Election Results

The elections were held about 18 days ago - if you missed my first post on election you can find it here.  People were nervous about it and some people elected to leave the country or postpone their trip back "just in case".  Other companies did 3 hour long worst case scenario exercises that included information on what to pack in your bag (i.e. don't bring your entire house to the airport).  We were given some basic communication information and the day off from work.  Everyone has to have the option to vote in their assigned location so most business close to allow for that.  We had no driver and were told to stay in the apartment.

In the days running up to the election the propaganda increased - thousands of flags flying, posters everywhere and to our surprise low flying planes dropping leaflets on the city.  We were told to have some extra food and water just in case, so we went to do that on Saturday before the Wednesday election.  I expected to find empty shelves (like a hurricane stock up) but nope - nobody seemed to be buying water, milk etc.  I did hear the day before there was a lot of water purchases but no empty shelves.  The day of the election was eerily quiet in the streets, no traffic, no work...nothing.  We joined some other expats for gumbo, drinks and poker.  Jason and I swept the poker so we brought home some extra cash just in case.  The day ended with no election drama.  Preliminary results were announced the next day with the ruling party (MPLA) taking 64% of the vote - this was contested by the other parties but nothing has seemed to come of that.  Official results are announced last week and they mirrored the preliminary results.  We get the impression there was some hint of fraud (as there has been in the past) but our driver just told us it is what is expected.  The corruption runs deep here but they are still too fresh from war to want another uprising.  Ten years from now I expect we will see some civil unrest if things don't change.

Election Day in the City - ghost town!

Election propaganda being dropped from low flying planes

Found a piece of propaganda on our way to dinner after the plane drop

We have had a very quiet few weeks, a lot of expats went home to avoid elections and then got caught in the Harvey mess and couldn't get back (the only direct flight is from Houston).  We have seen a few movies, more then we typically saw at home since it is one of the few things to do here.  We head out on Friday for a week of beach relaxation in Mozambique (that is on the east coast of Africa just above South Africa).  I am interested to see Mozambique since they are similar to Angola (former Portuguese colony with a bloody civil war) but they have seemed to recover faster and have some tourism.  I got our visas in advance here in Luanda just in case - you are supposed to be able to get them at the airport but I have read some horror stories of being turned away.  The visa process here was surprisingly quick (3 business day) and I got to do the transaction in mostly Portuguese which is rewarding. Stay turned of pictures of the beautiful beaches of Mozambique.

We do have a piece of home now- we can watch NFL and College Football!   We had to get 2 season passes but well worth the cost and the coverage and speed is great so far.

Finished Apartment

The last two weeks have been more of the usual.  Jason went up to Malongo for a few days for work, we had a few dinners out and saw a movie.  We also got massage this past weekend- we heard about a good place from friends and tried out out- really nice- I will be back for sure!

I promised some "after" photos of the apartment so here they are.  The touches from home do make a lot of difference!

Main Living Area

The kitchen - the island works great and adds a lot of counter space

The office/storage room.  A bit tight but manageable.  Directly to the right in the first photo is the closet.  

 The gym - we put down interlocking padded flooring and then added 2 "stall" mats which are 1 inch rubber mats.  There is also a rower - it is stored in the corner of the room you can't see in the photo.  It is stored broken down into 2 parts which works better then expected.  Jason closets are also in this  room :)

The bedroom

The balcony - amazing it all fit well!

Storage is an issue!  This is the bathroom off the office - the shower holds our storage bins plus a few other items and I use this bathroom to dry clothes.  FYI air drying clothes with a dehumidifier is AMAZING! I might be buying one in the US for that reason alone. 

 This is the shower in the master bath (my bathroom) - this photo tries to capture the poor design - the shower door  opens out but there is a towel rack it hits so you can use it but only if you can squeeze in the opening!  So instead we are using it for storage - golf clubs, tennis bags, outdoor chairs and few other items.  Plus hanging full length mirror and shoe storage.

 Then there is the bathtub- never going to use it so we filled it with suitcases and random items and got a shower rod and curtain from an expat who left and voila!

Let the baking begin

Now that I have a full kitchen I can properly attempt to bake!  For those of you new to the scene - I baked in Norway about once a week and then shared it on the blog - it helped to structure the week and made me venture outside my comfort zone of baking.  I plan to start that again in Angola.  I have more time on my hands, more social events to use as guinea pigs and a few new baking books to try out. One main difference is access to ingredients - shopping here is more like the Food Network show "Chopped" you never quite know what you might get.  The stores seem to have all the basics until they don't - one week they might not have milk, last week they didn't have eggs.  So I (and the other expats) shop like we are always "stocking up" - the new motto is see something, buy it!  Case in point- this last weekend a local store got an American shipment of food - we bought all the refried beans plus some salsa, nacho cheese, rolled oats, granola  and a few other items.  Jason was disappointed we were not allowed to buy the Pop Tarts as they were not priced yet.  Maybe I will go back.

Haul from the local grocery store - don't mind us with $25 worth of beans

This week I made a few items.  First up Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread.  Wasn't sure Jason would eat it but he loved it!  Zucchini are pretty easy to find here so they are a good veggie to use.  The zucchini made the bread really moist and it could have used a few extra minutes in the oven as it stuck to the bottom of the pan due to the wetness.

Gathering my ingredients 

Final product

Second up was Nectarine Upside Down Cake.  I have found really nice fruit here but the downside is that as soon as you soak it in the bleach water you have to use it within a day or so.  So baked items with fruit may help with that.  These nectarines were potentially the best ones I have eaten ever!  The cake was not quite done in the middle - guess I need to figure the oven out a bit more!  But it was really good cake- just cut out the underdone section.

Third was not baking but keeps with the theme of using what you have when you have it.  I made some Creamy Pesto sauce from fresh basil I found and greek yogurt.   We had it for dinner and then I froze the rest.

Sea Shipment Day!

After 3 months and 10 days our stuff arrived! This should be a joy everyone feels at least once!  It is like Christmas and the first day in a new house rolled into one.  The sea shipment arrived in country either on June 30 or July 8 (conflicting info) and we were told it would take 5-7 business days to clear customs.  After not hearing a whole lot from our American contact Jason took matters into his own hands and reached out to the local contact.  Within 2 hours she told us it was being released that day (July 18) and would be delivered the following day.

Four "vaults" on the truck

Thankfully Jason had one more moving day of leave so he could stay home to assist.  The truck arrived with our four "vaults" and we watched them open then from our friends apartment.  Each vault is a wooden crate that is lined in plastic wrap and then has our boxes inside.  It was 5 movers and 2 furniture dollys!  You have to check off each box/item as it comes in to the apartment - they are all numbered - we had 136 items.  The goal was to unbox everything since we have NO room to store empty boxes and the trash is just a small trash can on each floor.  We started unboxing as they brought it in and once the truck was empty I had 5 Angolans in my house unboxing items.  They would open a box, unwrap something and then look at me and say "Madam?" That was a fun game for about an hour - they finally realized I didn't care where they put it. The entire unload and unpack lasted about 4 hours - after the whirlwind I was left with unpacked items on every surface you can imagine!  A sweet friend thought ahead and brought us dinner complete with paper plates and plastic cutlery!  I will have to pass that on to the next people who get stuff.

The checklist station for boxes coming in!

Not even a quarter of the boxes

The chaos of 5 movers in a 900 square foot apartment with 136 boxes 

It took another 2 days to really get everything organized and in it's place.  We had more room then we expected when it was all said and done.  We are using two of our three showers for storage (one is plastic bins and one is sporting goods like golf clubs) and we are also using the tub for suitcase storage!  We were a bit worried about the gym equipment we brought not fitting; it is a bit tight but it is workable.   The last thing to do is hang pictures and curtains which is occurring as I type.  Our building is managed by a Chinese group so the man hanging stuff is great (and inventive by using electrical wire to create a wire to mount instead of making 2 holes) but he speaks no English or Portuguese so it makes for interesting communications - luckily I have a a friend who speaks Mandarin so she is helping me explain what I wanted!

Where to sleep? And why did we bring so many clothes!

Upcoming elections

On August 23 Angola will hold the first national election since 2012 and this is a BIG deal since the current president is stepping down after 38 years! Brief history lesson- Angola was a Portuguese colony until 1975- directly after independence the Angolan Civil War started.  There were 2 main groups fighting for power, MPLA who was backed by communist countries like the USSR and Cuba and UNITA who was backed by the US and South Africa.  Elections occurred during the war but as you can imagine they were hotly contested affairs but MPLA has held the position of president for the entire 42 year history of an independent Angola. The current president has been the leader of the MPLA party since 1979.  The civil war ended in 2002 with the death of the UNITA leader but elections didn't occur again until 2008 and then again in 2012, both times with MPLA winning by a landslide.

Their system is a sort of Parliamentary system so the party that wins the most seats holds the position of president.  We assume MPLA will maintain the majority and a new leader has already been identified but it might be an interesting 2 months.  We have been assured the Angolans don't have a taste for revolt after living through the horrors of a 27 year civil war that decimated their country (see side note).  But you do hear them wanting change - there is a lot of corruption in the government and many citizens seem to feel that corruption leaves them poor and without access to basic services like medical care, medications and clean water.  UNITA has had a few rallies - below is a video out our window of the most recent.  It was maybe 50 cars long, lots of chanting but no issues.



We expect election day will end up being a holiday for the company since all citizens are expected to vote in their home "precinct" and most drivers and employees live outside the city so they won't be able to come to work.   I figure it will be like a hurricane party for us here in the apartment :)

Side note- it is hard to grasp that every Angolan over the age of 20 lived through a bloody civil war.  Our driver is in his mid-40s and it hard to think his whole life included war.  I have yet to ask him about it but we know that he speaks some French so we assume his family fled to the Congo at some point.  Things here are sometimes frustrating and part of that has to do with what seems to be a lack of care about the future or progress but when you remember what they have been through you realize they have a hard time thinking past today or next week - survival is key here for the Angolans.

And a few random pictures from the past week:

Movies have an intermission here!

All day, every day!  Ladies carry items on the head, piled high, load changes but always entertaining to see

10 eggs not 12- what!?

Leak in our A/C unit (very common) - our building is Chinese built so the repair guys can be fun to try to communicate with but they are quick to help out!  This was 6:30 at night 

View from the balcony - those are 3 federal police officers- they roam the streets  - interesting sight

Cape Town

Cape Town from the air- Lions Head is on the far right, then Table Mountain - far to the left is Cape Point

We were exited to get out of Angola for a few days and see something new.  We flew the Angolan national airline, TAAG, and it was a surprisingly good experience.  On time, well equipped plane and a pretty easy boarding process.  We arrived in Cape Town Friday afternoon and went to our AirBnB to check in - we stayed about 20 minutes south of the city.  The cottage was part of a large private property which was pretty plush - the lady was from Mali original but lived in Europe most of her life so she was really interesting to talk to.  She had a house full of help plus a driver and gardener- fancy.  After settling in we went to a local mall - we had a great burger (and forgot that we could order in English!) and then wandered the shops.  We needed some specific things like new workout shoes and headphones but ended up with a few other niceties like new silverware to replace the cheap stuff we got with the apartment.  We also wandered the grocery store (Woolworth's) and picked up some things we can't find like tortillas, naan bread, quinoa, dried fruit, and licorice.

View of main house from our cottage steps

We arrived a few days after a huge storm in Cape Town and it continued to rain most of the time we were there which on one hand was really nice - rain is scarce in Luanda and it was cool (in the 50-60's).  On the other hand it did limit what we could do - so much of Cape Town is outside stuff like Table Mountain (only saw it as we flew in), Lion's Head, beaches etc.  Saturday we did get in a semi-dry 2 hour hike in the Cecelia Forest which was next to the cottage - Cape Town has a lot of nature very accessible.  It was our anti-Luanda experience - cool weather, slight rain, gorgeous views and outside walking!

The last blue sky we saw

Views from the morning hike- this one overlooks the wine region

After that we headed to the Constantia Wineries which are basically a suburb of Cape Town and date back to the 1600's.  It was a $3 Uber ride away (yep they have Uber in Africa!).  We went to Buitenverwachting first and enjoyed a 5 wine tasting with very generous pours for the grand total of $8 which was waved since we bought 2 bottles of wine.  Part of Blood Diamond was filmed here so the wine we bought was called Rough Diamond as it came from the vines that Leo was in during filming.  Then we had an amazing lunch in their fancy restaurant which included an amuse-bouch, pallet cleanser, bread and wine for $25 total - so food is cheap here to say the least!  Then we headed to Constantia Glen and had another tasting and a meat plate - similar prices but busier.  As it was raining we headed back to the mall to wander a bit more inside - we picked up some Indian food at the grocery store and headed home.

Stop #1

Amazing lunch (yep- fish and chips!)

National flower of South Africa (King Protea)- I am obsessed

Stop #2

Meat plate- two new delicacies Biltong and Droewors along with Rooiboos smoked butter

Very pretty architecture

Winery Dog

Overcast skies and winter vines but still pretty scenic

Sunday was raining again but we headed into the city proper to see some of the touristy stuff.  Went to the V&A Waterfront and the rain let up so we could walk around.  Got some steps in, saw some boats and architecture and then headed to lunch.  After lunch we went to the Aquarium - saw a huge leatherback turtle and African and Rockhopper penguins.  After a lovely dinner we headed home.

Waterfront

Not much to see of Table Mountain

Cool building that used to be a grain silo near the port but transformed to a hotel

Jelly Fish

Next morning.... I am sick!  I can only assume it was the lovely dinner I was so excited about - salad!  New lesson: salad is not safe on the entire continent not just Angola.  Spent all day trying to feel well enough for our evening flight home.  Flight was good again and got home about 9pm.  Sadly I spent 2 more days pretty sick and finally headed to the company medical clinic where I was tested for Malaria (sure makes that risk more real!).  Thankfully I don't have Malaria but did get a boatload of medications to make me better (for free I might add!).  So after a week I am finally on the mend - moral of the story - no salads.  Cape Town was great but we need to go back when it is not raining to see it in all it's glory.

Headed home

My collection of free meds

**Follow-up on Malaria - yes it is a real concern here, Angola has a deadly variety of it  (P. falciparum) and people get it all the time (estimated 3 million cases happen each year).  We both take Malarone (a high effective anti-Malarial drug) every day and avoid mosquitos as much as possible.