By: Liesl Stewart
Pictured left to right: Liesl Stewart, Linda Ncube, Alfred Sihwa
While Zimbabwe has beautiful freshwater lakes, rivers, and waterfalls, it is a landlocked country, so it was their wish to hang out at some of Cape Town’s many beaches. We had a lovely time together sharing in friendship and our love for Creation. It was clear these two are animal lovers by the many photos they took of dogs walking on the beach!
As part of their advocacy work, they are both connected to CreatureKind through the CreatureKind Fellowship Program. Linda Ncube was a 2021-2022 CreatureKind Fellow, and Alfred Sihwa is a current 2022-2023 fellow. I asked them questions about the impact of the fellowship program on their lives and work.
Linda Ncube
Linda Ncube (pictured above) completed the yearlong CreatureKind Fellowship Program in May of 2022.
Liesl: What did you value most about your fellowship year?
Linda: What I valued most is that CreatureKind considers every life to matter– every life, whether human or nonhuman. At CreatureKind, every kind of life matters.
Liesl: That was new for you?
Linda: It’s not new but CreatureKind takes it deeper, teaching about a connection between living creatures, with each other and with the shared environment. They bring the fellows together to understand their own environment and surroundings.
Liesl: Were you able to understand your context and your environment better?
Linda: Yeah. Especially for farmed animals. I now understand better what’s happening with them.
Liesl: How have you put what you learned and gained to use in your life?
Linda: For me, it’s not like putting it to use, but it’s living it. It’s not that I try to practice it. CreatureKind taught me in such a way that it’s now within me. I can give you an example: I was traveling in my car with my friends at night. In Zimbabwe, there are a lot of cattle in the road. So we were driving, then from nowhere a cow crosses the road. A calf was following, and we hit it. We heard a bang sound. We knew the car had hit it. So, we stopped and jumped out to see. Two of my friends went to the side of the car to see what had happened to the car. Myself, I went to try to look for the calf. It was dark, so I put on my phone’s torch [flashlight] to try to see what had happened to it. Was it dead? It was so touching to me. The others questioned why I was looking for the calf. “Come and check your car! You’re concerned about the calf when you haven’t even checked what happened to your car!” The calf just has one life. The car, yes, I can buy another one! I can repair it! But the calf has just got one life. After CreatureKind, it just runs within me to have this love for other creatures. (In the end, we couldn't find the calf so I think and hope it wasn’t hurt.)
Liesl: When it comes to farmed animals, what do you think is the biggest need in your context?
Linda: Maybe the biggest need is for people to understand that farmed animals are sentient. They have feelings. When people look at the farmed animals, they just see food or they see an income-generating opportunity, so they don’t consider the way these broiler chickens suffer in battery cages. People don’t know. Just like myself, I didn’t know. But after learning, it made a difference.
Liesl: What is your biggest dream?
Linda: To see my fellow compatriots valuing the lives of animals, to understand that animals have their lives, too. We, humans, are here on earth with animals. They are not here only for us. We are here together.
Liesl: How can your dream become reality?
Linda: The way CreatureKind mixes the Christian faith with the care of animals is a unique way of reaching out to people who believe in Christ. Where I come from, most people are Christians, so giving them a theology that includes caring for animals is the best approach.
Liesl: You spoke about broiler chickens in cages. Is factory farming increasing in Zimbabwe?
Linda: Yeah, in our country the government is promoting battery cages. The government is even giving people loans to purchase cages from China and wherever. So, it’s like we are fighting against the government because the government is busy promoting the use of cages. So, we have a lot of work to try to convince the government. We are trying to change policy at a local level because policy change has to start from within communities.
Liesl: Are other animals being factory-farmed that you’re trying to help?
Linda: Yes, farmed pigs. As Seventh-Day Adventists, we don’t have high regard for pigs. We see them as dirty, we don’t eat them. So I want to fight for them. Before I didn’t love pigs, but now I love them most. So, I’m trying to fight for the pigs.
Alfred Sihwa (pictured below) is a current fellow in the CreatureKind Fellowship Program.
Alfred Sihwa
Liesl: How did you find out about CreatureKind?
Alfred: I learned when I went into their website. I realized one of the advocates, Linda Ncube, was already doing her scholarship under CreatureKind. I became interested. I wanted to follow her work and follow what other people were doing because it’s a different approach, after all.
Liesl: How is CreatureKind’s approach different?
Alfred: The CreatureKind way doesn’t judge anyone, and it encourages both theological and traditional ways of dealing with animals. It’s a totally different approach.
Liesl: How is that different than other approaches?
Alfred: It takes people to their roots, focusing on the traditional ways of caring for animals. Everything is incorporated, traditional and theological. It’s not a judgmental approach because it doesn’t differentiate whether you are a Christian believer or a traditional life believer. I also think a focus on the sentience of animals is important so that we can build compassion for animals in[to] people.
Alfred: As an advocate for animals, I believe in pan-Africanism, in traditional ways of operating.2 I would want Africa to do things in a way that is rooted closer to home. Animal welfare in its current form is a new phenomenon in Africa, but we are adopting new strategies from Europe and America. But traditionally there were different ways of respecting and caring for animals that were animal welfare-friendly. When colonization came in, Africans lost their ways of caring for animals. They adopted using battery cages, and they adopted intensive farming methods. It destroyed the way animals were kept, traditionally. Then I realized that even if animal welfare is coming back into focus now, it’s being pushed by the global North, and Africans won’t understand as much as if it started from our traditional ways. So, I thought if I learn from CreatureKind and then go back and do the best ways that are closer to home in talking about animal welfare, it will really make a difference.
Alfred: In our traditional ways, there was actually respect for animals. Even when they were doing traditional rituals, animals were given respect. Animals were kept in kraals to care for them.3 Even during slaughter, I remember the rest of the animals were moved out of the kraal so that only the animal being killed was left by itself. The other ones didn’t have to see that animal being killed. There was stunning of some sort for the animal [being] killed, done in a traditional way.
Alfred: During colonization, African traditional systems were looked down upon.4 Actually, people saw Western life as the better one, and they lost their traditions. So, that’s why I joined CreatureKind, so it is possible to restore some traditions.
Liesl: How do you see yourself using what you’re doing this year through the fellowship? Will you be educating people? Offering theology to bring back old traditions?
Alfred: As part of my project, I am looking at traditional meals — how best can they assist in animal welfare? I’ve already done the research. I’m now working on how best the recipes can be done and how can they be shared in a publication. It’s all about diet.5 What you eat makes you who you are, so that’s the first thing. From there, I’ll go back to looking at the traditional methods of taking care of animals, and how best that was done [in the past]. After doing this, I’ll go back to the community, church, schools, and everyone, and try and share this knowledge so that everybody really understands where we are coming from and where we are going to promote animal welfare. Then, when we take Western ideas, we could fuse them with traditional ways and have better methods for taking care of animals.
Liesl: So, you are researching traditional recipes that can be made in ways that are more respectful to animals? And then you want to share those more widely with people, and use that to show what’s happening in the food system?
Alfred: Yes. The research that I’ve done is inclusive of animal-based and plant-based recipes because I want to do comparative research. But when I do the publication, I’ll leave out animal-based recipes, because this will actually help the animals more. I’ll bring in the idea of being a vegetarian and/or vegan. This has always been there, but it’s coming now in a Westernized way. I want to re-introduce the traditional ways.
Liesl: So the traditional diet used to be more plant-based?
Alfred: Traditionally, meat was eaten on special occasions. It was not a daily meal. But, we lost that — I say “we” because I’m part of the clan — we lost that, and now we are having meat on a daily basis.
Liesl: How do you address this heavy meat-based diet with your community?
Alfred: You show them that this is how we lived traditionally, and this is how we changed. It’s better for us to go back to our roots and traditions. Also, looking at health aspects, now there is more diabetes, high blood pressure, and there’s cancer. These all increased with these changes in diets.
Liesl: What role do you think the church can play?
Alfred: The Church should understand that they have a role to play for the animals because they are God’s Creation. It’s not only about animals being there, but it’s also about animals being God’s Creation.
Amen. Gratitude to both Linda and Alfred for sharing their thoughts with me. Long may these two amazing people continue to be part of the global CreatureKind community.
2. When asked to explain the term “Pan Africanism” Alfred said: “Pan Africanism…aims to bring unity and the resurrection of lost traditions and cultures of people in Africa and of those of African descendency. Food is prepared, stored, and used in traditional ways. It specifically refers to the ways African cultures play an important role in molding and developing human animals towards plant-based diets that use traditional and locally available ingredients. When we talk about Pan Africanism we talk about animal welfare in Africa being championed by people in Africa, with food culture and traditions playing important roles in nurturing compassion.” ↩
3. A kraal is an enclosure for cattle and other domestic animals in southern Africa. (Collins dictionary online: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/kraal.)↩
4. Linda Ncube’s blog: Growing Up at an Adventist Table (November 10, 2021) offers additional important thoughts about this. ↩
5. With the word “diet,” Alfred is referring to the totality of a person’s and/or culture’s eating practice, which differs from the Western “diet culture” that is rooted in restricting certain foods to attain body shape and appearance ideals. CreatureKind supports and encourages dietary practices that are holistic, meaningful, and informed by values like cultural, ecological, and creaturely wellbeing. Alfred’s and Linda’s stories attest to these important distinctions.↩