In Huambo...

Well, made it to Huambo. Had to get to the airport in Luanda at 4am, which was painful experience in and of itself. The domestic airport is located down a dirt road…I though the driver had gotten lost because I couldn’t possibly believe this was the way to the capital city’s main domestic airport, but alas, I was wrong. The airport itself consists of one main room with various signs that people change manually indicating which flights are leaving and which are being checked-in. I got there very early so I had lots of time to watch as other flights loaded, and to figure out how it “works”. My favorite part was watching guys duct-tape peoples bags for a small fee—the Angolan version of getting your bag wrapped in Saran wrap.

After check-in we were shuffled through an immigration check point and then to a freezing cold waiting room…for 2 hours! Eventually, a door opened to the outside and there were busses waiting to take us to the plane. I flew on Sonair, which is owned by the nation’s oil companies and a conglomeration of various generals. I was told it is by far the safest airline for internal travel. The plane held about 50 people and looked like it was from 1980, but it was aerodynamic and I arrived in Huambo an hour and a half later in one piece.

The “airport” in Huambo is nothing more than a small one-story concrete building. You walk straight off the airplane, on the tarmac, to the “gate”. Once inside, I had to go through another immigration check-point and then to “baggage pick-up” where guys just handed me my luggage. (I put all of these words in “” because they are actually labeled that way, though I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration at times).

Huambo suffered very badly during the years of civil war from 1975-2002 and was the hold-out for Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA. In the 1990s, when it was thought peace might finally come to Angola, Savimbi backed out of the process and Huambo was held at siege for years—the city was essentially starved to death and within the city limits I’m told it was a pogrom, intellectuals and other who were suspected of ties to the government in Luanda were killed, others imprisioned. In essence, Huambo has been to hell and back.

My first impression of this place was how calm it is compared to Luanda. The climate is much cooler and the quality of air is much better. Under the Portuguese Huambo was known as Nova Lisboa, and the Portuguese government had intended to move the nation’s capital here. It was always known for being a very beautiful city. Some of that feeling has remained. The streets are very wide, the houses are large and the trees still bloom with bright orange and red flowers. There’s a lot of development in town—rebuilding houses etc—and shops have started to reopen.

I’m staying in the guest house of an NGO here called Development Workshop. Right after the war, when NGOs rushed in to help with the resettling of refugees that had fled the years of civil war. Huambo became one of the main posts for NGOs outside of Luanda. Today, most NGOs have left, deeming Angola to no longer be in need of their services (despite the fact that much of the nation still lies in ruins). DW and a handful of organization remain. But the presence of DW in Huambo is, I would venture to guess, the largest. It’s been in Huambo since the late 1980s and has a long term commitment to the area with its hands in virtually every sector from building and education to micro-finance and "re-education" for former soldiers. The guest house is simple but clean and very friendly.

So far, much of my time has been spent recovering from the trip and waiting around for my contacts to meet with me. I’m afraid today will also be spent doing work in my room. This week is basically a holiday week, so it’s hard to organize much to do. BUT tomorrow, which is national Peace Day, I will go with IECA, the Congregational church, to a meeting and “prayer” session with their youth groups. Then on Thursday…who knows. This weekend I’m supposed to finally visit Dondi mission station and then on Monday I go with IECA to a remote mission station called Bunjei and stay there for 3 nights. Then back to Huambo for couple of days before I return to Luanda and then Lisbon. Doing research here is, I’m afraid, a test of my patients…but what’s a girl to do?! Not much I’ve learned…

off to huambo

so...I'm off tomorrow to huambo for 2 weeks...i'll write when able. not sure of internet connection there...wish me luck!

cross-blog post

This is from Lara Pawson's blog that I mentioned in another post. Follow this link to read more of her commentary on Angola which seems to be spot-on. I thought this was particularly poetic...

All those bodies that fell into the sea from vast vessels designed to transport slaves - they are the reason Angola has so much oil. That's what I have been told. Over the centuries the preserved remains of these women, men and children have come to form oil. The wars that followed slavery contributed to the petroleum supplies: people shovelled bodies into the splash at the end of each day's fighting. And then independence came and more bodies were thrown into the sea. And the oil kept coming. That's why Angola has so much petroleum. That's what I was told.

So if it runs out, it will be a good thing. It will show that life has improved, that people are no longer killed and dropped in the ocean.

just in case you needed more proof...

...of my nerdy-ness....

Worldcat (the BEST search engine for looking up books, articles etc all over the US) now has a public site! If you need a book via inter-library loan this mega-search engine will show you where it is housed. It also looks of archival collections, dissertations etc. It's really useful! Technically, it's supposed to be "world" friendly, and I have found listings for things in UK and SA libraries, but mostly it's for the US.

I'll put a link with my general links below but here it is: www.worldcat.org

and...more pics!

Then there is the OTHER side of Luanda that is decidedly more chic. The first two pictures are of a bar/restaurant called Bahia...the two ladies are woman I have befriend here. Both Portuguese but living in Mozambique for work. The woman on the right is Gabi, she's actually moving to Luanda and having a hell of a time trying to find a house for her family (she's married and has two young kids).

The next pic is of a place called Cais do Quatro and is out on the bay. It's where I ate last weekend before going dancing. Luanda prices: lunch for 3 (one dish and one drink each) 100 bucks--and that's US buck! Crazy!

And the above pic is from the restaurant of some of the boats moored nearby...there's definitely cash here.

More pics...

Ok, so this is outside the archive...there's a sort of "justice of the peace" down the street so there are a lot of weddings. These ladies must have been coming from there...also people seem to get married on Fridays and the parties go all weekend.

The last picture is of the, shall we say, "local watering hole". It's no wonder there's a cholera epidemic here (though when you got to the slums you really see where the cholera is coming from--follow this link to see my old post with a pic of the slums). Mostly people seem to wash themselves in this hole, but also the guys who clean the cars all day (you park your car on the street and pay them 5 bucks to wash you car) or the ladies who sell fruit (they use it to keep the fruit fresh in all the heat) use this spot...there seems to be a water-main break that keeps it full all the time. A mosquito paradise!

More pics...

Ok, more pics! Haven't had the opportunity to take very many but here are some highlights (clockwise from left):

1. Guys hanging out on the street selling stuff.

2. Another example of a TOTALLY destroyed document.

3. This little girl is the grand-daughter of a woman that works at Soleme. She was my BF for the day.

4. Men fishing at the beach...this one's for Matt.

NY Times Article on Angola's Oil

Interesting article about Angola's oil in today's NY Times with some good commentary about the corruption here. I particularly liked the final line:

“Angola has no interest in transparency and there is no source of external leverage on the government right now,” said Monica Enfield, an analyst at PFC Energy, a consulting firm in Washington. “With all their oil revenue, they don’t need the I.M.F. or the World Bank. They can play the Chinese off the Americans.”

Dancing in Luanda

Just back from a night on the town...I just have to write this down before I forget it:

This is the scene:

Luanda--land of poverty and trash, but also great wealth and people who know how to have a good time.

A club outside on a dock on water that is, essentially, a cesspool.  Visually, we could be anywhere...Miami...the French Rivera...Brasil...LOTS of people dancing of all different races and nationalities dressed in all different layers of garb (some not much at all).

BUT what makes this Luanda is two things: 1. MUSIC...from brasilian, to regaton, to elvis, to the beach boys, to buddy holly, to madonna, to you name it... 2. The surrounding scene...passing on a row-boat are about 6 street kids checking out the scene...watching the way the other half lives...

All very surreal.  But Luandans definitely know how to have a good time in spite of, or perhaps because of, what's going on in the "real" world.

Boa noite!

my neighbors...

Sometimes sound is the best way to understand a place. Let's see if this works...unfortunately, my neighbors the parrots decided to act up as I started to record, but you do get the sounds of the street with them, which is truly an accurate account of the sounds here.

dirt and paper...

This is how my days are spent...sitting in a HOT archive (no air conditioning)
sifting through boxes of documents that are covered in dirt (literally) and are totally eaten by bugs. For those of us who spend hours in libraries, you'll no doubt be familiar with the threatening signs about how food attracts bugs which will destroy documents and books. Well folks, they ain't lyin'!

Some pics...not as pretty as the beach, but just how it is!

They are pretty self-explanatory, but notice the big bite taken out of the document...crazy!

blogs i like

well...just met the BBC correspondent here...she's got a blog that's really great...and really tuned into Angola...she's been here a while: unstrung

she references another blog that seems really interesting: modal minority

Contrasts...

Luanda is really a funny place. One the one hand, they have lovely beaches and sort of a hint of a former European-style city. On the other hand, you have unbelievable poverty and some of the largest slums in all of Africa. In a nation of 16 million people, nearly a third of them live within the limits of Luanda--a city built for about 400,000 Portuguese settlers. Thus housing is a problem for everyone, from those with millions of dollars to spare, to those who have nothing but a corrugated aluminum home built on piles and piles of trash. Indeed, in Casa Soleme, where I am staying for the month, there are business people who have been living here for a year, and who are booked through to 2008. Businesses pay for their employees to be housed in hotels, because it's too difficult to find adequate housing (with pluming etc) and what is available is outrageously over priced. Case in point, I met a woman here yesterday who is relocating to Luanda from Maputo with her husband and two small children. She's in Luanda for a month trying to find a place for them to live. Yesterday, she went to tour some of the new housing developments on the outskirts of the city that are western-style houses. They are completely sold-out and what is available costs $15,ooo a month! And it will go, quickly! What's more, the traffic from these outskirts into Luanda is nuts. People leave at 5 am to get to the office in time--it can take upwards of 3 hours to commute into the center of the city. Luanda is at the breaking point....it's an urban planners worst nightmare and it's not clear what is going to happen. There's talk of companies moving their headquarters out of the city to be closer to the nice developments that house their upper-level employees. But the main thing is the cost! I met a man last night who have been living for 2 years at the Hotel Presidente, which costs $250 a night! Nuts! There is so much money in this town and yet so much poverty. That's another aspect of this city "lixo" or trash, everywhere. With so many people packed into such a tight space and with zero infrastructure to deal with it, there is just trash everywhere! The poor areas and just teaming in trash, and people live off the left-overs of the better off.

The photos above are from the last couple of days...from left to right:

1. A praia! The beach taken this afternoon...very chic beach clubs with chairs and umbrellas to rent.

2. Women selling cloth on the beach...again, contrasts. The poor amongst all this wealth.

3. A view of Angola and some of the improvised houses. This isn't a poor neighborhood. This is just how it is. Actually, this picture was taken by a friend from the balcony of an aid-worker's home here in Luanda.

Beach!!! And, the bananas taste better here...

Hi all-

Well, more pics if I can upload them. I went to the beach on Saturday and Sunday. These pictures are from Sunday...a place called Cabo Ledo that is about a 2 hours drive south of Luanda. I went with a really nice Portuguese couple that I met through Casa Soleme, where I am staying. He's a mechanic and works on the trucks and bulldozers here and she has just come to stay with him for a couple of months. They are very sweetly in love--Joao told me that he loves her because she's beautiful on the outside but also because she has a good heart and is his best friend, sigh.

And, as for the bananas...they are delicious! They really taste, well, banana-y! Yum!

So here are some pics, from left and clockwise:

1. Joao and Julia.

2. The view from the car.

3. Taken from the car and is of the thatched cabanas that you can rent along the water--it's really too hot here to be outside in the sun all day.

4. Hanging out at the beach...all the umbrellas were taken so we staying in the shade of the rental cabana.

5. The beach!

Pictures...

Matt and I have a flickr account and I will try my darnedest to post pictures to it but the internet connection here is painfully sllllooooowwwww so I don't know how it will work out. These are the house parrots...they like to whistle at women...wonder where they picked-up THAT habit?!!

Picture of Angola

Angola is located in southwestern Africa just above Namibia. I'm in Luanda right now, in the northern part of the country, and will be traveling to Huambo, which is more central and south of Luanda.

In Luanda!

Well, I made it here safe and sound.  My first day consisted of struggling to stay awake after nearly 4 days of traveling.  The first thing that I noticed when I got out of the plane, besides the incredible heat, was the smell.  Angola has a sweet smell---while that might be attributable to fumes from sewage that stuck in the atmosphere, it is nonetheless a distinct smell.

I'm staying a lovely bed and breakfast call Casa Soleme that is run by two sisters.  It is by far the best place to stay in Luanda because of both it's location (with in walking distance to everything) and its familial atmosphere--everyone eats meals at communal tables.  Plus the crowd it attracts is more aid-worker-ish than some of the bigger hotels that mostly cater to big-name oil and business executives in town for a week or so.

It's so much nicer staying in a b and b than an apartment, as I did last year.  Mostly, there are people around to assist you and my general feeling is that this neighborhood is slightly nicer than the previous one I stayed in.  But mostly, I've never alone or want for people to chat with, though I can see that becoming a bit burdensome with time.

I finally found the energy to make it out of the hotel this morning and bought a local sim card for my cell phone as well as popped my head by the archive to re-introduce myself.  I start there on Monday.  I've also had this funny realization this time around.  I was so nervous and on alert the last time I was here and realized, I think, it's because last year I came from South Africa, where is it decidedly unsafe to walk around and when you do venture "a pé" you have to be TOTALLY alert of what's going on around you.  It helps to be alert here, but the level of violent crime is nothing compared to South Africa.  That said, the earning still come off, I have no bag, and my cell phone remains in my pocket...

So now I'm back in my hotel room with more hours to kill.  Fighting "time" here is futile...even though the archive is open for another 6 hours, there was no way I could start working today...just doesn't work that way.  Oh well, it's ridiculous to try and fight it, rather more productive in the long run to just go with the flow.

I'm supposed to go to Huambo in 2 weeks for 2 weeks, but I wont know until Monday the details about that leg of the trip.

Well, when there's more to write I will.  Have internet access in my room and a computer this time around.

Beijos!

Here we go again...

And they're off!

Well, I'm off...to Angola and Portugal...I'm really going to try and be better about writing in this time. This will be greatly assisted by my COMPUTER, which I'm bringing with this trip.