Cumanana V - ENG

AUGUST 2021

NUMBER 5

Cumanana PERUVIAN CULTURE VIRTUAL BULLETIN FOR AFRICA MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

AFRICA, PERU AND EGYPT An Association on the Horizon

WAME MOLEFHE, AN APPROACH TO THE BOTSWANA WOMEN A Review of Go, Tell the Sun,

RECIPE Peruvian flavours with African influence

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AFRICA, PERU AND EGYPT AN ASSOCIATION ON THE HORIZON AMBASSADOR HANY MOAWAD SELIM LABIB EGYPTIAN AMBASSADOR TO PERU Africa continues to show progressive economic potential for a more sustainable and profitable growth for its global partners.

Africa's current population of around 1.2 billion is projected to reach 1.7 billion by 2030. Africa's GDP grew at an average annual rate of 5.4% between 2000-2010, driven by measures framed by growth registered within labour force and productivity. After a slowdown in 2011 and the collapse of oil prices in 2014, Africa's growth has recovered and its future prospects are optimistic.

Egypt greets Peru on its Bicentennial - Miraflores, August 2021

Two World Bank indicators underscore the promise of this continent. First, six out of ten of the fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa.

Second, World Bank's 2019 Doing Business Index, signals that five of the ten countries showing significant improvement are African, whilst third of all reforms registered worldwide were carried out in this continent.

The economic acceleration and the improvement of the business environment are based on long-term trends generating transformative growth in key economic sectors. An African industrial revolution is underway, as manufacturers scale up their production, from processed foods to automobiles. African industries have the opportunity to double production to nearly $ 1 trillion in a decade. Three-quarters of that growth is likely to come from imports’ substitution manufacturing aimed at meeting growing local demand. Yet there is also a significant opportunity to increase manufacturing exports and make Africa the world's next great manufacturing centre.

Infrastructure is one of the main impediments to growth in Africa. But while Africa's infrastructure still lags behind that of other developing regions, significant progress has been made: Africa's annual investment in infrastructure has doubled to around $ 80 billion a year since the beginning of this century. This represents a great opportunity for imaginative investors and entrepreneurs to help solve Africa's infrastructure challenges.

Africa has long been known for its abundance of both agricultural and mineral resources. However, Africa still struggles to translate these resources into shared wealth and sustained economic development. New innovations and investments promise to change that image and create exciting growth opportunities for businesses. For example, in oil and gas, Africa is rich in unexplored regions of high potential, and has a huge unmet demand for energy.

Estimates assess that the gas market in Africa will grow 9% annually until 2025, at which point the continent could use up to 70% of its own gas.

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Views from the Suez Canal (C) SC Zone

On August 28, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi participated in the “Fourth Summit of the G20 Partnership Initiative with Africa”, organized by Germany, in which he emphasized that Egypt is ready to play a leading role in leveraging synergies and efforts towards a holistic continental economic development, as well as integration within the continent and between Africa and the world economies, which marks a milestone in its history.

Egypt's geo-economic advantage - the nexus between the African and Arab worlds, overlooking the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal - is reinforced by the completion of the twin canal megaproject in Suez. In addition, the establishment of the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), which is a significant development that will transform 461 square kilometres and six strategically located seaports along one of the most important trade routes in the world, into an international commercial centre. The SCZ will further foster Egypt's competitive economic advantage by connecting Europe, Asia, Africa and the Gulf area.

In addition, the "economic belt of the silk road" will grant credentials to the new economic corridor of the Suez Canal in Egypt. There is a deep commitment on the part of the Egyptian government to enact its geo-economic weight.

The landmark Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) agreement between the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC), launched in Sharm el Sheikh in June 2015, created Africa's largest trading bloc, with 26 countries, a combined GDP close to $ 1.2 trillion, and a market of about 620 million consumers.

Once ratified by at least 14 member countries, the TFTA allowed international investors access to a huge economic bloc with limited trade barriers.

Due to such geostrategic and economic position, and because of its distinguished and advanced infrastructure, Egypt presents the international economy with a wide entry and flexible access to the lucrative market of Africa. Many advanced and emerging economies have enjoyed the advantages of a win-win partnership with Egypt in Africa, a market that has become one of the best routes for international economy from global, regional, economic and financial quandaries and crises. Consolidating its economic recovery, Peru is welcome to contemplate the advantages of the African market through the gates of Egypt.

In a recent meeting with MINCETUR, this embassy has suggested the expedition of a Peruvian delegation of high officials, experts and businessmen to explore the terrain and contemplate the opportunities, a suggestion echoed again along these lines. Egypt can be the bridge that takes Peru to the heart of Africa through a mutual association that, even when on the horizon, remains achievable.

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WAME MOLEFHE’S PEN AS AN APPROACH TO THE REALITY OF BOTSWANA WOMEN A REVIEW OF GO, TELL THE SUN, BY WAME MOLEFHE JIMY TRUJILLO CHUQUIHUACCHA GRADUATED IN GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, PUCP. THIRD SECRETARY IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE. Africa. A continent that has aroused the interest of much of the international community in the last decade due to its incredible economic growth and the exponential surge of its middle class. The once called “marginal continent”[1] has become a key region for the geopolitical interests of great powers, prioritizing the economic sphere.

However, being at risk of falling into romanticism, I consider that Economy should not be considered the only key element for an effective approach to a continent as vast as it is complex. As is well known, the extremely biased vision of Sub-Saharan Africa – predominant in the Western tradition – has generated (almost) insurmountable distances between this region and other parts of the world, which cannot be totally eradicated through mere monetary exchange.

Therefore, if what is sought is to combat the deep mutual unawareness between countries and fully understand the cultural differences that – relatively – separate us, literature is presented as a means of knowledge as relevant as economics or sociology (Flores, 1980, p.101). Thus, African writins end up becoming a kind invitation to approach the unknown and build bridges of empathy between our regions.

Indeed, the work commenced in recent years by Argentine philologist Federico Vivanco is a clear example of this.

Committed to the dissemination of English-speaking blackAfrican literature in Spanish, his work as a compiler and translator has been central to the circulation of invaluable gems of African letters to the Spanish-speaking community.

Amongst them, the short story and poetry anthology Ellas [también] cuentan (They [also] count), published in 2017 and, recently, Go, tell the sun, a collection of short stories by Wame Molefhe, the first Botswana text translated into Spanish.

With his latest work, Vivanco dares to challenge the strictly commercial logic of large publishers, offering Spanishlanguage readers a first approach to the reality of Southern Africa, through the pen of one of the most representative authors of Botswana.

This is not a minimal detail, given that, with the exception the South African Bessie Head’s stories, and Scottish Alexander McCall Smith’s novels, this African country has not enjoyed a great presence within the vast Spanishspeaking publishing universe (Jurado, 2021).

Now, as far as the work is concerned, it is divided into two sections. In the first one, the author presents eight short stories, partially interconnected and revolving around a single name. The main character in each of these stories is called Sethunya[2].

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Thus, it is easy to imagine Sethunya in front of us telling her own story. And this may be due to the intimate issues the writer gently breaks down. The eternal conflict between tradition and modernity, the constant presence of death, the role imposed on women, and the submission that they must face daily, turn each story into a deep cut that will hardly heal.

As I was able to detail at the beginning, the economic sphere is not entirely decisive to understand the different social dynamics that can host societies as unquiet as those in Africa. And there lies one of the great contributions of the work. Molefhe invites us to look beyond Botswana's remarkable economic growth, its high percentage of investment in education, and its admirable democratic stability. Sethunya urges the reading to see the gray in aspects such as gender violence, AIDS, xenophobia and homophobia, which are hidden behind GDP figures.

In a practical but masterful way, Molefhe uses Sethunya to represent the experiences suffered by women in various Botswanan spheres and echelons. Thus, Sethunya's story should be understood as any woman's story. What Sethunya suffered ends up being, after all, what all women suffered.

The second part of the book presents the reader with four stories, focused on those historically anonymous voices that, had they not been reflected in the text, would surely continue to be lost into oblivion. Nevertheless, it is important to note that, despite not resorting to the use of Sethunya as an allegory of the Botswanan woman, this section of the book allows the possibility of reading between the lines through the collateral impact often suffered by women in contexts such as illegal immigration and imposed motherhood.

On the other hand, when it comes to narrative style, Molefhe exhibits a simple but very personal style. Her text produces an almost immediate feeling of closeness, transforming the classic link between author and reader into a close relationship between narrator and listener.

For all the above, the book should not be understood as a simple compilation of African stories with a gender perspective. Go tell the Sun goes beyond, outlining itself as a first live representation of Botswanan women. Wame Molefhe's heartbreaking pen ends up becoming a useful tool to build bridges of empathy between apparently different contexts, bringing the reader closer to a reality that, erroneously, could have been assumed as distant.

References Flores, A. (1980). La agonía de Mariátegui. DESCO. Centro de Estudios y Promoción del Desarrollo.

Jurado, A. (18 de agosto de 2021). La voz de Sethunya, en español. El País.

1 Due to the marginal role that scholars erroneously assign to Africa, the renowned Burkinabe historian Joseph Ki-Zerbo used this ironic expression to refer to the continent.

2 Sethunya means "flower" in the Setswana language.

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RECIPE: FREJOL COLADO Frejol colado is typical of Lima and Ica, especially in Chincha, Cañete and Huaral, where the Afro-Peruvian communities, present since viceregal times, prepared this dessert.

At the end of the 18th century, Spanish writer and poet Esteban de Terralla y Landa (17501805) wrote that the frejol colado was one of the most popular sweets of the time.

INGREDIENTS 1 Kilo of canary beans 2 kilos of brown sugar 1 1/2 can of evaporated milk 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon ground cloves Toasted sesame to taste

INSTRUCTIONS The day before, wash and soak the beans well covered with water, changing the water at least a couple of times.

The next day, drain the beans, put them in a pot, add 5 liters of water and cook for an hour over medium heat.

After that time, add the cinnamon and cloves and continue cooking until the beans are very soft (some may split), checking the water level from time to time, increasing hot water if the level is too low. This process could take an additional hour.

Once the beans are ready, grind the beans with a blender or food processor to obtain the least liquid cream possible, using the water left over from cooking.

Add the bean cream to a tall pot, add the sugar and bring to medium heat. Mix well with the wooden spoon and cook, stirring constantly.

As the mixture thickens, add the milk little by little while continuing to stir.

The mixture will be ready when the bottom of the pot can be seen when passing the ladle.

Remove the dessert from the heat and let it rest for about 10 minutes before serving with sesame seeds on top.