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.