TIA

This is Africa. A phrase I first heard from the lips of Leonardo Dicaprio in Blood Diamond. Thought is as a Hollywood catchphrase for the movie, little did I know I would be hearing it over and over again… So this is Africa. A couple of thoughts from someone who has spent a week and some on a holiday:

Electricity
Whether you are in a restaurant or in a shop with the music blasting out loud, followed by silence and darkness, no seems even to blink. The electricity comes and goes, and the lack of it, is so normal that people don’t react one way or the other. Generators do come in handy as it turns, handy and more so a necessity. Needles to say, with it goes running water, aircon, internet…

Roads
Usch… No roads, just dirt and dust and huge holes. Brings a whole new meaning to 4wheel drive and how necessary they are here. Most of the cars I see on the roads are huge 4wheel drives, (with the exceptions of huge H3 Hummers). I asked Kamene before our road trip whether he has a atlas of the roads to where we are going, and the answer was simple: “there is only one road”. Like the rest of Angola, the roads are busy being built as we speak. By Chinese.

Expenses and customer service
Now going back to my second blog and the hell hole of a hotel we stayed in at Malange… A city of nothing has three hotels in it, one that has no running water and they were charging $40!!! You believe that? Another that looked okay charged $160 and the third one would have been in the same lines, but was full so we didn’t see it. I need running water (or so I thought when I saw the first hotel), so we chose the $160 per night hotel. Now, for $160 one would expect to receive a clean hotel with modern commodities. Or even a bathroom door that closes? I tell you, our relationship took a turn… To give you a run down, the water was sandy, the towels did not look clean, the sheets were not crispy and pulled in, the breakfast was really not all that and on top of that no one smiled! Not even the hopeless bitch at the counter who did not know how to calculate our cash back.

Apparently this is Angola. I can see very specific soviet attitude in the service and the way people dress to impress and talk the talk although they go around the corner to catch the local bus. I have been told that crossing over south into Namibia, it is completely different - you get the best service and luxury resorts for that kind of money. Might my next stop..

Chinese
I can see Chinese almost everywhere I go. (Ironically I did leave China for the same reason.) I see Chinese either driving huge trucks to building sites or huge Hummers to shopping malls. Originally Chinese made an agreement with the government: Chinese loaned a heap of money to Angola, in ways such as building the infrastructure, hospitals, government facilities, schools and most importantly the roads. In exchange they get oil. And as a sideline many Chinese have entered in private business and made a bundle.

Women
I’ve heard the expression that “Africa will be built by women”, now I understand. On our trips we’ve seen and met numerous women, who get up early in the morning and start walking, they walk 30km one way to get a tank of water and carry it back on their heads. Or they walk to buy fish, bread or anything else, and walk back to sell it. All I have seen is women with massive parcels on their heads, bobbing a kid on their back, some cases even another one on their bellies (or in).

Elections
The big elections. On 5th September… The second election since independence. Of course the atmosphere is not the greatest due to the first elections: a party denied results and went to war. The elections are seen as a possible starting point for another war, so it will be interesting to see how many people actually vote. There are 14 parties, each representing roughly the same with no major differences. MPLA is a major party that has been in parliament since independence (1975). The campaign is vast and lucrative. (Costs so far are above $40m)

Malaria
The well feared mosquito… I don’t speak Portuguese but the word “Malaria” keeps coming to my attention. The government has implemented a new programme to cut Malaria cases (successfully reduced cases by more than half in 2007) by distributing nets and sprays.
I of course have been eating my little magic pills Malarone and anointing myself with mosquito repellent. No side affects at all, no headaches, no tummy aches and even the little green elf on my shoulder keeps telling me to pop my pills…