NOTHING MUCH HAPPENING ......... (SIGH......)
Oh well, even in Angola there are periods when nothing of any note occurs, I suppose. The last couple of weeks have been chiefly notable for the almost total lack of anything to report.
It is high summer here still, so it is seriously hot during the day, but at night it is superb.. the air is like a soft warm bath, I love it. If it wasn't for the malarial mossies, it would be a pleasure to simply sit outside after dark and wallow in the warm air, well, to be honest, I sometimes cover myself in sticky, revolting anti-mossie cream and sit around outside with a cold beer in the hand..or glass of wine, and enjoy it all the same..and to hell with those tiny anophelese mossies.
To give an idea of the heat here, today I was struggling to make some black-out curtains for a colleague who needed to get his class dark for some light experiments. I was using a huge unwieldy sheet of horticultural black plastic for this, and was attempting to cut it into usable pieces.
I was doing this outside, and by about 10 am this morning, the plastic was actually burning my hands it had become so hot from the sun. It was an impressive display of the heat absorbing qualities of black plastic. Now I see why you can use it to create hot water....
What else of note to mention? Hmmmmm.. well, sadly we are in the middle of a Cholera outbreak here in Luanda just now, which is dreadful. Lots of children living in one of the bigger slums here (Called Boa Vista, which means Good View, rather curiously) have died already, and it is spreading to other parts of Luanda. When you think that the treatment for Cholera is so simple and cheap, it is appalling that anyone should die of it in 2006. But that is how it is in Angola, non-existent drains, almost no clean drinking water and filth everywhere.... Diseases like Cholera are inevitable. And, as always, it is the children who die, currently the average life expectancy here is about 35 years! And the infant mortality before 5 years of age is 1 in 25!
If some of the oil and diamond money was actually spent on rebuilding this country, rather than building prestigious projects and housing compounds for the rich, and if there were fewer Hummers driving around... it could be one of the richest countries in Africa.. but the chances of that happening, are almost zero... Too many rich men want to be richer here, as apparently is the way in most of Africa.
However, having said that, it is a lovely place to be.... I love it here!
It is high summer here still, so it is seriously hot during the day, but at night it is superb.. the air is like a soft warm bath, I love it. If it wasn't for the malarial mossies, it would be a pleasure to simply sit outside after dark and wallow in the warm air, well, to be honest, I sometimes cover myself in sticky, revolting anti-mossie cream and sit around outside with a cold beer in the hand..or glass of wine, and enjoy it all the same..and to hell with those tiny anophelese mossies.
To give an idea of the heat here, today I was struggling to make some black-out curtains for a colleague who needed to get his class dark for some light experiments. I was using a huge unwieldy sheet of horticultural black plastic for this, and was attempting to cut it into usable pieces.
I was doing this outside, and by about 10 am this morning, the plastic was actually burning my hands it had become so hot from the sun. It was an impressive display of the heat absorbing qualities of black plastic. Now I see why you can use it to create hot water....
What else of note to mention? Hmmmmm.. well, sadly we are in the middle of a Cholera outbreak here in Luanda just now, which is dreadful. Lots of children living in one of the bigger slums here (Called Boa Vista, which means Good View, rather curiously) have died already, and it is spreading to other parts of Luanda. When you think that the treatment for Cholera is so simple and cheap, it is appalling that anyone should die of it in 2006. But that is how it is in Angola, non-existent drains, almost no clean drinking water and filth everywhere.... Diseases like Cholera are inevitable. And, as always, it is the children who die, currently the average life expectancy here is about 35 years! And the infant mortality before 5 years of age is 1 in 25!
If some of the oil and diamond money was actually spent on rebuilding this country, rather than building prestigious projects and housing compounds for the rich, and if there were fewer Hummers driving around... it could be one of the richest countries in Africa.. but the chances of that happening, are almost zero... Too many rich men want to be richer here, as apparently is the way in most of Africa.
However, having said that, it is a lovely place to be.... I love it here!
posted by Tony at 8:58 PM
1 Comments:
I think the diesease is very bad because the amount of the amount ofpeoplethat have died
from Vanessa
Post a Comment
<< Home