The Garden of Eden and the Desert
The development and environment of local people living
in the vicinity of African monasteries
Africa-Christian Leaders’ Gathering
London, 15-17 November 2004
Outline of paper
A photograph of Africa
Tragedy
Ecology and the Sacred : Egypt
Ecology and the Sacred : Today
I The life of a monastery and its internal development
The growth of monastic communities
A place of formation and of permanent conversion
Long-term presence
II Development and its impact on the environment
Medicinal plants : Togo, Nigeria
Work / Food : Bouaké, Ivory Coast
Water / Forest : Madagascar and Congo
Agricultural training : Kinshasa
III Growing involvement with the needs of others
Drinking water and irrigation
Control of soil erosion and reafforestation
Environment and health
Cattle rearing and dairy farming
The fight against pollution
New sources of energy
Primary and secondary education
Three months ago, when visiting the Guggenheim Museum in New York, I discovered
beside some sculptures by Constantin Brancusi an exhibition of photographs called
“Speaking with Hands”1. Among the many different photographs of hands expressing
beauty, companionship and co-operation, love, solitude, hatred, compassion, despair,
horror, prayer, one image in particular caught my attention and touched me profoundly.
It showed a black man buried in earth up to his neck, thrusting outstretched arms, hands
joined, above his head. For me this photograph was a symbol of black Africa, a symbol
both of the people and of their environment. Since then three ways of considering this
image have nourished my thought.
I thought first of the great distress of Africa. Time Magazine, in an article on the
outstanding men of our time, included the film-maker Sorious Samura who has filmed the
suffering both of his fellow countrymen in Sierra Leone, and of the people of Darfur in
the Sudan. How long the list of sufferings and challenging situations in Africa would be
if one looked at all the centres of distress, beginning with the approximately 26 million
Africans infected with AIDS. But there is hope too. Recently the Kenyan minister,
Wangari Maathai, was awarded the Nobel Prize for her work for the reafforestation of her
country, which has contributed to the regeneration of the land and thus offered a new
prospect of independence to ruined and desperate farmers. Benedictine monasteries are
able, to some extent, to make available new ecological resources and so take part in
caring for the wounds of this Africa.
Another view of the photograph plunged me deep into the past of black Africa and of
Egypt. Indeed, the valley of the Nile gave rise to a religion based on the environment,
1
By Jennifer Blessing, The Buhl Collection, 150 photographers, 168 photographs, Guggenheim Books,
New York, 2004
which in a certain way recapitulates the cultural past of black Africa. Its major cultural
manifestations find their sources in the heavens, the earth, the water, plants, animals, the
rhythms of creation. As an example, sculptures show Horus, the Falcon, enthroning
Pharaoh. The two examples which follow will show the link with life in a monastery.
The first concerns the Nile floods. In Pharaonic times the yearly floods reached a height
of 27 feet, and the Nile then took forty days to return to its bed. The Egyptians waited
forty days in the desert before returning to their immensely fertile Garden of Eden. On
their return they found alluvial deposits covering the roads, the paths, and the fields. All
the boundaries between properties, along with the boundary markers, had been washed
away. Egyptian law forbade “murmuring against the mud”, because it was the mud from
the Nile floods which rendered the whole country fertile, and brought about its renewal
each year.
My second example comes from mummification. The desert/garden contrast turns up in
many contexts, including those of death and resurrection. In Egypt the human body was
washed after death, and then filled with nitrate as part of the embalming process, so that
the body dried out, and itself became, in a sense, a desert. This was done to prepare the
dead person for life in paradise. The nitrate came from Wâdi el Natrûn, where the Copt
monasteries later grew up. The embalming process took forty days. The mention in
Genesis2 of Jacob’s embalmment testifies to this practice from Pharaonic Egypt3.
Finally, the photo at the Guggenheim could also be a picture of African monastic life, its
prayer and work - ora et labora - linked to the earth. Monastic life is in keeping with the
age-long practice of respect for creation, even if it has not always consciously
acknowledged this. Two archetypes are everywhere to be found: the desert and the
garden of life.
The first Egyptian monks, so deeply rooted in the desert, surrounded themselves with a
wall and a little garden. The contrast between this little enclosure and the immensity of
the desert was a physical representation of their ideal of death and resurrection4. And the
images of the world about them, reinterpreted on a spiritual level, were ambivalent. At
the beginning of Genesis, the dry earth is not exactly seen as negative, but it takes on a
negative connotation after the sin of Adam and Eve, who are driven out of the Garden. In
Exodus the desert is sometimes a place of punishment where the children of Israel
wander for forty years5, but it can also be a place where a marriage is celebrated6. For
2
Chapter 50, 2-3
For the contrast between desert and garden, I have drawn on the conference given by Mark Gruber OSB,
The Garden and the Desert, in Benedictine Perspectives on the Environment, Benedictine College,
Atchison, Kansas, Oct. 4, 1997
4
These first hermits considered their cell as a place of death and resurrection, a tomb, but also a place of
illumination and life.
5
Numbers, Chapter 14, 26-35
6
Hosea, Chapter 2, 14-16
3
Jesus himself the desert was both where he underwent temptation, and where he went to
discover the depth of his relationship with God7.
Monasteries developed a garden, if not a flowering cloister where a fountain of life
springs up. Many have a garden of medicinal herbs and make a point of preserving
plants. But the biblical background always remains the time of the Exodus and the
journey into the desert. The forty days of Lent represent this time of return to the desert
and of intense communion in order to enter with joy into the holy garden of Easter. Saint
Benedict goes even further, emphasizing that a monk’s whole life should be a continual
desert experience.
In this Introduction I have tried to put before you the image of homo Africanus,
profoundly religious, part of the fabric of creation, indwelt by two archetypes: the desert
and the Garden of Eden. Against this religious and biblical background, I shall develop
my paper in three stages: the life of monasteries and their interest in development (so this
first part will be a look at the monasteries themselves); some examples of development
supported by monasteries and its impact on the environment (thus looking outwards at
the effect various monasteries are having on their surroundings); and finally the emerging
relationships which monasteries are developing amidst the anxieties which affect so
much of Africa.
***************************
I. Monasteries and their importance for development
I.1 New monastic territories
The 20th century saw an astonishing expansion of monasteries in the world. More than
400 communities were founded in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In the forty years
from 1960 to 2000 four or five new monasteries appeared each year, nearly 200
monasteries in all, and from 2000 to 2004 there were another sixteen new foundations.
In Africa there are now nearly 120 monasteries which are growing in spite of everything,
and in the most difficult economic and political circumstances8.
7
See also the Song of Songs, Chapter 4, l2, l5. The images of a garden evoke the presence of man or
woman; on Easter morning, the new garden of Creation.
8
Historical note: In my discussion of monasticism, I shall speak only of the monasteries inspired by St
Benedict, and not of Coptic or Ethiopian monasticism or those communities born at the time of St
Augustine in what is today Algeria. The first communities go back to the end of the 19 th century and the
beginning of the 20th century: the Congregation of St Odile (from Bavaria) in Tanzania; the foundation of
St André (from Bruges, Belgium) in the Congo; the Cistercians in South Africa, who have become an active
congregation; French foundations in West Africa; the monastery of Toumliline in North Africa, which
before its closure in 1958 had widespread influence; the Trappist monks of Tibhirine, who were murdered
in 1996.
Monasteries greatly increased in number after countries became independent in the
1960’s. They continue to grow and to survive despite the trials of recent decades. Each
of them is like a little seed planted in the earth which grows to become a tree in which the
birds of the air can build their nests.
I.2 Formation and permanent conversion
While it is unnecessary to labour the point, it is useful to recall that monastic
communities are places of ongoing formation, in work and in prayer. “Pray and work in
the midst of your brothers.” This work is in keeping with the needs of the ecological
environment and entails a questioning of oneself in the service of God and of others.
I.3 Long-lastingness
At Kinshasa in the Congo the first stone of the new monastery of Mambré was laid at the
moment when the town was being pillaged, and when all the Europeans were leaving the
country. At Bouaké on the Ivory Coast the monastery served as the base for a World
Food Programme (WFP) project, at a time when the NGOs and other organizations were
leaving the country. These examples show clearly how much monasteries are there for
the long-term; they do not abandon the spot where they have been founded unless they
are forced to go9. And because monasteries are committed to stay where they have been
founded, they are excellent agents of development. Projects set up by international
organizations last for three to five years, but a project developed in connection with a
monastery is guaranteed to continue for a generation or more.
II. Development and its impact on the environment
II.1 Dzogbégan (Togo) and traditional medicinal plants
At Togo, 130 km north of Lomé, on the Kpalime plateau overlooking Ghana, the
Benedictine monastery of Dzogbégan, founded in 1961, has about thirty monks. From
the beginning they were concerned with development. In 1962 they set up a dispensary.
In 1964 they founded an agricultural centre and introduced new methods for the benefit
of the young people of the area. In the last five years they have shown their concern for
disadvantaged groups, women and young people by setting up a unit for the production of
citronella, an essential oil. There is also a co-operative for the harvesting and sale of
coffee, and a model plantation of avocado trees and of trees grown for timber, which the
local people have started up again.
9
The monks o f Bouaké and Mambré had to leave for a time, but returned once the shooting and the war
came to an end. Their presence is a comfort to the population in the present instability. There are similar
examples in Ethiopia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
An important project involving Artemisia, which is supported by several NGOs,
including the Tradithérapeutes of Lomé (RADI), is waiting for financial support. It has
three aims:
-
the selection, safekeeping, cultivation and promotion of medicinal plants; the
planting of fruit and other trees in order to provide shelter for plants
-
the production, under the supervision of traditional pharmacologists, of products
for medicinal application, making use of the knowledge of the traditional
pharmacopoeia, which is of great therapeutic value
-
the proper care of the environment, including its improvement by reafforestation
and by the cultivation of medicinal plants, so that farmland which is at present nonproductive can be reclaimed.
The need for these and other projects10 underscores the fact that three-quarters of the
world’s population have access to only some 21% of the pharmaceutical products of the
West. The citronella project is under way; the Artemisia project, which would cost
around 300,000 euros, could be a model for the monasteries of Africa.
II.2 Mahitsy (Madagascar) and reafforestation
The monastery of Mahitsy, 40 km from Antananarivo in Madagascar, has about twenty
monks and novices. The monastery has helped to organize the division of disadvantaged
families into local groups which can undertake small-scale animal breeding (particularly
the raising of poultry), farming and building.
Of the monastery’s 120 hectares, 80 are woodland, predominantly eucalyptus and pine.
For nearly fifty years ten thousand saplings have been planted every year.
II.3 Bouaké (Ivory Coast) and the monastery in wartime
On the Ivory Coast two Benedictine monasteries, one for men and one for women, are
situated at Bouaké on the M’bahinkro road, each monastery having around fifteen
religious.
The monks’ monastery was founded in 1959 by monks from Toumliline in Morocco. It
has set up an egg production unit, a small market for the sale of provisions, and
encouraged ancillary activities such as the production of honey and jam.
10
Benedictine nuns at Bouaké, Ivory Coast; Benedictine monks of Ewu-Isham, Nigeria; Benedictine monks
of Kumbsi, Burkina Faso …
As a result of the war, the area surrounding the monastery is now occupied by more than
a million people living in extreme poverty. The neighbouring district of Olienou is a
shantytown of nearly 10,000 people, 98% of whom are foreigners from West Africa. The
monastery, a member of the local group “Sécurity alimentaire” (under the direction of the
WFP), has identified a number of key problems: education, health, water, public health
issues concerning the disposal of sewage and garbage,11 protection and security, the
economy, food provision. In 2003 the following joint initiatives took place:
-
the disposal of sewage and garbage was improved with the technical help of CARE
Ivory Coast and the support of the WFP through its programme “Food for Work”12
-
provisions were distributed to six hundred and forty people in extreme need,13 in
conjunction with the WFP’s emergency programme
-
the agricultural programme, involving the development of 24 hectares of maize and
13 hectares of soya, benefited six hundred and fifty people, 70% of whom were
women
-
the sale of maize generated profits that made possible the construction of six
artesian wells in the district.
Finally, the raising of chickens has been extremely beneficial for the local population.
Five hundred people make a living from this activity14. Birds are supplied within an area
extending from the northern border of the Ivory Coast down to an area to the south of
Mali, and demand always outstrips supply.15
At the request of Care-Banque Mondiale various projects are being carried on, for
example farming projects, a dyeing scheme for girls, the setting up of a bank and microcredits for poor people, a poultry farm with 2, 500 laying hens, and a mill.
II. 4 Mambré at Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and an integrated
development
The first stone of the monastery of Mambré was laid on the same day at the end of
September 1991 that Kinshasa was pillaged by the army. Built on this act of faith,
Mambré has grown up on the western edge of Kinshasa close to the Congo river and
now has about twenty monks. The social and political circumstances in which the
community found itself fundamentally altered its plans, as the monks were forced to
11
No system for rubbish collection existed; roads and tracks were in very poor condition; telephone lines
etc. had been destroyed.
12
Each month, for a period of three months, 150 tonnes of rice were distributed to 15,000 people.
13
These were people who were old, ill, or widows.
14
The families of the 75 saleswomen, the 10 permanent workmen, their families and the other occasional
day labourers
15
In 2003 2,168,929 eggs were produced, 25% more than in the previous year!
address the underlying causes of the problems they were coming up against. As a result,
little by little an integrated approach to development has come about.
The goal of self-sufficiency in food calls for both theoretical and practical training,
technical monitoring of students, their organization into co-operatives, the availability of
tools and of good quality seed, and arrangements for sale of the produce. Since 1997 two
agronomists and a veterinary surgeon have provided such theoretical and practical
training for more than eighty people (both men and women) each year. The six hundred
people trained to date have formed six producers’ associations, which between them
cover food crops, co-operative cheese dairies, market gardens, the raising of pigs, a
poultry unit, and a rabbit warren. In addition, they have repaired and restored the road
from Lutendele. The FAO has supported initiatives for seeds, and for the breeding of
pigs.
Health and education needs have also been addressed. The monastery has opened a
health centre to provide treatment and preventive care. There are now training courses
for mothers and schooling for the children. A sponsorship project involving eight
Belgian primary schools is gradually being organized.
The recognition of one need leads in time to the recognition of all the other needs of
existence. Greater respect for the world which surrounds us, for the water and earth and
forest, turns out to be fundamental.
III. Growing involvement with the needs of others
The friendship and co-operation among the monasteries which derive from St Benedict
allow what has been begun to be kept going. All the same, needs are increasing and our
financial resources are diminishing. We therefore need to be able to call on other sources
of support, both private, official, national and international.
The three essential areas to concentrate on are water for drinking and for irrigation,
medicinal plants and education. These three areas require appropriate training, followed
by implementation, which will in time lead to self-sufficiency. For medicinal plants
(linked to reafforestation in certain cases) a mutual help network and a data bank could
be set up. Education needs to be centred on the soil. The American Benedictines of Erie,
Pennsylvania (USA) have won a prize for a children’s course on the environment called
“Earthforce”. Schools, like that of the Benedictines at Kinshasa, could adapt this
programme to the needs of Africa and put it into operation.
Listed below are some of the activities carried out by monasteries in black Africa.
III.1 Drinking water and irrigation
It is necessary to supervise water purification, and to guard against polluting water
sources. Pesticides should not be used. Appropriate sanitary arrangements, such as
latrines, need to be put in place.
AIM is receiving an increasing number of requests from every continent for help with
water supplies. Wells, dams and hydraulic rams are among the things asked for. Here
are some examples:
-
The nuns of the new Bernardine monastery at Bafor need to increase the water
supply.
-
The monks of the Benedictine monastery at Koubri in Burkina Faso, where there is
no water for four months of the year, have completed ninety dams for surrounding
villages. In sixty-five of the dams which they have built the water has never run
dry. Some dams have still to be completed. The monastery has received another
three hundred requests for further dam construction. The monks have also sunk
around thirty wells and installed pumps in them.
-
Other monasteries have contributed money for wells: the Benedictine monastery of
Toffo in Benin; the Trappist monastery of Bamenda in Cameroon; the Benedictine
monastery of Ewu Ishan in Nigeria; the Benedictine monastery of Lubudi in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo; and the Benedictine monastery of Keur
Moussa in Senegal; the Benedictine monastery of Ndanda in Tanzania (an
important centre because of its provision of a water system for the surrounding
villages16); the Benedictiine monastery of St Sauveur in Chad.
III.2 Soil erosion control and reafforestation
At various places, and particularly at the Benedictine monastery of Mahitsy in
Madagascar and at the Benedictine monastery of Tororo in Uganda, monks keep watch
on the areas of the surrounding countryside at particular risk of erosion from the rains.
They dig ditches and plant in order to hold back erosion and assist reafforestation.
III.3 Environment and health
The following monasteries are working to raise public awareness of environment and
health matters: Toffo; Bouaké; Mambré; Keur Moussa (which runs a dispensary staffed
by religious of the Servantes des Pauvres of Angers); Dzogbégan; the Trappist monastery
of Butende (on their farm with their employees); and Tororo.
16
Ndanda also runs a 300 bed hospital, another hospital for lepers, a nursing school, a business school,
and a seminary and retreat centre.
An important project concerning health and the environment has brought together the
monasteries at Huambo in Angola, where there is a school, a dispensary, a well, and an
area set aside to grow food for the refugees. A qualified Italian sister has created a centre
for the study of medicinal plants.
III.4 Stock rearing and farms
Stock rearing and dairy farming are the most important activities at the monastery of
Koubri in Burkina Faso. Between 1992 and 2004 more than ninety trainees benefited
from practical training in cattle breeding and rearing. Koubri has been selected by the
government as an experimental farm. More than two hundred heifers and bull-calves
have been presented to the farm’s managers; three hundred requests are pending. One of
the aims is to reduce imports of milk and milk products into Burkina Faso by 50% and to
improve the population’s food supplies by increasing its uptake of animal protein.
III.5 The fight against pollution
The Benedictine monasteries at Kinshasa and Tororo are both active in the processing
of organic matter, compost, and manure.
III.6 New sources of energy
Ndanda is involved in the development of solar and geothermal energy, which may in
future be available for both heating and refrigeration.
III.7 Schooling and continuing education
Several monasteries (among them Keur Moussa) provide literacy classes. Koubri in
Burkina Faso has built twenty-nine schools in the surrounding villages for such classes.
In the area stretching from Ethiopia to South Africa by way of Uganda, and from Central
Africa to Tanzania, there are more than a score of primary and secondary schools
established for indigent children. The “Earthforce” programme17 could be adapted to
Africa’s requirements and would greatly help both to raise public awareness of the needs
of the environment and to train people in greater respect for the world about them. AIM
and ICBE (International Conference of Benedictine Education) are jointly studying the
best way of supporting the schools for indigent pupils. ICBE schools throughout the
world have nearly 125,000 students. Keur Moussa has a primary school with 150
pupils, most of whom are Muslim. A newly-developing monastery in Zimbabwe,
founded by Ampleforth in England, is paying the school fees of sixty children.
17
See p.12 above
Conclusions: These educational
efforts and the various projects
mentioned above are supported by AIM, which is at the service of the monastic orders
who look to St Benedict as their founder. AIM, whose headquarters are in Paris,
collaborates with Alliance pour un Développement Durable (ADD), which is an NGO
committed to helping local people in the developing world who live within the reach of a
monastery. ADD is recognized by the Belgian government, and has benefited from
official grants for projects in Central Africa. Trusting in your generosity, which is so
necessary to today’s Africa, and tomorrow’s, AIM hopes to be able to continue to give
support to projects for the improvement of the condition of local people living within
reach of monasteries in Africa. May the desert be transformed into a Garden of Eden!
Fr. Martin Neyt, OSB
President of AIM
International Secretariat:
Sr Gisela Happ, OSB
7, rue d’Issy, F.92170 Vanves, France
Tel. 0033.14644.6005; A.I.M@wanadoo.fr
Website: www.aimintl.org