Me, one year later, with Bernice of the Sheenan tropa. As of 4:30 am this morning I have been in
And how did I celebrate this milestone? I think I broke my toe! I wish I could say it was doing something exciting, but I was just cleaning and jammed my foot into my chair.
UPDATE: Sergey, the former EMT informs me it is not a break, but a bad sprain. Still limping and getting an awesome bruise, though.
Even garbage trucks have come down with AfroBasket fever! 
Angola with their trophy, from FIBA.com As predicted,
The game was over before 9 p.m. but I knew the partying would go on for a long time. However, by the time I went to bed (around midnight) most of the activity had died down. Except next door. For some reason, two of the young men that live in the house next to mine (who were making such a ruckus a few weeks ago) felt the need to carry on the party. Their form of merrymaking was the noisemakers that Unitel the cell phone company, gave out as the tournament started. Remember the noisemakers you got at kids’ birthday parties, the ones you blow into and the paper uncurls? Imagine that sound, magnified by 30 bazillion. These two guys sat and blew these things all night long. They only took a break to take a deep breath and start again. Just when I thought they were getting tired, a car would drive by honking reminding them that they too should be making as much noise as humanly possible. I finally got some rest after 3:30 am.
Apart from that, I got a kick out of seeing how happy everyone was. I think Americans are spoiled by how awesome we are in pretty much everything (ha ha) and forget that winning a tournament can be a big deal. Angolans are very proud of their team, as they should be.
Here is a not-very-visible video from my camera, but you get the idea:
Willie is growing up. She’s in her biting phase, which appears to be somewhat permanent. I’m trying to train her not to turn her teeth on me, but it’s a challenge. She just really likes to bite, and my hands are too tempting. She gets mad that I leave her alone during the day. I hate to think what she'll do when I'm on my home leave! However, when she’s not biting she’s the sweetest kitty in the world!
She doesn't have blue eyes anymore, so her name makes less sense than it did before. I mostly call her "bandida" (bandit) because she's usually biting me or not using her litter box like she's supposed to. 
Angolan team in action against Central African Republic. Angola is in the white jersey. Photo from www.fiba-africa.com. FIBA’s AfroBasket Tournament is currently taking place in
The tournament is taking place in various provinces, including Benguela. The stadiums were built by the Chinese. People were doubtful it would be done on time- in Benguela they didn’t start building until 4 months ago. Any animosity Benguela residents had towards the Chinese were washed away when they entered the sparkling new stadium. Suddenly the Chinese are master builders, helping
The goodwill is understandable. Angolans are very patriotic and this is their chance to show off. Things are going very well in the tournament, both in the logistics and the basketball. My American friend Nancy, who owns an English school in Benguela, had the chance to meet the Moroccan team and their head coach. She said he was amazed at everything in
And the fact that the Angolan team is laying the hurt on everyone else certainly helps! The first game I watched was against Cabo Verde. Their win was overwhelming: 100 – 44! It was actually a bit embarrassing, bordering on the unsportsmanlike, because the Angolan team just kept dominating, keeping the better players in and doing fancy dunks.
I’m even staying up past my bedtime right now, watching
I’m watching the game on a South African channel. There is an American announcing and a South African accompanying him. During the half, they had a former Angolan team player, talking about
UPDATE: Angola "barely" won the game, 78-51. Considering that they won their others games by an average of 44 points, CAR was their first real challenge. Angola has now qualified for the quarterfinals.
These kids frequent the little playground in front of our apartment building. They also “guard” cars at one of the local supermarkets, and I pay then about US$0.75 to watch over my car when I’m there. I can’t figure out if they are street kids or if they actually have a place to sleep. Even if they don’t sleep on the streets, they certainly don’t have any adult supervision. They are very sweet kids, just without any support emotionally or financially. Sad and all too common.
Last Friday I was sitting on the playground benches with my neighbor Stella, watching her 20 month old son play with the boys. I tried to secretly take pictures of them, but as soon as they saw the camera they went crazy. They started doing these crazy hand signs, and I was a little afraid they were throwing gang signs. I asked them what the signs meant and I just got confused looks. One said, “It’s Os Nigas!” and they got all excited and started to scream “Os Nigas! Os Nigas!” I had no clue what they were talking about so I asked one what Os Nigas meant. He got really embarrassed because he clearly had no idea what Os Nigas was and the other ones started to laugh at him. An older boy, clearly a leader, said, “They are rappers!” And it suddenly dawned on me what Os Niga meant in Portuguese. (Add another “g” to the word and you’ll get it.)
I tried to convince them not to say that word, that it was very bad, but to no avail. Just another American cultural export, unfortunately.
This is how they look when they are not trying to be OGs.
Unloading sacks of flour in Cubal(Or, “With this title, could I possibly be nerdier?”)
CARE has announced that it will no longer accept
Basically, it works like this: the USG sells subsidized, surplus US agricultural products to NGOs overseas. These NGOs usually sell the goods in local markets, in turn using profits to fund projects- a process called monetization. The goods must be transported on
The IHT article linked above lays out both sides’ argument well. In my personal opinion, the policy is inherently flawed. However, it does provide millions of aid dollars that would not otherwise be available. Sadly, most development NGOs are desperate for funding and will take it in whatever form it appears.
The big question for me is how exactly CARE plans to continue to provide food security aid in the countries where it works without accepting USG money. They’ve talked about doing local, sustainable projects that will provide money. This may work, but I doubt it will work on a scale that will provide millions of dollars. They speak specifically about
It should be noted also that CARE is one of the powerhouse development NGOs- well-known with lots of donations rolling in. (Donations which I’m sure will rise significantly when people read articles about their decision.) I doubt that smaller NGOs without CARE’s resources would be able to take such a decision.
Our program in
Having said that, is food aid stunting the growth of the Angolan agricultural sector? If USG food aid was absent and
Two Saturdays ago I woke up to find water all over my bathroom floor. In my groggy state I blamed it on the cat, but I don’t even think she an pee 10 L in one night. I looked up and saw that my ceiling was dripping water all over the place, meaning that a pipe in the apartment upstairs had burst. The upstairs neighbors weren’t at home, so there was nothing I could do.
I called our housing coordinator to see what could be done. It was a Saturday, so I wasn’t expecting much, but I did hope that at least someone could come to rig up a better water collection system or something like that. When I explained the situation to our guy, he said, “Oh I know what the problem is, Princess. You left a faucet on!” Um, no, that actually was not the problem. I was annoyed that he thought that it was just stupidity and forgetfulness on my part, but as the “princess” of the office (only female expat) I am used to these macho assumptions. He said he would stop by, but I knew he wouldn’t. In the meantime, I was emptying buckets of water every half hour or so. I called again Sunday to remind him it was an emergency, and he said he would stop by. I knew he wouldn’t. And he didn’t.
On Monday, I saw him and reminded him. “Oh yes, Princess! I forgot!” He and Jesús went over to check out the ceiling. When he got back he stopped by my office and said, “Oh Princess! It’s a very bad situation! You should have told me!” Huh!? ARGH! He assured me that it would be fixed by Friday.
My assumption was correct- a pipe for the apartment above me burst. Unfortunately, this meant that it was not a job we could do, but a job that the building owner was responsible for. Over a week later, nothing has been done. The leaking has subsided somewhat, but my bathroom is in an absolute state of disaster. It’s no use cleaning because it gets dirty as soon as I finish cleaning. Chunks of the ceiling are falling down- luckily there is a small roof over my shower because otherwise I would be showering in falling cement.
When I followed up with the housing coordinator on Friday, he was surprised to learn that nothing had been done. I gently reminded him that he had said he would speak with the building owner every day until it was fixed. Blank look… “Oh yes, Princess! He says it will be done.” Seeing that nothing had been done on his part, I resorted to what I hate to do- email with a CC to his supervisor and the big chefe. I’m still of the school of thought where you should assume that people will perform their jobs as required, in spite of being in Angola for a year now, where things (and people) don’t work this way. I’m a lowly manager, not a big chefe- I know the situation would not have lasted this long had it been one of the big bosses with this problem. The email with CCs got an immediate response as of Friday afternoon, but nothing has been done. I might have to get obnoxious in order to have it fixed.
(Scene of the craziness!)A few months ago I wrote about the water situation in our building. To sum, my next door neighbors, two nice Portuguese professors, have an empregada (maid) that is crazy and rude. She blamed their apartment’s lack of water on me and would yell at our guards when they wouldn’t turn on our generator for their apartment.
Well, things calmed down a bit. Jesús, our handyman, did something to the pipes and the problem was solved. At least, they were hooked back up to the public water works, meaning that they would not get any water when the city water was out. (Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it, lady!) After all the yelling and insults, the university the professors work for had to nerve to call our office and ask if they could hook into out pump. The empregada was so rude to us that we said no. I felt a little bad because the actual residents of the apartment, the two Portuguese women, are quite nice. But if they want to take advantage of our resources, then they should talk to their empregada about her actions.
Anyway, today is Saturday. I woke up a little cranky because the people in the house next to the building decided that 6:45 am was an appropriate time to start blasting music- cheesy Brazilian romantic music at that! About an hour later, I heard the shouting, the familiar raspy voice of my neighbor’s empregada. From my bedroom I could see the empregada at our pump and our guard at our water pump telling her to step away. She starts yelling about the water situation, calling our guard names. Once again she’s blaming the lack of water on my neighbor/colleagues and I- instead of, say, THE MUNICIPALITY, the entity responsible for supplying the water to residents. But we are easier targets, I suppose.
She basically wanted the guard to turn on the pump so that the professoras could take showers. Her argument was, basically, “Do you think it’s proper that the professoras have to take baths out of buckets?!” Oh, how my heart bleeds for them! This was one of the weakest arguments I have ever heard. Everyone takes baths out of buckets when there’s no water, including me! Our guard had little sympathy- a given, considering that he is poor and probably lives in a place with no running water and bathes out of a bucket too, like ¾ of the people in this city.
Our guard explained that the pump belongs to us and that without our authorization he could not turn it on. He spoke calmly and politely, ignoring her shouts. She then got personal, telling him he was ignorant. This was the final straw for him, and he started yelling at her, telling her that she was out line and that if she had a problem she should talk to me or Sergey, not him. She yelled again and said that she had knocked on my door and I didn’t answer (a lie) so he should go ahead and turn it on.
She finally went inside and things calmed down for a bit. About an hour later, I heard her shouting again, this time saying that there was too much noise coming from the house next door and that the guard needed to go next door to tell them to turn the volume down. He said in a loud voice, “I work for Dona Elizabeth (me, I think) and Dona Stella! I don’t work for you! You have no right to tell me what to do!” Good answer! She didn’t like it, however.
Another hour later, I heard her shouting from the stairwell, this time “talking” with our downstairs neighbor. ("Talking" = shouting and not letting the other person speak.) She was complaining about the water situation trying to get the neighbor to come up and talk to me. Now, the downstairs neighbor is hooked into our generator because she is friends with Jesús, and she doesn’t want to press her luck. So she just said, “There’s no city water, so we don’t have water. There’s nothing was can do about it.” At least one of our neighbors is smart!
Here is an Angolan homemade “bicycle.” The kid was really shy about having his picture taken, but I bought him a juice and it broke the shyness.
Here are some Zambian toys. The boy with the old tire had a stick and would just push it along. This was a huge hit and a swarm of kids would follow him, trying to catch the tire.
Here’s one of my favorites, a wire car from
Joseph Kabila, the president of Angola's neighbor the Democratic Republic of Congo, recently came to
Traffic between Restinga and the commercial center was completely blocked for about 20 minutes. I had the pleasure of sitting in my car during this time. As usual, motorcycle drivers thought the law didn’t apply to them and tried to go around the road block. It was extremely satisfying to see one get stopped by a cop and be escorted away.
Sunset in Zambia. I did not cry here. -My office
-My house
-The beach volleyball court
-In the car after getting stopped by the immigration cops
NEW!-
Why is this important? I was completely exhausted when I got to
My bags were literally the last ones to be put on the luggage conveyor belt. I didn’t get out of the international airport until 2:20 pm. I thought the last flight left at 5 pm, but our frantic driver, Firmino, informed me that the flight was supposed to leave at 3 pm! Banking on the fact that every single one of the flights (international and domestic) I have taken in this country has left at least ½ hour late, I held hope that I would make it.
Getting into the ticketing area, there was no one at the check-in counter. We went to the migration check-point and the immigration guy waved us on, telling us that the Sonair check-in guy was in the passenger waiting room. Firmino went into the room to ask the check-in guy if there was still a possibility that I could get on the flight. Sonair Guy said that I could still check in, but that I had to hurry as the little busses that take passengers to the airplanes. Firmino rushes to get my bags from the hallway and bring them in. The guy in charge of the waiting room suddenly stops him and says, “You can’t bring those in here.” Firmino, whose job it is to make sure I get on the plane, hurriedly tries to explain that I have to get on the plane and tries to push pass. Waiting Room Guy gets an attitude and starts yelling in Firmino’s face. I try to intervene, because Firmino is getting angry and I sense trouble. I try the humble approach, “Oh sir, I’m so sorry, I just got in and my colleague here is just trying to help,” etc. etc. Waiting Room Guy wouldn’t even look at me, and continued to yell at Firmino. I notice another couple from the same flight I was on come in the waiting room, and Waiting Room Guy waves them on. Seeing this, Firmino tried to push past the guy, but Waiting Room Guy PUSHED Firmino away.
This is where I lost it. I had just been in
However, this roomful of people jumped to my defense, restoring my faith in Angolans. “What SHAME!” shouted one woman. “Why are you making this poor woman cry? What are you gaining from this?!” Then, a well-dressed man walked up to Waiting Room Guy. He must have been an important chefe (big boss) because all he did was walk up to him and say, “You will let this woman and her bags get on the plane.” Waiting Room Guy suddenly got shy and said, “Sim, senhor.”
I got through and managed to get my bags and body to the tarmac in front of the buses taking passengers to the plane. The other people in my same position and I were just waiting in front of the buses- we were not being allowed on, but the buses (full of passengers) weren’t moving. After about 20 minutes we finally are allowed on the bus. A woman starts yelling, “This is disrespectful! You are holding us up for a foreigner! Passengers have rights!” This, of course, only started my tears again, which had only just stopped. Other people hushed the woman, but it still hurt. Ach. Made it on the plane and got some quality time with Willie before crashing at 8:30 pm.
Welcome home!
