health Ministry. In 2008, the country registered 3.45 million cases of malaria.  (Angola Press, April 19, 2010)

Cotton Growing Revival: An Interesting Story

Prior to independence in 1975, Angola was one of the largest cotton producers both in Africa and globally. The decimation of the Angolan landscape during the 27 year-long civil war all but destroyed the cotton-growing industry as with most other agricultural industries.

The resurgence in the cotton-growing industry was kickstarted in 2005 by a massive loan agreement of $31.4 million with South Korea's Export-Import Bank to re-launch cotton production in Kwanza Sul province.  The modernization project is only now coming to fruition in 2010 with the completion of construction of irrigation infrastructure for a 5,000 hectare area in the coastal province.  Programs for technical assistance to cotton producers have only recently been ramped up. Though the project will begin in Kwanza Sul Province, it is expected to extend to other traditional cotton producing areas in Malange, Bengo and Benguela provinces and will ultimately employ about 10,000 families.

The initiation and growth of the cotton-growing history in Angola has interesting American roots; from the seeds to missionary involvement - read on! As early as 1820, the Angolan colonial government, ruled by Portugal, tried to promote cotton cultivation by promising to buy all cotton produced in the colony. The raw cotton materials was to be exported to Portugal to supply its burgeoning textile industry.  Under the initiative of the royal government, cotton seeds were acquired from America to distribute to Portuguese farmers in Angola.   

The outbreak of civil war in America in 1861 gave added urgency to the initiatives of the Monarchy and provided a stimulus to colonial producers in Angola to increase production. The war interrupted cotton supplies flowing from the Southern states of America to Portugal and sent international prices spiralling upward some 300%. Industrialists' fears about shortages of raw cotton and cotton cloth supplies from America and high international prices moved the Monarchy's Conselho Ultramarino (Overseas Council) to allow Governors General of Angola to offer concessions of up to 1000 hectares for cotton production, to spend 20 contos a year for a three year period on seeds and gins and to give ten-year duty exemptions on imports of machines, utensils, and means of transport destined for use in cotton production. Three years later, a decree of 14 May 1864 offered bonuses to Portuguese settlers if they grew cotton.  Twenty-five years later, the government offered to exempt Africans from serving military duty in the Portuguese Army if they produced 150 kilos of cotton. 

Though there was a plethora of legislative directives from early 1800s to the mid 1900s, these efforts did not foster any sustained cotton production in Angola. Only when international cotton prices were sufficiently attractive, as in the American Civil War and World War I, were any serious attempts made to produce cotton on a commercial basis.

Poor farming methods and the ambivalence to the crop affected cotton production over the years.  Unlike cocoa and coffee, cotton did not fit easily into subsistence patterns and African peasants therefore were reluctant to adopt it.  According to the local mindset, the plant was not of course edible, ant it occupied and exhausted soil which could not be interplanted with the local cereal staples. Moreover the seasonal labour demands of cotton are quite extensive, and coincide with the time when both men and women are needed for planting, weeding, and harvesting savanna food crops.

 

A chronicled turnaround in the cotton industry in central Angola was marked by a missionary who revolutionized Angolan agriculture and assisted the struggling cotton industry.  This missionary was Sam Coles, an Alabama African-American who went to Angola in 1923 as an agricultural missionary. Trained in agriculture and industrial arts in Talladega College, Samuel served for 30 years in southern Angola among the Ovimbundu.  Though he introduced new crops such as wheat and fruit, he was instrumental in teaching the Portuguese farmers and Ovimbundu people in the 300-mile area around his mission station how to improve their cotton crops and to farm it on previously unused land.  He introduced  the plow and taught Angolans to train cattle to pull the plows, to carry water, to stump trees, and to transport logs. 

(Adapted from SOWING THE SEEDS OF FAILURE: EARLY PORTUGUESE COTTON CULTIVATION IN ANGOLA AND MOZAMBIQUE, 1820-1926 - Journal of Southern African Studies and from Samuel B. Coles, Preacher with a Plow, Boston 1957)

Is education the key to reducing ‘irresponsible' tourism?

Having read a recent article in the Associated Press about the lack of knowledge that travellers between 18 to 30 have about the World, I asked myself: is this ‘responsible’? Shouldn’t they know about the destinations they are going to visit? In my view, education before departure nurtures a sense of respect and responsibility towards a countries people and heritage and can have a substantial effect on minimising the negative effects of tourism.

There are many reasons why young people want to travel; to escape from their daily routine, flee from their household to acquire independence or to take a break to decide whether they want to go to university or to work; but do they consider their impact on local populations in destinations? I am sure a lot of them do, but there are also a lot who definitely don’t.

I would like to illustrate a simple example of ‘irresponsible tourism’ from when I was in Banjul, the Gambia. I remember, whilst travelling through the country from Northern Senegal to Casamance in the South, being at a beach bar on the tourist stretch near Banjul and hearing a group of young British people shouting abuse at the waiters in a very derogatory way. This really offended me and also made me embarrassed of being of the same nationality as these ‘irresponsible tourists’.

The negative impacts of tourism are very present and are much easier to quantify than the positive ones due to the sheer number of cases and the rapidity of negative influence, however, the positive effects of tourism are very possible. As a result of the increased focus on ethical consumerism, specifically that of sustainable and responsible tourism, more and more stories are surfacing on the benefits tourism can have on local communities in impoverished rural areas of the world, if managed efficiently.

For example, in the Gambia, a movement of sustainable and responsible tourism projects has been increasing for the past 10 years and, as a result, an organisation called the Association of Small Scale Enterprises in Tourism (ASSET – Gambia) has been created to efficiently manage a network of community-based tourism activities which allows the money spent by the tourist to be distributed amongst the local communities in the area. Benefits such as a boosted local economy, sustainable community development schemes, environmental protection initiatives, empowerment of local individuals, entrepreneurship opportunities, cultural pride and historical preservation, amongst others, are starting to be felt by the local communities in the areas operated in such as Kartong and Gunjur.

The International Centre for Responsible Tourism (ICRT) has been successful over the past 10 years in creating a buzz around the term ‘Responsible Tourism’. They have organised events such as the Cape Town (2002), Kerala (2008) and Belize (2009) International Responsible Tourism Conferences which resulted in the drafting of declarations outlining policies and guidelines for the development and management of Responsible Tourism in destinations. These events have inspired many governments around the world to change their tourism policies to implement more ‘responsible and sustainable’ practices.

Now, slowly but surely, tourism practices which not only focus on providing an unforgettable and unique experiences for tourists, but also emphasise on maximising benefits for local communities and environments whilst minimising the negative effects of tourism, are being implemented by tour operators and other tourism projects all around the world. The best part about this is that most of these are small to medium and locally based companies who have a link to the local communities in the destination, therefore focussing on a solely locally produced product, developed by, managed by and involving local people.

Obviously, there are stories of ‘green-washing’ and ‘false-advertising’ using the ethical terminology to attract tourists, however there are also those genuine projects that do work towards these positive outcomes.

For these positive outcomes to be felt, not only do travellers who decide to undertake a ‘journey of a lifetime’ need to consider reading up more on the destinations they plan to visit, but government bodies, tourism professionals, local organisations and communities also need to realise that tourism can be much more beneficial to their country if managed in an efficient and sustainable way. Not only would sustained local economies be created in communities in rural areas, providing these with sustainable development opportunities, but they would also attract more tourists thanks to unique experiences coupled with the promise of an ethically managed holiday.

For more information on the ‘Responsible Tourism’ concept and suggested practices, click here.

You can also contact us at info@westafricadiscovery.co.uk

Games Kids Play!

Because of sparse living conditions, most Angolan children in rural areas are forced to create their own toys from scratch if they cannot acquire manufactured toys. It is interesting to see what is contrived; there is no lack of ingenuity. Using what is available, old bicycle rims, soda cans, mud, bailing wire and sticks are just a few of the materials used to create imaginative toys.  Here a just a few examples:

Toy trucks are abundant, made out of old scraps of tires, wood and metal.

Using an old bicycle rim and a short stick, races are held between kids.  Once the forward motion of the rim is established, the stick is used to guide the rim in a straight line and to continually propel it forward.  (I tried doing this various times with Angolan kids and it is harder to control than it looks; I was made a great laughingstock for the kids!)

Guitars are often made from old cooking oil tins, with strings being contrived from pieces of wire.

The Return of the Cheetah!

The after effects of the 27 year Angolan civil war not only are apparent in the destruction and neglect of the national infrastructure, but also in the decimation of the once plentiful herds of wild animals.  Though vast numbers of animals were destroyed during the war by the soldiers and the dominance of poachers, small perserved populations of elephant and unique giant black sable, red buffalo, antelope are seen in the rehabilitating national parks.

One of the recent and exciting spottings that occurred last month in March is that of the cheetah; the first sighting of the animal in Angola for decades.  Though cheetahs are swift, powerful hunters, they were no match for the civil war which devastated the cheetah's main habitat, the Iona National Park. This arid area in the extreme southwest of the country was one of the former ranges of the cheetah, however, due to Angola’s three-decade civil war, the cheetah’s status in the country has been unknown.

The 1.6 million hectare Iona National Park, proclaimed a reserve on 2 October 1937, is located in southwest Angola, bordering Namibia. Although it is very dry, the area is perfect cheetah habitat with thousands of hectares of open savannah and a growing prey base such as springbok and oryx, two species that adapt to an arid environment and are the cheetah’s primary prey.

According to recent reports from the conservation group, Cheetah Conservation Fund, a three day survey in the arid Iona Park revealed reported various sightings of the fast, spotted, leopard-like wild feline.  "We found nine different marking trees," one spotter remarked. In one, he saw cheetah dung. Then "two male cheetahs ran out. It was very exciting -- there are cheetahs in Angola," he said.  (Excerpts from Africa Geographic)

West Africa festivals: move aside Glastonbury!

Music has always been part of the commonly shared culture found in the geographical region of west Africa, and the region has produced, in my view, some of the most talented and influential artists of music history. For millennia, the likes of the Jembe, Kora and Balafon musical instruments have influenced much of the music that we hear today on our radios.

For example, blues music has always been linked to the deep south of the United States, but have you ever wondered where the origins of blues lie? Look no further than West Africa. During the 400 plus years of slavery, the populations who were forcefully kidnapped from their homelands strived to hold on to their cultural roots, and through that, traditional music lived on. Various research projects into the musical origins of blues trace the chords back to traditional instruments such as the ‘Kora’, played by a professional caste of praise singers, called griots or jails, for the rich and aristocracy, and the ‘Akonting’, a folk lute of the Jola tribe of Senegambia, a clear predecessor to the American banjo in its playing style.

As a result of findings in musical research and a renewed interest in the rich local heritage found in West Africa, this style of music has become more and more popular in the West and the names of Amadou & Mariam, Tinariwen, Toumani Diabaté and Vieux Farka Touré are rivalling the most famous of musicians to have set foot on the stages of the big festivals in the UK. Classed as ‘World Music’, a term which I personally find derogative because I feel that it detracts from the real origins of the music and throws all music which is not 'Western' into one basket, this West African genre has found its way in to the line-ups for Glastonbury, WOMAD, the Big Chill and the Isle of Wight festival to mention but a few. This, in turn, has increased media attention and provided marketing opportunities for lesser known festivals in these musicians own countries.

Move over Glastonbury! Make way for the likes of ‘Festival in the desert’ near Essakane and the fabled city of Timbuktu, or ‘Ségou festival’ celebrated on the banks of the Niger River, probably the longest river in the whole of Africa. What better way to experience the ancient melodies of West African blues than to be in the Sahara desert listening to Tinariwen, sipping traditional tea with a group of Tuareg herders who have travelled over the Sahara desert to perform their music with others.

Roberto, a regular to the ‘Festival au Desert’ (the French term is commonly used as Mali is partly French speaking) or ‘Essakane music festival’, recounts some of the unforgettable moments from his last trip: “I remember Amadou & Mariam, who are now world-renowned, sitting at 3 am beside the stage with their sun glasses on waiting for their turn to play. They were like two kids waiting for their exam.”

The atmosphere of conviviality also marked him, as he recounts: “Beside our tent, Swedish girls were singing Swedish songs accompanied by local Tuareg drummers. That set the scene for the theme of this festival: playing together, no matter what nationality, to produce quality music.”

But these festivals, even though the most well know, are not the only ones in the whole of West Africa. In nearly every country, for nearly every season, festivals exist to celebrate a multitude of events. From the St. Louis Jazz Festival in Senegal to the Voodoo rites festivals in Togo and Benin, from the Ashanti Royal Ekisadiwae festival in Ghana to the Dogons Sirius Star celebration in Southern Mali, your thirst for new and unique experiences could never be quenched, and you would need a life-time to discover all of them.

However, every life-changing journey starts with the first step, and there are a variety of tour operators who do offer travel options to experience these exotic and awe-inspiring events. You can find a few examples of tours on the West Africa Discovery web portal. Not only do these give you the opportunity to experience the festivals first hand and in the most genuine way possible, but they also work towards providing economic benefits to local communities in the destinations whilst advocating the use of ‘Responsible Tourism Practices’ to minimise the negative effects of tourism on the local cultural, historical and natural heritage.

If you would like more information on specific festivals in the west African geographical region, or other information concerning local cultural, historical or natural heritage and holiday ideas which can give you the opportunity to experience these first hand, email mail us at info@westafricadiscovery.co.uk.

You can also keep up to date with news touching on West Africa by joining us on twitter or Facebook. We look forward to welcoming you!

Until then, enjoy this great video showing behind-the-scenes at the ‘Festival du Desert’.

Trees!

Angola has a rich flora which includes many species of trees. This is not surprising with its varied terrain, ranging from coastal plains to mountain escarpments and high plateaux.  With this is wide-ranging climate producing deserts in the south, equatorial tropical jungle in the north and a great area of grassland in the center of the country.  Here, I want to show two of Angola's most interesting trees.

The African baobob, known in Angola as the imbondeiro, is native to much of Africa and is regarded as the largest succulent plant in the world.  The enormous rather squat trunk can reach 28 meters (92 feet +) in girth while the tree seldom reached more than 25 meters (82 feet) in height.  These dimensions spawned the African belief that God planted the tree upside down. It is the archetypical large solidary tree of the savannah, although in Angola it also grows in woodlands and in coastal regions.

The tree has large velvet-skinned fruits called mukua which contain an off-white powdery material that can be made into a refreshing drink rich in vitamin C and has twice as much calcium as milk. The leaves can be cooked fresh as a vegetable and the fibrous bark is good for making mats.

The mopane tree gains its presence and importance in the Angola fauna as an important food for the mapane 'worm'.  The tree is slim and grey-trunked and often growing up to 30 meters (100 feet) in height.  It has a crown of rigid, irregular branches and grows in a riparian habitat along the Cunene River among the dry forests of southern Angola.

The leaves are often described as beautiful or elegant, or like butterflies, and they close up in the heat of the sun to preserve moisture. The mopane
worm, which solely eat the leaves are the caterpillars of the magnificent mopane emperor moth. The caterpillars can reach 10 cm (2.5 inches) in length are an important part of the diet of many local people who consider them a great delicacy.  They are rich in protein, usually roasted.  Some 34 species of birds feed on these nutritious insects, so this tree plays and important part in the eco system of life in these areas of Angola.
(Extracted from Sonangol Universo Magazine, March 2010)

Angolan Sculptures

As like most African art, masks and wooden sculptures are not merely aesthetic creations. They have an important role in cultural rituals, representing the life and death , the passage from childhood to adulthood, the celebration of a new harvest and the beginning of hunting season . Angolan artisans work in wood , bronze and ivory , in masks or sculptures . Each ethno-linguistic group in Angola has its own unique artistic traits.

 Perhaps the most famous Angolan art or sculpture is the 'O Pensador' or 'Thinker', a hand-made crafted wood piece which is considered a national symbol in Angola. The 'Pensador' originates from the Tchokwe tribe and represents today a reference of the culture concerning all Angolans, as it is a symbol of the national culture.

It represents the figure of an elderly person that could be a man or a woman. Designed in a symmetric profile, with the face slightly bent down, it expresses an intentional subjectivism as, in Angola, the elderly represent wisdom and enjoy a privileged status. The elderly represent the wisdom, experience of long years and knowledge of the secrets of life.

This image today is Angola’s emblematic figure that is included in the watermark of the kwanza bank note, the national currency. It is considered as a native piece of art trustworthily Angolan. Alike any emblematic figure of a people, as it is the case of the "Zé Povinho" in Portugal, "John Bull" in England or the “Uncle Sam” in the United States, 'O Pensador' represents the same national tradition.

Are we culturally aware?

When travelling or working in the tourism sector, you are likely to meet different people of different cultures. Different cultures have different protocols. So it is very important to be aware of such differences so as to deal with people in a suitable way and not to create tense or offensive situations. What is considered appropriate behaviour in one culture can be inappropriate in another. When working with people from different cultures, you need a solid understanding of the norms of that culture.

It would be really interesting if you could share with us any cultural faux pas tourists or foreign people make while in your country. I will be waiting for your comments.

Here are two videos Gabriela, a teacher of English and Italian living in Paris, sent to me about this topic. Thanks Gabriela for sharing them with me: VIDEO 1, VIDEO 2

Also here are some pages you may find interesting:
http://www.culturosity.com/pdfs/What%20is%20Cultural%20Awareness.pdf
http://www.executiveplanet.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://chinafta.nzte.govt.nz/solutions/culture/business-etiquette.html
http://www.culturosity.com/articles.htm

Sports Tourism Big in Africa this Summer

It is set to be a year of massive sporting events, 2010 kicked off with the Winter Olympics in Whistler, and the whole world is anticipating the FIFA World Cup in South Africa this summer. There are many economic and social benefits to hosting international events. Whistler attracted 250,000 visitors to the area and $10 billion in revenues. Along with the financial injection, a host city will see development to infrastructure, increased jobs, and a continued development model of growth even after the event has been and gone.

The World Cup Finals in South Africa this June are on an even bigger scale and could contribute 50 billion rand to the economy, while tourism could generate a further 15 billion rand, with 3.5 million fans expected to attend the tournament. Not only will this be a great boost to the continued development of South Africa but surely for the continent as a whole.

Going to South Africa to watch your team play this summer is no cheap holiday. Once you have bought your flight, paid for a hotel and calculated spending money, the costs can run into the thousands. For those who want to see the Finals in Africa this summer there is another region that is equally amazing, but tourism there is less often on the media map. On the westernmost region of the African continent, West Africa is on the flight route from Europe and America to Cape Town and will be a great destination to visit during the World Cup.

The concept of sports tourism in West Africa is nowhere near the same level as South Africa, but that could be changing with the opening of new facilities such as the Right to Dream academy in Ghana.

Football is the biggest sport in West Africa. Watched and followed everywhere, kids and adults alike pretend to be in their role-models shoes by playing the ‘perfect game’ in every condition, sometimes only with a ball made from rags. Famous footballers such as Didier Drogba and Craig Bellamy are using football as a tool for community development and education through the setting up football and education centres for children in West Africa. It would be great to start channelling more money from sports tourism into communities in countries such as Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone where it is needed most.

In June, West Africa will be alive with passion as their football heroes battle it out on the global stage. Bars and hotels across West Africa will be showing the games, and the local people will be more than happy to welcome and share a drink with a football fan. As well as going for the African football vibe, a holiday here is sure to give an experience of Africa quite different from the roaring stadiums and hustle bustle of crowds in the South African capital. There are four West African teams in the World Cup finals this year; Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria. These are four very different West African countries with equally amazing possibilities for rich fulfilling natural and cultural holidays.

Cameroon, for example, is home of Barcelona striker Samuel Eto’o. Also dubbed 'Africa in miniature' due to the diversity of its terrain, biodiversity and cultures, Cameroon is one of the most exciting and unexplored countries in West Africa. From lush rainforest hiding waterfalls to pristine beaches, this country has a wealth of resources which can provide tourists with the most unique and unforgettable experiences. Click here for some ideas about holidays in Cameroon.

Another football role-model, Chelsea star Michael Essien, hails from Ghana, the country whose name means ‘Warrior King’. Often considered as the friendliest country in West Africa, this country was the seat of the Royal Court of the once powerful Ashanti Empire, whose vestiges are still visible today in the Ghanaian culture. Festivals, ceremonies and social values are a testimony to the prosperous past of this amazing country. Click here to discover the opportunities for travellers seeking adventure and exploration.

For anyone looking for a different and unique experience of watching the World Cup this summer, West Africa is well worth checking out. It is a culturally rich and diverse region, full of surprises and life changing experiences. There are a wide selection of tour operators whose holidays respect the environment and support the economies of local communities. By choosing responsible tours travellers can discover the beauty of West Africa safe in the knowledge that their trip is making a difference and that money from tourism is going to communities that will really benefit from it.