LUANDA, THAT MOST EXTRA-ORDINARY CITY

So, here is the next installment of the continuing saga of Lotty and I in Angola.

Side street in Luanda after rain

Street market on edge of Luanda

A couple of kids dancing in an orphanage the school supports

Before we arrived here we had been told all manner of horror stories about Luanda, about how it was the most expensive city in the world, how dangerous it was to venture alone onto its crime ridden streets and how chaotic it was. The result of this was that the first time we went into the city (safely tucked up in our school bus, with uniformed guard) we were all terrified to set foot out of the bus. It duly arrived at the "South African Super Market", which we were being shown, as a good place to shop, This is a smallish supermarket, surrounded by a high cement wall with armed guards at the entrance to the parking lot, as well as at the entrance to the supermarket itself. Taking all our courage in our hands, we climbed cautiously out of our bus into the heat of a Luandan afternoon, and hurried into the supermarket to do our shopping.


Once I had managed to sort out how the price of things was indicated, I felt that the info about it being expensive here was true..The prices were terrible! Anyhow, I gritted my teeth and bought the few things I needed (Lotty was working, so not on this first trip). I then took my purchases and hurried back to the safety of our bus, parked in the car park. However, the others were still happily engaged in their shopping, so I was alone in the bus. After a bit I felt silly, so I got out again and walked over to the gate, and peered cautiously out into the street..And experienced Luanda for the first time in the flesh, as it were, and not from behind the window of a secure bus. Frankly I was scared, the street was filthy, and stank, and there were groups of Angolans sitting around looking suspicious, and to my eyes, dangerous. When they saw me, some of them came rushing towards me, shouting..... So I nipped hurriedly back into the car park. What I hadn't realised was that they simply wished to try and sell me things, bananas, vegs and so on (Luanda is full of street traders).
So, this was my first attempt to set foot on a Luanda street..a dismal failure owing to what I had been told about the place by our esteemed administration.

I have since discovered that in spite of having lived here for a number of years, they have never actually walked around in Luanda on their own, and have not got a clue about the place.

Having survived this baptism of Luandan fire, I was very happy to return to our safe, walled and guarded compound.

In the following week, I was told that I had to go into town to buy a lot of materials for the computer department here, and to be honest, the prospect scared the hell out of me as it entailed going into town on my own (well, a driver for the bus) and actually walking on the streets on my own, and going into shops on my own.... With my wonderful Portuguese? And my fear of the place too? Hmmmmmmmmm.....

Street kids

Anyhow, being British, I firmed up my upper lip and set off bravely. When we finally (it can take up to two hours to get into the centre of Luanda from here owing to the incredible traffic) arrived at the first shop I had to go to, and the driver parked the van in a dingy car park beside the road and pointed out the shop to me and settled down in his seat to wait for me I realised that my moment of truth was upon me! So, bravely, out I got, and set off towards the shop.

A slum on the edge of Luanda

Now, the streets of Luanda are not much more than mud tracks by and large, covered in a thick layer of filth, all manner of rubbish festering happily away, plus groups of women sitting around selling things, or simply sitting and dressing each other's hair. Also, there are always groups of young men standing around doing nothing in particular, and almost wall to wall cars, trucks and other vehicles (many of which would give any European Cop a heart attack they are in such appalling condition). So I carefully navigated my way between all of these obstacles, and even managed to cross the busy road to get to the shop. And then I discovered the truth about Luanda, and Angola in general..................... The people here are friendly, easy to talk to, and extremely helpful to an idiotic, pink, sweaty person such as I was at that time. They appear to have absolutely no feelings of antipathy to white people, or even particularly to register that I am white. The only thing which caused comment was my beard... But that is the same almost everywhere I go.

Well, it beats walking!

Thus, it transpired that my fears were completely groundless, Luanda is a safe city for someone such as myself to wander around in on his own. Once I had made this discovery I was unstoppable. I finished my shopping that day, with complete success, using a mix of English, French, my tiny amount of Portuguese and a lot of good will, I was able to communicate my needs OK. So, it was a much relieved Tony who returned to the school that day.

The Marginale, the water front downtown

Since then, I have become completely at home in this city, using cheap Luanda supermarkets, drinking in Luandan bars and cafes, in preference to the ones used by the expat community, and generally enjoying the place a lot.
I would go so far as to say that in spite of the enormous problems here (4 or 5 million displaced people living in a city designed for about 500 000), lousy, or non existent drainage, water supply and usable infra structure, it is one of the safest feeling cities I have ever been in. I like the place!

One of the main streets downtown, on a peaceful day

Lotty hasn't really had much chance yet to discover Luanda, owing to her tremendous work load, sadly.... But we are now working on this together. This is why this section is mostly about me, and not Lotty, she will come into her own in the sections about our visits to Namibe and Huambo.

A middle class street in town

Luanda is a strange mix of the Middle Ages and the late 50's, both in terms of the architecture and the living conditions. There are elegant houses in quiet side streets, quite beautiful old Portuguese style houses, but the streets they are on are swamps with filth and stink everywhere.

Typical street scene in central Luanda

The whole place is a weird mix of rich and poor side by side. The traffic is insane, mainly caused by the infamous white and blue taxi vans every where (anyone who has been to Africa will know these taxis, I am told they are endemic in Africa). these are driven by young men who seem completely insane, they roar along the pavement, on the wrong side of the road, hurtling about, stopping with no warning, crashing regularly, overfilled with passengers ( I have seen them hurtling along with people's legs and bums sticking out of the windows they are so stuffed with people. Almost all of them are falling apart, and alarmingly, almost all of them have front windscreens that have been hit really hard at some point. They are a complete menace, and you wouldn't get me in one for any money!
However, they are the main form of public transport here, which is sad, as they kill no end of people every year I am told.

Courtyard

As in most African cities, the inhabitants tend to live their lives out on the streets, rather than in their homes, which given that most of them live in shanty towns or dreadful 50's style high rise flats built by the Cubans, is understandable. So the streets are always full of people, sitting, talking, working and getting on with their lives. Sadly, the streets are also full of cripples, mainly from Polio and landmine victims, beggars and street kids, which is very distressing to see. Like a lot of people here, I give small amounts of money to these people when I see them, but basically there is nothing one can do to help.. It is horrible! I have no pictures of landmine victims or polio victims, no way I could point a camera at someone in that condition.

Normal street scene downtown

And, as a young friend of ours who is in Angola to clear land mines says, one also sees a lot of people who have given up and cracked under the conditions of life here...Walking along the streets, shrieking their anguish, or curled up in foetal positions in odd places. It is a very powerful experience, being in a city like Luanda, one I shall never forget!

On the positive side, in spite of the awful conditions of most people in Luanda, the people radiate a feeling of positive energy and happiness which is astounding.. And they smile so much too. If I had to live as they do, I cant imagine I would be able to rustle up even a fraction of this energy and apparent happiness. Amazing people, the Angolans are.

One of the main shopping streets downtown

I could go on for hours about Luanda, but I hope the above will give you a bit of an idea about the place, and looking at the pictures, then you will understand, perhaps.

An extra ordinary place, full of contradictions.

A FEW WORDS ON THE SUBJECT OF OUR PLACE OF WORK

So, finally we arrived at our new home, and settled into our small house on the campus, as the school grounds are called in this international world we now inhabit. Life here is curious, very reminiscent of a Hippy commune in a lot of ways or an army post..... or a prison, depending on your feelings about sharing your life with a small group of previously unknown people.
Happily, most of the people we share this strange little expatriate bubble in Luanda with are very pleasant, civilized folk, so it works quite well. But it is strange, none the less.

General view of the school

We are surrounded by other brand new compounds, each more or less belonging to one oil company or another, and each as sterile as the other...... Somehow someone has managed to distill the idea of 'suburb" to its finest elements and reproduced them here in Luanda. Frankly, they are horrible. Tremendously desirable in one or two respects I suppose, but totally lacking in any sort of character. But, they are at least clean and have running water, electricity and drains, which in Luanda is quite something.

The school's Baobab tree......

The school is surrounded by a high wall, and guards - happily not armed - all over the place. It would be quite impossible to have any sort of secret love life with someone from another compound here, as everyone who enters the hallowed grounds of LIS (Luanda International School) has to sign in with the gate guards and is given a silly little lapel badge, saying "visitor" and then sign out when leaving.

Our sitting room, looking gloomy

There is not much to say about the school itself, it is a fairly typical international school, not tremendously good, and not bad either. About 270 kids of all nationalities, mainly the sprogs of higher level management in the various oil companies who are here. We start with kids not much older than two, and carry on up to 18, so it is a pretty complete school, I suppose, and for those in the educational know, it is an International Bac school, which is OK.

Our house, the one on the left, splendid, isn't it?

Lotty is working as the Middle Years Programme coordinator, which means she is responsible for all curriculum planning for the kids from about 11 to 16, a very full time job, I can tell you. Though she does have moments of free time, such as right now (she is off on a beach, learning to surf, I think). My work here is chiefly to do with computers, looking after them, helping teachers with any IT problems and generally being a sort of IT problem solver.... However, I am also gopher in Chief (going into Luanda to buy things for the school), general helper to any teacher who needs an extra pair of hands, and all round Man Friday.... In fact, it is one of the nicest jobs I have ever had.

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We are fed by the school during the week, only cooking at weekends, which I rather enjoy...Especially as the school meals are of a very high standard, if rather prone to chicken about 10 times a week.

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The down side of life here is that we cant easily get away from the place...... There is absolutely nothing within kilometers of the school, just compounds...compounds...compounds, all the same dreadful salmon pink colour...And that is it. So if we want to go somewhere, we are obliged to use one of the four school busses. As it can take up to 2 hours to get into Luanda proper, owing to the traffic jams, we tend to restrict such trips and do the best we can on campus... oh well...The wages are good.

So, that is our school..... I have not really got much to tell about it... it is simply a school, much like any other private school, full of good things and silly things.

The next instalement of this tale will be about my first ventures into the astonishing city of Luanda... now that is something about which I shall be able to write with passion. I love and hate the place. So, in another day or so, I shall lurch into that section of our life and times..... with pictures too! So come back and check this space again soon.

THE FIRST REAL INTERNET ACCOUNT OF OUR ANGOLA ADVENTURE(S)

Me, as Great White Hunter in Namibe desert

As you all know, we arrived in Luanda after a very trying period in our lives in France. Getting here was quite a trauma as well.... First there was no food on the BA flight from London to Jo'burg, real suffering for one such as I, oh well. Then on arrival in South Africa, we were confronted by the reality of what apparently is one of the most violent cities in the world. Razor wire everywhere, signs in several languages on private houses warning of "armed response" to any attempt to enter uninvited, guns galore, newspaper articles about the 20,000 unsolved murders annually in South Africa and a general feeling that this is not a safe or good place to be.
Anyhow, we were whisked off to a sort of conference centre/retreat on the edge of Jo'burg for an intensive week of workshops to introduce us to the ideas of our new school, and to get to know our new colleagues.

This turned out to be a very pleasant week, good, interesting people, good food, comfortable accommodation, generally a good experience, one which gave us hope that working in Luanda might be a good experience.

Sunset on the Namibe desert, romantic, aint it?

In the course of this week, we were told all manner of horror stories about life in Angola, gaining the impression that it was the most expensive, most dangerous and most chaotic place in the world. Of these things, the only one that turned out to have any truth in it was the one about the chaos, Angola is chaotic...... Amazingly so in fact. The rest? Nope...... life is about as expensive here as in rural France, and dangerous? Nope....... Apart from the drivers of the famous African blue and white taxis, the folk here could not be more friendly, easy to be with or uninfected with any apparent racist feelings about white people. By and large, delightful people. As in any city, there are places you can better not be in after dark, but in general Luanda is one of the most unthreatening cities I have ever been in. Beautiful it aint, but it has an energy!!!!!

Built originally for about 500 000 people, it now has about 4 to 5 million inhabitants, as a result of the 30 year civil war, so basically it is one huge refugee camp and slum. Smelly as hell too!
But the more I get to know it, the more I like it.

Anyhow, we arrived at Luanda International Airport (aint megalomania a grand thing!?!?) to be driven in school busses off to our new home in a suburb of Luanda called Benfica. This involved driving for about an hour through the most appalling slums I have ever seen, piles of festering rubbish on the pavements, hordes of people, mostly young (life expectancy in Angola is 35) incredibly thick traffic....................... And a smell! Such a smell! Appalling.

It was a rather quiet and pensive bus load of newbies who finally arrived at our "compound"..The place we would be living for the next year or so of our lives. This turned out to be a walled compound, very clean and sterile, with guards on the gate and around the perimeter. Lots of buildings scattered around, variously class rooms, administration buildings and our little houses.

We all have small houses, very well appointed, and extremely comfortable. In fact, we live in what to all intents and purposes is a small village. See the pics which I will post here shortly, these will give an idea of what Luanda is like (no smell possible yet on the net, pity, as the smell is a major part of the Luanda experience!).

So, we all were shown which little house was whose, and set about settling in.

More to follow, this is simply the first installment of our African adventure. In future installments I will tell you about our wanderings in a desert in Southern Angola, our first walk in a live mine-field, a BBQ inside an enormous monolith in the centre of Angola.... As well as searing accounts of my first nervous steps outside in Luanda... Watch this space.