Equator time

It is again a long time since last time I wrote. One of the reasons is probably that I am having such a good time that I have no time to write. Since last time many things have happened: lot of work, some very nice trips, new people, new friends, stronger laces with friends, I celebrated my first birthday in Africa, parties, and last but not least I met (and played with) one of the Angolan basketball players who played in that fatal match, the angolazo. I played the best ever Angolan basketball player Jean Jacques da Conceição, a very normal and great person I have to say. Angola also suffered their biggest event till now, the Pope´s visit in March, and now they are heading to the next one, the African football cup next January.
In the last almost five months we have accustomed very well to Angola, we are a small part of it, of its colorful life, of it engarrafamento. We are total supporters of Angola. Now that we already passed the equator of our initial one year here I have to say tha the month of April has been the best of all without any doubt. We have had a good time at work checking that things start to change and move in the rigth way, we have made a trip to Sao Tome (what and incredible place I recommend everybody to visit, It is incredible to see a country where have almost nothing but at the same time have so much life to share).

We have a few births in the Villa where we live, so we increase our family with the Italian Araceli and Spanish Naiara born in Angola, we all fell a bit of a bigger family. Four days ago my sister gave birth to my second newphew, the little Mauro.

I hope all this good thins continue and that I will continue reporting from now on. There are so many things to write, the time goes by quickly, and we are liking Angola so much that I do not want to leave people without this little experience I am lucky to live. I do hope this second part of my stay will be as good and better (like my second part in Denmark and Emdrup when I was an Erasmus). I still remember the moment 9 months ago, I was expecting Brazil but I was given Angola. Now I say thank u for that and for all the things I am living here. I hope to continue walking a lot in Angola

post Xmas

It is long time since last time I wrote. And many things did happen, specially Xmas and coming back to Luanda day to day life.
Xmas were great. We made two trips, one to the south of the country (in Lubango with a two days stop in Benguela), and another traveling along Namibia and Botswana. Both of them were great, we had time to meet people, see other provinces of Angola, other countries of Africa. We also saw all kind of animals and lived many adventures and even got to know the African borders and its procedures. All of it for the reasonable price of 4000 car km in 10 days plus one airplane trip.

Lubango is one of the biggest cities in Angola, situated in the province of Huila, one of the nicest. The city is different to Luanda, you can walk and the streets and big buildings look to be the same the Portuguese left and people treat you in a very good way. You do not fell a white in between blacks. They do not see you just like money, they try to help you just….to help you (almost always). The surroundings of mountains and fields are very nice and you can walk along them without worrying about landmines. It is an area where you need more than the short two days we spent there. So it means we have to come back, but next time by airplane because the 900 km from Luanda takes no less than 13 hours and a third of it by land paths. People says we made a record in our first time.

Namibia and Botswana are different to Angola. Not only for the language (English in this case) but because there, in this two countries, everything looks to have some kind of order and purpose. The attitude of the people is more welcomed to foreigners and to the well done things, prices are lower, services are better , and the quality of peoples life better as well. They have less money, they have no petrol but the standard of life is higher and you just have to look to both sides of the roads to see that, even those who have nothing live well enough (always on their standard of life).
There in this countries, we travel a lot. We rented a car and we made our first stops in Ethosa Park, a huge natural reserve of more than 200 km where we saw our first big animals in Africa. We saw zebras, giraffes, lions, elephants, ostrichs, hipos, etc. Continuing our trip we visit the Capribi area and the Okavango Delta (already in Botwswana). We continue watching incredible animals and incredible places.
We had really good Xmas far from home. But they finished. We look forward to the next trip in Africa.

Barça-R.Madrid at Longa River Lodge

Yerterday R-Madrid and Barça played the bigest football match in Spain. During last week we were wondering about where to see it. In the Villa OR in some angolan together with locals? At the end I can say I hardly know the result of yesterday match. Think it was Barça who won. I did not see it (and it was my first time in 26 years) because I was far away from crowds and football. I spent the weekend of the match in a place that only a few have had the chance to enjoy, I was in the Longa River Lodge. It is possibly one of the few touristic places that exist in Angola. But it is not even a touristic place. It is more a familiar place. It is unbelieveable place! It is a seven bungalow lodge settled in the border of an small island.

This little island is at 20 minutes boat trip far from last populated stop. It is located in the river, but just in front of it, it is the sea. Just crossing the 100meters by kajak you have the sand, the beach. And the waves.
It is an amazing place were construcción mix perfectly with the nature. In order to make it more natural, no electricity or lamps are used, just candles. Because of that you get to adapt to nature and to ligth. If the sun rises at 5.30-6:00, you wake up at that time. If the sun sets at 18:30, you also fell like going to sleep earlier. It is like paradise!You forget about everything and enjoy relaxing, resting, reading, eating gorgeous meals, swimming. You can as well go kayaking (take care with cocodriles) or go fishing.

If you cross to the beach to find yourselt alone its 7km length where the water is fantasticaly clean and the waves break hard but on such a smoth way that lets you enjoy all time. During the months of october, november and december big turtles come to this beach to leave their eggs. So on TOP of all the above, you have the chance to see a great spectacle which is the eggs putting now and the birth of little turtles in 90 days.

Is it like paradise, perfect to rest your body, your mind and to recharge for crowded Luanda. Everybody should have the chance of a place like this. Far from city, jod, crowds, politics, economy….just it. What it is more amazing is that it exist in Angola, at 200km from Luanda. Angola is not a turistic place but has natural beauties everywere. This is not natural at all but is perfect combinación with nature. It is perfectly safe from mass of tourists as there is only place for 30 people in a quite familiar way.
Great weekend. Great week in front of me.
I hope you understand why I do not care about yesterday match result "this time".

¿Luanda Bella?

¿Luanda? Luanda es para la mayoria de los que conocemos algo desconocido. Mas bien puede confundirse y suena a Rwanda, que por desgracia sólo es por “nuestra mayoria” conocida “gracias” al genocidio alli ocurrido. Luanda es una desconocida dentro de la “gran desconocida”, y quien sabe si olvidada, que es Africa.
Pero Luanda es ahora mi hogar, y que lugar. Un lugar lleno de belleza por todas partes. Sin embargo dentro de los ojos de “nuestra mayoria”, Luanda no seria bonita, es más bien un caos. ¡Pero qué caos!

Las distancias en Luanda son distintas. Puede decirse que todo está cerca, pero claro esto nos obligaría a referirnos a la peli de Airbag: ¿Cerca en el tiempo? ¿o cerca en el espacio? Lo primero vendría a decir que la ciudad es enorme y todo está a tomar por culo, porque la hora en coche no te la quita nadie. Lo segundo vendría a indicar que la ciudad es pequeña y lo és. Pues bien todo en Luanda esta cerca en el espacio pero lejos en el tiempo. En Luanda 24 horas dan menos de sí.
Luanda fue concebida como una ciudad para medio millón de habitantes en la que ahora viven cinco millones. Nos vivimos en lo que vendrá a ser la futura ciudad porque, como de donde no hay no se puede sacar espacio, esta ciudad se extiende a marchas forzadas hacia el sur.

En el sur está la paradoja. Condominios de lujo y algún centro comercial crean pequeñas burbujas al margen de la vida real de Luanda. Los condominios o urbanizaciones de las petroleras, ministros o embajadas, dejan en el olvido las zonas de musseques con casas construídas con bloques de hormigón, chapas, algún otro retal y ladrillos para que los tejados no se vuelen. Lo único en común entre ambas moradas es la tracción a las cuatro ruedas de los 4x4 que les sirven a unos y a otros para trasladar a todos y crear el engarrafamento, quizá la mayor seña de identidad de Luanda.

El engarrafamento se vive sobre cuatro ruedas, podría llamarse atasco, pero no es atasco porque eso implicaría que en algún momento hubo tráfico fluido, lo cual no es así. El engarrafamento es en sí un “buenos días” y un “buenas tardes” y un “buenas noches” (siempre está ahí) en el que todos, los más modernos 4x4 del mundo y los coches más despojos pitan y se pelean por avanzar ese metro que sumado al resto hagan de un trayecto de 10 km sólo una hora.
Pero lo mejor del engarrafamento no son los coches sino lo que lo colorea, lo que lo rodea, esos candungueiros con sus Toyota Hiace que se ganan la vida (y el hueco entre los coches) haciendo las veces de trasporte colectivo, esos vendedores entre los coches, esas señoras zungueiras con sus cestas en la cabeza y sus niños atados a la espalda, esas personas incansables que no piden sino que trabajan vended, vendiendo todo lo que algún contenedor chino ha dado de sí en el congestionado puerto de Luanda. Los engarrafamentos son parte de la vida en Luanda, donde puedes comprar de todo, desde un documento de compraventa “falso“, a un perchero, una tumbona, unos yogures o el Jornal de Angola…. Estas son algunas de las bellezas únicas de Luanda.

My first impressions

My first impressions from Angola comes from the moment I was informed about my OFECOMES destination. I was at a picnic in a mountain in Northern Cyprus when I got the news from my friend Manolo. After a few quizes and jokes he finally told me I had been given the city of Luanda. I got shocked! as I was expecting going to Sao Paulo. Luanda was far from my choices and as far as I knew from other people it was a very expensive country for expatriates with a not very good reputation in between Becarios Icex world.

I never though about quitting and It took me just one day to convince myself that Luanda was my destiny. It was a perfect place to me who always had wondered about living in Africa for a year; for me that I was interested in cooperation and development, for me that I wanted to learn a new language like Portuguese. I was interested in the culture. I just had my doubts about the professional interest of Angola as economic market but, as I know now, Angola is a fast developing country still to grow and to be reconstructed thanks to the budget that petrol reserves provide. Therefore Luanda was my destiny.

Since I got the great new till my departure date I spent a very happy summer (thanks people! Obrigado by the way) and people was even surprise when I told them I was happy about coming to Angola. After two months here, I can say I continue happy. I am not alone here, we are two of us plus the people we already met. I am leaving this experience with my colleague, and now friend Borja (well… he still has to play hard to be my friend, nao é?). I am conscious that this fact and the way we get on with each other makes everything easier once you arrive to a new country and especially so far.

But lets pass to the first Angolan in situ Impression: it started the 5ht of October in the way from the 4 de Fevreiro airport to the Villa de Cooperación Española, where we live. I prefer not to talk about the two hours we had to wait to pass the passports queue to get to the baggage area. Even though we have an especial passport, we were almost the last ones and we were lucky and glad to find our baggage still there. Once we got out, many Angolans were awaiting to get money from foreigners by bringing your suitcases 30 meters. There are no taxis in Luanda, but there is always someone arranged waiting for you (in our case a car from the Office driven by Nilton). Otherwise you have no chance to move. Back to that 4x4 car lift from the airport to our current home…I realised I was finally in Africa. When you see women carrying any kind of object (from food, to a suitcase) above their heads you notice you are not anymore in your glass world. When you see children running in between chickens, car tyres and dirtiness just on their barefoot, you realise something has changed from what you left 12 hours ago back in Europe. Not everything is like this image in Luanda (first because almost everybody wears at least sandals) but in some cases even more (like those parts of the city we still have not walked by).

That’s the first impact, second one can be one hour later when we get to a crazy shopping centre where everything is much more expensive than in Spain but were everybody seems to have more than enough to buy there. Then you see something misses in between those two images. “TIA”, This Is AFRICA where “the everything” and “the nothing” seems to be closer than nowhere else.

Intro Blog

It is time to start this blog called “El Angolazo” where in the following nearly 10 moths (2008/09) I will try to show and express what I feel, see, learn and furthermore in Angola and its surrounding countries.

Why am I rigth now in Angola? Well, the reason is that I am taking a one year professional experience working in the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Luanda, Angola, (OFECOMES de Luanda in Spanish). This year is part of a programme that started last January with a 6 months master in commercial trade and that could continue in 12 months with an experience in a private company. At the moment I am what is called a Becario Icex.

Why to write a Blog? There are many reasons: like keeping contact with people, like communicating things from the unknown Africa, or just a way to write and remember my days here. I just know I am starting this but do not know how will it evolve.

Why I am writing in English? The reason is that I do not want any friend or colleague not to have the chance to read this personal blog. I (as many of us) have friends around the world and at the end English is the common language most of us speak. In addition I guess my English is quite simple, so I hope everybody will be able to read it and will forgive me for not writing in Spanish. I am sorry in advance for all the mistakes that I can commit in English. I will try to write in this language most of the times but I assume there might be days or situations where I will feel like writing in Spanish or ,why not some day, in Portuguese (if I somehow get a good level, nao é?).

Why is the blog called “El Angolazo”? It is a pity but I knew little about Angola before, like it might happen to most of you. I love playing basketball and one of the few things I knew about Angola comes from it. It took place in the Olimpic Games in Barcelona 92 when the Spanish national team lost against Angola. Because of the impact of that defeat it was called “el Angolazo”. It was a kind of inflexion point for them. So it can be for me this experience and so that is the title of this blog.

Why have I release this blog so late? Better late than never! I would have loved to start it before coming here in order to talk about the feelings and ideas about Angola that I had before (Before being biased by what I already know)- Anyway better late than never.

What do I expect from it? I just hope you enjoy reading it and have a way to keep in contact and to learn a few things from Angola, Africa and the life in this, for most of all of us, unknown part of the world.

This is for you, for me and for those who could like it.