Either we read of fantastic wealth, corruption and poverty or we listen to some tales of beautiful Lubango used to be or fragments of the horrors of "The War".
In February 2007 I had the unique chance to accompany Mr Hendrik Ehlers, the colourful Director of MgM on a 5000 km tour through Angola. What made it special is that Mr Ehlers has lived and worked all over Angola over the last 15 years and more special even that his mission has been and is the finding and destruction of landmines and other explosive ordnance in the remotest areas of Angola. He turned out to be a friendly and witty man, but has an irky seriousness about his humanitarian mission.
We started from Windhoek and I was catapulted through the Etosha Park in a super equipped and tuned-up Toyota Land Cruiser. I never had seen such a car with internal roll-cage, two satellite phones, an HF and a VHF radio system, a large moving-map GPS and even a 220V socket to conveniently charge my camera and computer en route.
Passing the border with a local celebrity was a kid’s game, but easy to imagine what a nightmare it can be for tourists who do not speak Portuguese or do not have the complete documentation.
Until here the journey had been quite a silent one, hundreds of Giraffes and other game and hundreds of funny bar names in the wonderful light of Ovamboland with its Makalani palm trees had spoken for themselves.
But once we reached the border, Mr. Ehlers started lecturing about Angola, the past, the presence and its likely future. A stream of technical information, tales of horror and funny anecdotes that should not stop one moment for the next two weeks to come.
The first 40 kms to Ondjiva, over a pleasant tar road, was an impressive start for that. Vivid memories of the former killing fields in the fight between South African, Namibian, Cuban, Russian and Angolan troops interrupted by comments like: "Here one of my best de-miners was tortured to death by UNITA, he was too good", "Here two school busses were set alight - with the children inside", "Here I was shot at by an RPG7 missile" and so on.
With the exception of one big ruin in the center of town, Ondjiva seems to be a normal city. But my tour guide's tales made me see the amount of destruction and suffering behind all of it and I started to admire the Angolans for their friendliness and hospitality. That too, was something growing all along this trip. What a wonderful country Angola is - and full of wonders....
For example, the fact that one has to wait almost an hour for food ordered at a hotel. Or that the lights in this expensive hotel went off. With no spare generator. Or even that we had to bring our own candles to light the entire area, without any discount, introduced reality.
The end of a 27-year civil war, which ended in 2002, has made lasting impressions. Like the formerly flamed buildings which are currently left in isolation. The hotel incident in Waku Kungu was but one of the facts we had to face on this journey. The non–existent road from Benguela to Sumbe, where we had to literally travel over a mountain filled with overturned trucks, residue of the war ambush, was hard. To witness how people wanted to flee from the danger and risk their lives. It made me think how I complain about the one lane roads in Namibia, when we in fact are blessed to not have destructed roads filled with gigantic potholes, mud and overturned vehicles that stay there for months in the middle of the road. Our maximum speed remained 30km/h for the rest of this 5000km journey.
Another image that will stay with me is the faces of Salinas children. A little coastal town close to Namibe. Here a village consisting of only two rows of houses stands isolated yet close to a prison. Thirty-two of the four hundred adults make salt at a small salt factory nearby. The rest have nothing. Eight hundred children ask where their teachers went. The teachers who left because there is no water in Salinas, and the beaches are filled with landmines.
"My teacher said we will die if we stay here," a little girl states in Portuguese.
Mr. Ehlers wants to demine the beach and put in pipes to supply the town with water. But sponsors are slow.
"Our cattle have been blown up. Water is too expensive. I see no future, if we don’t get help," said one of the elders of the community.
Passing the landmine fields in Icau or witnessing women clean utensils while children are bathing and cattle are defecating in the same river made me tremble at the thought of cholera. These things made me shake. What can we do?
I know the nation of Angola is trying. Bridges are being built. Roads are under construction.
Angola has character. The beach at Luanda, the colourful capital spoke nothing of the war. Hence, it depicted the beauty of sea and sand, a scene any beach should boast. The people are helpful and they give directions in clear text. That, plus the GPS saved a lot of unnecessary trips.
With President Eduardo Dos Santos visible on posters left and right, I could see who is in charge of this republic. It is sad that some still have to walk 40 km to get a bucket of water from the nearest service station. But that the new V8 Porsche is seen around every second corner. Angola is like real life. It is a marvel trapped in an amalgam of unfairness, different communities, mosquitoes and generators. Give it time, it will reach its potential.
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