First Impressions

I want get my first impressions down before, well, before I forget!

So, after a 7 hour flight (basically midnight to 7am) of tossing and turning in my airplane chair we finally arrived in Angola. The flight wasn’t bad… and I did sleep, in fact I slept most of the flight, but, that is not to say that I wasn’t waking up every 45 minutes to an hour because my leg was asleep, my neck was cramped, etc. It’s not like this is the longest flight I’ve ever been on- far from it- but, it was precisely during sleeping hours! Given that in the last two weeks we’ve gotten pretty used to getting a good uninterrupted 10 hour sleep in every night; it was a tough sleep on the plane. Even after we landed, both Joel and I closed our eyes again and napped a bit longer while most of the rest of the passengers disembarked.

Not in any hurry, we finally got off the plane. Straight into immigration, upon showing proof of having the yellow fever vaccine, we received a fairly standard form to fill in. I think the only kind of funny phrase that we had to fill in was something called the “body of movement” which was asking what kind of transportation we would have from the airport I suppose…but obviously badly translated. Anyway, we actually stood in line in immigration for 2 hours, which is surprising only because the line wasn’t actually that long. We could see the front of it the whole time, but it was just moving that slowly. When it was finally our turn, I walked up first, handed over my passport (visa finally inside!) and my filled out form. Then I just stood there smiling while the man did whatever it is the man does behind the counter. Happily the big STAMP! STAMP! came fairly quickly, and I was on my way- no questions asked. I wanted to stand and wait for Joel, but didn’t want to piss off anyone, so I slowly made my way forward. Luckily, since immigration had taken so long, our bags were long since strewn across the baggage area floor. I collected some, and when Joel joined me a few minutes later, we got the rest. We loaded up two baggage carts and made our way outside. We did choose to go the green, “I have nothing to declare” route through customs, and they let us pass no problem. Whew.

Once outside we were looking for someone with a sign, but TK, an employee of the school who has been working with us (helped us with basically everything having to do with getting to Angola) saw us and figured we were us. Considering all we’ve been through in the last weeks, we have had a lot of correspondence with TK, so it was good to finally meet her. As we made our way further along, a lot of young men were coming up to us and offering to help us with our bags… but TK let us know that they what they do is help you and then make you give them $500 to get your bags back! Needless to say, we were swatting them away after that!

We loaded our stuff into a Land Rover and off we went.

As we pulled onto the street there was a nice banner type sign welcoming us to Luanda. After that, things just started to come at me, hit me, kind of like BAM, BAM, BAM! Cars driving way too close to each other, dirt roads, men, women, children wandering amongst cars on the road some of them selling things- toys, off-brand Pringles, watches, sunglasses, an iron, a dvd player… buildings/projects/blockhouses, laundry hanging out of windows, little shops dotting the side of the road with hand painted signs offering things like copies, repairs, food…most people dressed in “western” clothing, but here and there women in brightly printed sarongs and head wraps… babies strapped to their backs, not in a fancy schmancy sling, but well, just attached with another piece of cloth. It’s dirty. There is garbage everywhere. The streets are littered, even though everywhere you look there are men in yellow jumpsuits with “WASTE” written across the back, whose job it is to clean the streets.

TK asked us, “So, what is your first impression?” She herself is from Zimbabwe, and said that it’s very different from here. She was blown away by the appearance of things when she first came to Luanda a few years ago. Joel and I responded as might be expected… “There is a lot to see!” She asked, “Is it like anything you’ve ever seen?” To tell the truth, the block houses reminded both of us of Riga, and me also of Shanghai. It is dirtier here though.

Then, the thing that might seem trivial, but made the biggest, “I’m in AFRICA!” impact on me. It was the women carrying enormous baskets of stuff on their heads; giant baskets of food, cloth, all kinds of things. Then there was the woman that must have been at least 7 or 8 months pregnant and was carrying more bananas on her head than I could carry in my arms. That was amazing. I don’t know exactly how that all works- do they have incredibly strong necks? Is it easier on your body to actually carry that weight on your head, rather than in your arms? Who knows…but I found it amazing, and yeah, it was the thing that made me realize, yeah, I’m in Africa.

Once the block houses cleared out, the highway was lined with shanty towns as far as the eye could see. Houses on top of houses, brick walls, tin roofs, bricks weight down the roofs. Garbage *everywhere*. And so many people! Saw some dogs and some chickens. Lots of people sitting all along the roadside selling stuff… fruit, vegetables, knick-knacks, brooms… Lots of them had blankets laid out with an assortment of goods.

School is not actually that far from the airport (I think with no traffic the drive only takes 20 minutes, but with traffic can take up to two hours). Luanda is experiencing the same kind of growth that Riga is right now, in that its streets are not built for a lot of cars, but there are so many cars on the road now that traffic just doesn’t move. Thankfully for us, we only have to deal with any of that by choice. :)

We got to the compound and got into our new home. Joel and I are really quite happy with what we have here. It’s a one-bedroom/one-bathroom bungalow, filled with sunlight. It comes with simple furniture, a nice stocked kitchen (as in plates, utensils, pots and pans, etc) with lots of counter space which opens into the dining and living room, we have a back patio and a “backyard”. We’ve already unpacked most of our stuff, so my books are on the shelves, Joel’s football scarves are hanging all around the living room, and our clothes are in drawers. It pretty much feels like ours already. :)

We had lunch in the cafeteria (for FREE) for the first time. Lunch today was spaghetti Bolognese- with a salad bar, bread, water and fruit for dessert. I had Latvian style spaghetti- noodles with ketchup and mayo and a salad. During lunch we met one of our colleagues and chatted a bit. She said that usually the food is pretty good, and that there is a salad bar every day. So, seems like we should both be able to eat pretty well for free once a day, which hopefully should save us some money in groceries in the long run, because….

We went for a quick grocery shop already too. The prices of some things seemed quite on par with what we’ve been paying in Riga. Other things however, whew. We knew that food would be expensive coming here- but when you actually see the price tag on a medium sized squash that says it costs USD$15, you can’t help but balk at it. Our shopping today cost 14,000 Kwanza. That comes out to about $200/100Ls. Of course, we’re just starting out here, trying to figure out what to buy from where- there are two grocery shops near by- one is a specialty import kind of one, and the other is a more local type. We went into both, and bought stuff from both. We were comparing prices and hopefully sooner or later we’ll get a handle on what to get from where for the best price. I don’t know anything about produce markets or anything yet. We’ll see. Oh I do have to say though, when we were in the expensive shop, there was a lady shopping there whose running total had gotten up to 70,000 Kwanza…and she wasn’t done yet. Yikes!

It’s going to take some getting used to dealing with money in the thousands on a normal basis. The money is all notes… the smallest is a 5-er and the largest is a 2,000. The funny thing is that items in stores cost not-round amounts- like 498.50. But, they won’t give you that kind of change! So, like, today our bill at the one store was 10,133- and my change should have been 67, but I only got 65 back! It’s really weird to NOT get exact change back. But that is just the way it is…they just round it up or down.

Ah, one more thing about the grocery store… Joel was sad to see that a slab of his elixir of life (Coca Cola) was the same price as a slab of beer. 24 cans of Coke, or 24 cans of beer… same price, you choose. :) I suppose only Joel would be sad about this. As for the rest of the food- choices were adequate. Found some soy based products for me, but no soy milk, which stinks- although the lady that took us to the store reckons you can get it here somewhere. So will have to keep looking.

Well, I guess that is about it for the first day. I think I got down all the really important first day/first impression type stuff. The rest of the new teachers should be back on campus tomorrow (they are at a resort doing a new teacher thing for three days….we do wish we were there, but alas…).

I’m feeling pretty sleepy… might be time for a nap… J