Journey to SHC Holder #5 – Africa

Making the Spiritual First Aid Kit ready to travel to Maputo Mozambique to find the African Holder.

LiAn brought Filipe Couto to my attention during a business trip to Africa with an associate of Luuk Jan Boon.  Luuk had told her that Filipe Couto, former Rector of the Catholic Universities in Maputo, Mozambique, had come upon a tool for saving dried corn kernals for planting and was growing corn as a staple and providing corn and soy milk for nourishment and protein for the local school children.  Asamaria Tham, a silvaculturalist was brought on to the farm—Winnua—and a portion of the farm–5,000 hectars—was dedicated to growing trees to capture carbon and produce oxygen while generating cooling in these high temperature areas. In addition, Asamaria and team had created a protein-rich mush of corn and soy for the school children. Winnua was subsequently named the best small business in Mozambique.

As corn is Systems to Heal the Climate’s ambassador of course I was interested in Filipe Couto. I had undertaken Shamanic journeys to Africa, as Africa was the 5th continent for which I sought the Holder for that continent. In the course of about four journeys, the primary person was always shown as pixilated.  I did not know what the spirits were telling me.  Is this person a shape shifter?

In any case, I wrote Filipe Couto  three emails over the next two years with no response. In about March of 2016 at 3am, I received a phone call from Filipe Couto.  Asamaria Tham had begun to help Filipe with his electronic correspondence as Filipe is almost blind.  She found my emails and brought them to Filipe’s attention.  He picked up the phone after Asamaria had dialed my number.  Filipe was very interested in receiving an audio version of Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics and asked me to send it to him.  Since I now understood that Filipe was practically blind, I understood why the Spirits showed me how he sees and why I had not received any answers to my inquiries over the years. Asamaria reported that two CDs of the Tao of Physics arrived within a day although they were mailed two months apart.

On August 8, 2018, my friend, LiAn Phoa, and I had dinner with Filipe Couto and Asamaria Tham in Hotel Terminus, recommended by Asamaria. The aha! for both Filipe and Asamaria based on LiAn’s work with Drinkable Rivers and my work with Systems to Heal the Climate, was that so many people are able to conceive what needs to be done, but they had never experienced until there were two such activists in front of them that there are people actually undertaking the kinds of work that we are actively mounting.

So Filipe chose to help us.  He asked Asamaria to call Victor Bernardo, who is the recently retired Director of Communication for Mozambique and a good friend of Filipe’s.  Victor lived several hours away and committed to bring another associate along to a meeting at Hotel Terminus the following Monday, August 13th.

We go to lunch and then head out to the last known address for Medicines Sans Frontiers—Doctors without Borders—in Mozambique.  Jackson looks at the address and said that there is nothing out there.  I said it is the last known address of Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF) I had found on the web, so we drove out to that address.

We passed dense traffic outgassing gasoline fumes—NO climate awareness!  We drove through construction mounted by Chinese contractors installing large freeway overpass components, who did not hire any local people—very much like the reconstruction of the Bay Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Jackson was right that there was nothing out there.  Then he made a great deduction.  He noted that there is a Psychiatric Hospital near here and given that MSF often had to deal with trauma in their work, there could be associates at the Psychiatric Hospital, who worked with MSF.  Awesome!

We pull up to the Psychiatric Hospital just as they are closing for the day—ca. 4pm—and Jackson gets out of the car and talks in Portugese to an employee, who is punching out.  The employee looks over his shoulder at a colleague, who is also signing out.  She punches her card, the three talk together and the woman has a number for an MSF colleague.  She calls her colleague at MSF and gets the address.

We drive to that address, Avenue Tomas Ndunda 1489, (very near our Hotel!) and as it is now 6pm on Thursday, we learn from the guards that the office opens at 8am in the morning on Friday.

We walked along a main street and found a place to have dinner.  The sidewalks—apparently all over Africa—are chunks and clods of concrete, dirt, and debris. The Treehouse was our favorite restaurant and only two blocks from Hotel Terminus.

Yes, we humans are in the evolutionary process…would that we could remember one are one among many.

After stopping at a cooperative artists’ colony, Jackson dropped us off.  Later we went to the Fish Market a huge commercial market that befits a nation with a very extensive coastline.  Another cab driver in front of Hotel Terminus knew a chef at the fish market.

Monday morning, August 13, 2018, LiAn and I met Victor Bernardo and Elmarino, the two associates to whom Filipe Couto had introduced us. Victor Bernardo became a deep confidant and friend and we never saw Elmarino again.  Both gentlemen were very clear that we should meet  Dr. Leonardo Simao, the Director of the Joaquim Chissano Foundation and Victor made an appointment for the next morning.  Victor was now retired from being head of the Communications Department of Mosambique and was focused on finding land to plant 80 mwenje trees, the tree from which xylophones are made.  Victor is from Zavala, where the Timbila Masters were HOT in the 1940s and 1950s.  Victor speaks of the broken chain of values, how young people today do not respect quality ancestral art and music.  In any case we connected deeply with him. And he became a critical local associate in fulfilling on my mission.  Victor called us as our plane  was taxiing on the runway departing Maputo, Mozambique.  He had found land to plant the mwenje trees on Xefina Grande, the large island east of the continent.  We were SO excited.

Victor had made arrangements with Dr. Leonardo Simao, Director of the Joaquim Chissano Foundation. Joaquim Chissano succeeded to the presidency and became Frelimo (Mz Liberation Front) party leader in 1986 when Samora Machel’s presidential aircraft crashed in mountainous terrain in South Africa.[2][3] Chissano ended the Mozambican Civil War in 1992 by negotiating a peace treaty with the rebel forces that “promised no prosecutions or punishments” and gave them 50% of the positions in the Mozambican army.[4] The Renamo rebels later established their own political party.

In 1992, Chissano learned the Transcendental Meditation technique and introduced it to other government officials and their families.[5] Two years later, Chissano and his generals ordered all police and military to “meditate twice a day for 20 minutes.”[6] In addition, 16,000 soldiers

and 30,000 civilians were taught Transcendental Meditation and its advanced TM-Sidhi Program including Yogic Flying.  According to Transcendental Meditation literature, Chissano said the result was “political peace and balance in nature in my country.” Elder Statesman Chissano received the African Leadership Award for reducing conflict and increasing the economic, health and education standards of his people.

Dr. Simao is Director of the Pan-African Malaria Project as well as the acting head of the Joaquim Chissano Foundation.  He tasked Victor as the liaison with Systems to Heal the Climate.

We met some young women at a great Holiday Street Faire.  LiAn had met the head of their Division of their International Task Force in London, when she was at Schumacher College.

Even though all of us knew that this was the invitation to accept the responsibility as Holder of Systems to Heal the Climate, I asked Victor if he was willing to participate as a co-Holder, “No,” Victor Bernardo responded.  “I am too busy.”  Victor had his “timbale” to bring back to life to open up the possibility that a fantastic cultural element could be revived!  AND he was growing the mwenje trees from seeds.  Victor had accepted serving as the liaison for Systems to Heal the Climate with the Joaquim Chissano Foundation and had graciously accepted to serve as translator into Portuguese for Gualter Pambe.  I am very grateful for Victor’s support.  Victor explained again what was involved in serving as the Holder for Systems to Heal the Climate for Africa and Gualter accepted.

Thursday night we went out to dinner.  I had left all my papers in the Systems’ bag.  I emailed Gualter.  He told me he would bring them to the MSF office on Avenue Tomas Ndunda on Friday.

LiAn and I went out to dinner and were silly!

Pictured left to right: Theo Ferguson, Maker of  Systems to Heal the Climate Healing Living Systems, CEO, Teresa Pambe, Gualter’s wife, LiAn Phoa, Founder, Drinkable Rivers, Gualter Pambe, 5th Holder for Systems to Heal the Climate, Gualter’s cousin, Long Distance Runner.

Check in with Ofelia da Silva, UNESCO Director of the Cultural Division. The Roots Festival in Maputo in September of 2018 were all about Climate Challenges.