I've just returned from two weeks in Luanda, the capital city of Angola. Usually when I tell people I'm going to Luanda, they hear "Rwanda" and tell me they saw that movie about it. However, Luanda and Rwanda are quite different, both in situation and geography.

Luanda, Angola is a challenging place to visit. I went for work, we had a variety of meetings and workshops to attend and I gave my first presentation to upper management. Having just emerged from a 25 year civil war in 2002 (which followed an extended skirmish with the Portuguese resulting in Angolan independence), the country is still picking up the pieces. Of course, those pieces would be easier to reconstruct if there weren't so many levels of corruption in the government, a standard story in Africa. It was shocking to walk by the many mercedes, BMWs, Range Rovers, and porsches that line the roads of the city after driving by the jumbled concrete shacks where the general populace live. Granted, we didn't really see heartbreaking evidence of poverty, such as starving, diseased children, but I got the sense those things were there out of our sight.

Our time in Luanda was pretty strictly scheduled, dominated by work (usually because, hell, what else were we going to do?). We were put in a hotel about 6 miles from the office and it typically took us two hours to get to and from there. The traffic in Luanda is something special, for sure. The roads are clogged with cars, but there are no traffic signals or signs to speak of, so you just go when you need to go. If you waited for a safe left turn, you'd die of old age in your car on that spot. There was no food at our hotel so we were forced to eat at the company staffhouse in town (about three blocks from the office) for all meals. Those meals were bleak (however, what is more bleak is that after barely eating anything for two weeks because of the disgusting nature of the food and the raging food poisoning I picked up somewhere along the way, I have not lost a single ounce of body weight. Go figure). We'd finish work and dinner between 7:30 and 8:00 and make the two hour journey back home.

I've posted some pictures below with explanations. Photography is strongly discouraged in Angola, because it is illegal to take a photo that has any police, security or government agent in it. And those guys are everywhere. My reluctance to spend any time in an Angolan jail resulted in a lot of photos taken from our van window. So apologies for the vague blurry nature of these photos.

This is a view of a cross street tantalizingly free of traffic, a pretty clear photo because we had been sitting still on our street for 15 minutes by that point.

Pretty standard Angolan neighborhood, a sea of small houses built of cinder blocks with corregated aluminum roofs surrounding a great big mansion (the yellow building).

A cheerful looking market we weren't able go to.

The only real wildlife I saw the whole time were sad stray dogs and these bats. This whole tree was just infested with them, in the middle of the day! This was in Cabinda, which is the northernmost province of Angola. We were only there for a day, it was actually really pretty with lots of different kinds of trees and green vegetation.

On the weekend we got some beach time in, which was great. The water was pleasant and I didn't get sunburned - that is a rare feat for me.

All in all, my trip was long and tiring. I was somewhat resigned to Angola and all its quirks until four members of my team were held at gunpoint, robbed and then shot at on the street in front of our office. They're all right, the gunmen only shot at their feet, I guess as a warning or something. Apparently things like that happen all the time, most of the people who live there just shrugged at the news. So it is that kind of thing that makes me not ever want to take a long term assignment in Angola, in case any of you were wondering. I understand that muggings happen all the time in the states, but over there you're just walking around with a bulleye.

That's all for now, perhaps subsequent trips will bring more interesting stories to tell. Stay tuned for Kellen's report from Big Bend Nat'l Park, he's going there over Spring Break.

- Sarah