Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 7

The Wind City

One thing that has to be said about the Namibians is that they are really nice and friendly as a people. We met a couple on the plane, a doctor and his wife, who, upon hearing that we were getting to Windhoek on a Sunday without a pick-up prearranged, kindly offered to take us to the town centre (they were extremely surprised that we had decided to spend seven days in Windhoek and were convinced we'd get bored after the first, as the entire city can be seen in one day).

Unlike South-Africa, the main concern in Namibia is not that you will get mugged but that you'll get stuck somewhere. At worst you'll get overcharged. As it happened, we got lucky and the forty-minute ride into town was done in luxury and comfort. This was just as well as the sun outside was baking hot. Windhoek is, at this time of the year, much warmer than Jo'burg. One of the side-effects of the heat is that landing in the capital is a troublesome affair, with the plane jittering a lot. It feels as if you are in the most turbulent spot in the sky, but with the land getting closer and closer.

After a pleasant car ride and a nice chat we got to the town proper. We then found out that the map of Windhoek in Lonely Planet is actually incorrect, and the street which shows up as Puccinni street is actually called something else. Streets in Windhoek have funny names. There is an entire block with streets named after classic music composers such as Beethoven and Mozart. A lot of names are in German, such as Beethovenstrasse. Namibia was a German colony a long time ago but still maintains strong links with Germany. There are around 30,000 white Namibians of German descent and around 100,000 white Namibians altogether; there are around 2 million people in total in the country. Namibia is mostly desert and you really get that feeling as you drive around. On a Sunday you scarcely see people.

Eventually we found Puccini street, which is about 15 minutes walk from the centre of town. Puccini lodge is a nice place, but its a lot more expensive than what we were paying in Jo'burg. In fact, that is another trait of African backpacking: its a lot dearer than Asia/Australia. In Jo'burg we were paying 200 rand for a double room, which was already quite expensive; in Windhoek, Puccini charged 320 Namibian dollars. Namibian dollars are pegged to the rand, and South-African rand is also legal tender in the country. This made our life easier. Note though that Namibian dollars are not legal tender in South-Africa, so one has to change all the money back to rands before going back.

The staff at Puccini's is extremely friendly and the facilities are, much like Gemini's, very tidy. It is slightly more upper market than Gemini's and breakfast is included, but these features are not enough to justify the additional 120 dollars charged. Most of the backpackers at Puccini's were over forty and appeared to be German.

After a good sleep we ventured out in town. This was on the Monday. Windhoek is an extremely quiet place. It is very hard to describe how quiet this capital is. The main road is Independence Avenue, and it runs for miles and miles on end. The part of it that crosses the town centre has quite a few banks, offices and a few flats. It also has quite a few shops of different kinds such as you'd expect to find in any city centre. The surprising thing is their number. I'd say Windhoek's centre is smaller than the Southampton's, and Southampton is pretty small.

It doesn't take more than a few hours in the country to figure out that Namibia is still very much divided along ethnic lines. We did get this impression in South-Africa too (we didn't see any mixed couples in Jo'burg although there were plenty of white and black people out and about), but not to the extent you see in Namibia. Here, almost without exception, all the businesses are owned by white Namibians and almost without exception all employees are black. Almost all the nice big SUVs and jeeps are owned by white Namibians and all the old bangers are owned by black Namibians. In Windhoek you do see some black people shopping in malls, but not to the extent you see in South-Africa. So it seems that, for all of its faults, the Black Empowerment and other programmes by the South-African government are actually having some positive effects.

One peculiarity of shopping in Namibia is searching. Every time you leave a shop, a security guard checks the contents of your bags against your receipt. This is done to every single customer, black, colored, white or asian, without fail, in any shop, so don't go losing your receipt before you exit the store. And what's more, if you enter the same shop twice, they'll re-check the bags. Best to be careful and keep all receipts.

On the whole, just like with Jo'burg, Windhoek is an expensive place. One can easily spend 140 to 160 dollars on a meal for two, and most dishes cost around 40-60 dollars.

The other interesting thing, which also applies to South-Africa, is the lack of African culture. You don't hear really loud African music coming out of the cars of _either_ white or black Namibians. Everyone seems to listen to either Hip-Hop or Pop/Rock music. Its really strange. The music tastes are pretty much like Britain or Australia and nothing at all like Gambia or the Portuguese speaking African countries, where African music is everywhere and everyone, white or black, listens to it. The only time when we heard a bit of Kizomba (African music) was on the way to the airport when we were off to Angola (and then, the driver was of Angolan descent).

Katatura

One of our objectives was to see how black people live. You can easily do that these days, since there are township excursions. This is also one of the very few opportunities you get to be a patron of a black business in Namibia. We took a two-hour trip into Katatura, known as the Namibian Soweto. On the minibus with us was a German tourist, who works as a journalist back home. The trip illustrated how deep and recent the wounds are in Namibia. Katatura was a black-only township; the colored township is up the road. Many houses in the townships still have the original ethnic grouping, with the letters denoting the origin: D for Damara, H for Herero, and so on. Not only there was a clear division between whites, coloreds and blacks but there was a fairly large rift between the different black ethnic groups.

We went to a market in Katatura, where anything and everything gets sold. It is actually very organised, and one gets the feeling that perhaps more informal (read chaotic) markets do exist. There were many Angolans selling their wares at the market as well as buying things. They were easy to spot as they were all wearing all manner of items with an Angolan flag, such as caps, shirts, bandanas.

Later on, it was amazing to sit down in a shebeen and have a drink, overlooking the sea of zinc and corrugated iron expanding as far as the eye could see. However, it must be said that the Namibian government is doing somethings to alleviate the poverty in Katatura. For instance, they have "street lighting", which is pretty much like the lights of a football stadium. They also have many public toilets and quite a few water taps available to the public. Some of these have to be paid for but its infinitely better than say the average favela in Rio or the musseques in Luanda.

The trip ended with a visit to a women's project, which focuses in particular on disabled women. It was very nice to see "designer" items being produced using very simple techniques, such as transforming used glass bottles into beads.

Swakopmund, or Little Germany

After a few days of relaxing in Windhoek we started to get restless and it was time to do something different. So we decided to get a minibus and travel to the coastal town of Swakopmound (called just Swakop by the locals). For those not in the know, these "minibuses" are pretty much souped up Toyota Hiace vans, with the cargo compartment full of seats. Because in Namibia regulations are quite strict and there are a lot of police check-points, the minibuses don't get filled up as much as they do in other African countries such as Gambia or Angola (the quiet American had told us though that the story is somewhat different up north, but as far as Windhoek and Swakop go, we could not complain too much of overcrowding).

We paid 80 bucks per person for the four-hour journey, which is a bit of a bargain, considering the 40 minute ride to the airport costs 100 dollars per person in regular cabs. But even on the minibuses there are traits of separation. There is a more organized minibus that departs at set times (14:00 and 14:30 every day) and costs 120 dollars for the trip. This bus is almost exclusively used by tourists and white Namibians. The van is very nice looking, and it is much newer than its black counterpart, with proper seats and everything. We were happy to take the 80 dollar bus, not just because it is one of the few chances you have to help the black economy but you also get there faster as they constantly speed over 140 km/ph. Of course, you may not get there at all, as the Namibian roads are known for their car crashes.

We finally got to Swakop, and, for an extra fee, got taken straight to our doorstep. We stayed at Desert Sky Backpackers lodge, for a modest fee of 200 dollars a day. Its hard to describe this, but if we thought Windhoek was quiet, nothing had prepared us for Swakop. After all, everyone we spoke to said that Swakop is the tourist destination, all Namibians go there for the summer. We were expecting some kind of Benidorm sort of place. Instead, all we got were a few fishermen. Literally. We walked the streets, up and down, and apart form the local gardener here and there and a few tourists (and few is the operative word here), there was no one at all in the streets. We even bumped into our old acquaintance from the Katatura trip, the German reporter. Imagine the odds, finding someone you know in Namibia.

But it wasn't just in the quietness that Swakop resembles Windhoek, its also a very divided place. In fact, more so than Windhoek, even. We did not see a single person in the restaurants we went to that was not white and the vast majority of the waiters were black (I recall one white waiter, a teenager). It is actually a bit uncomfortable to be the only non-white customers in a packed place in Africa.

The other thing about Swakop is it is really cold place. I mean, really. The funny thing is its around the corner from the desert (you can walk there!) and five minutes from the beach, but man, that cold wind chills your soul. It didn't help that we'd left all of our luggage in Windhoek at Puccini's, including the fleeces, and we only had t-shirts and shorts with us. The weather was good when the sun came out, but very cold and windy otherwise. And the sea is extremely cold. Its a bit like the sea in Porto, northern Portugal. Very, very cold.

In Swakop we decided to start going on tours. We first did the desert. This was a great experience. We had a couple of teenagers doing the trip with us, on quad bikes. Shahin procrastinated as much as possible, and was determined not to have to drive a quad bike by herself, but she wanted to see the desert more than she feared driving! Although I was not afraid of driving a quad bike, I got to say I did feel the fear of god when we had to go down 45-degree dunes, more than 50 meters high. Actually, even going up them was a challenge. But it was great fun. And it was blistering cold. Luckily, the guy from the tour lent me his fleece, or I would have frozen.

We also went on a dolphin and seal trip. This was also great fun. As we got to the docks, there were three large dolphins swimming just by the boat. Amazing. It was a good omen for the day, methinks, as we got to see both big and small dolphins, and got into very close contact with the seals. Its awfully hard to take pictures of dolphins, and I think Shahin is very happy with her digital camera and the ability to take many, many shots of empty sea without having to develop them.


After a couple of days in Swakop, people started arriving. It was indeed as most people said, a rather popular place (at least in Namibian terms), its just that we got there before everybody else did. People started trickling in, and a few days later you could see a lot of new faces walking about town. The beginning of the festive season is marked with the Swakopmund Christmas Fair. This is a very nice little market, with all sorts of stuff and more importantly, lots of barbecued food, including boerwors. However, although this market is extremely nice, there is something really eerie about being in the middle of Africa surrounded by a traditionally German Christmas market, listening to German or English Christmas carols and with most people running the stalls being white Namibians and most visitors being either white Namibians or white tourists. All the stalls ran by black people were selling African art, and they were mostly stashed away near the parking lot. There were a few food stalls run by coloreds.

On our last day in Swakop we were lucky enough to meet Ewald and Heicke. Ewald is Namibian of German (Austrian) descent and Heicke is German, both teenagers. They were planning to drive down to Windhoek the next day and offered to take us, sharing petrol costs. In addition, they were also going to Walvis Bay. We joined them and departed early in the morning. There's not much to be said about Walvis Bay, other than "the flamingos outnumbered the people by 100 to 1" and the wind was even more constant than in Swakop. It is such a desert place its unimaginable: the streets are empty on a Saturday afternoon.

We then made our way back to Windhoek, spotting various different animals such as the eland and a giraffe in a game park. Other than that, the drive was quite uneventful.

Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 6

Pinned to the Wall

Shahin wouldn't let me forget the PIN incident (or should I say incidents...), which occurred just before we left. The words piss-up and brewery come to mind. If you recall, we had struggled with our friends at Abbey to get our beloved VISA card and its PIN and, as if by magic, they managed to send everything through just as we were leaving. What I conveniently forgot to tell you was that, when I went to the ATM, I couldn't get the PIN to work. Tried it a couple of times but no luck. So we went into the branch and complained. The woman replied that quite a few customers had reported similar problems. We cursed and abused Abbey for their inability to do the most trivial tasks, requested a new PIN and thought nothing more about it.

A few days later, Shahin was desperately hunting for the new PIN she had requested for her credit card. It was missing and we just could not find it. She did find the letter where the PIN should have been, but "somebody" had removed it. And the Abbey National PIN was still in its pristine condition in the folder.

Yes, you guessed it right, I somehow confused the two PINs, used the wrong one on the Abbey card, and figured it out after requesting a new PIN. The pain, the pain. And, just to put the cherry on top, I lost my credit card's PIN too.

In my defense, I stoically state that I never claimed any organizational ability - other than perhaps with regards to source code...

But, fear not, the desenrascanco Gods were still looking over their favourite son: Maestro debit cards work fine in South-Africa and Namibia. Just look for an ABSA (in South-Africa) and a Standard Bank (in Namibia).

We'll worry about the rest later.

Jozzie

After a rather uneventful ten-hour flight, we finally landed on African soil on Thursday the 30th of December. We landed in Johannesburg - Jo'burg or Jozzie, as the locals call it - in the OR Tambo airport. The airport is on par to most European airports, if perhaps somewhat smaller than the larger ones. As with a lot of south-African infrastructure, the airport and its accesses are currently being extended in preparation for the 2010 football (soccer) World Cup. One thing we found pretty amazing about OR Tambo is that there is a Muslim prayer area, clearly indicated by the information signs.

Official entry into South-Africa is handled in an extremely efficient fashion. The visa is stamped in the passport upon entry. This is a single-entry visa, valid for 90 days. One thing to remember is to fill in the entry form on the plane, declaring all the cash being brought into the country. Note also that the form seems to imply you need to declare any goods worth more than 3000 rand. This is not the case: you should only declare items that you brought with the intention of selling. And remember, any item you declare above this limit will be subjected to a 20% VAT charge.

We were staying in Gemini Backpackers, in Crystal Gardens. They organized the airport pickup. Apparently this is a must in Jo'burg and it is not at all advised to just walk out of the airport and grab a taxi. The ride took around thirty minutes in the hot, humid, thundery weather. Unexpectedly, Jozzie is a very green city and its full of big walled houses; it is one massive low-rise sprawl, with trees and greenery everywhere. There are also lots of electric fences and barbed wired, which at first look a bit menacing until one gets used to it. On the whole, it is very pleasant to drive around: the traffic is not bad for a big city, the roads are in very good condition and the scenery is beautiful. There are quite a lot of people out and about - but not huge amounts like one sees in poorer countries (Gambia springs to mind). On the whole, the areas of Jozzie we drove through look like a fairly posh London suburb, but with the white and Asian people replaced by black people.

Interestingly enough Gemini is around the corner from the Alexandra township, which is famous for all the wrong reasons. There were enough ghetto-birds (police helicopters) flying around, at all hours of the day. The sirens of the police cars and ambulances were also constant company. However, I must say that, for us two Bethnal-Green-Massif-Innit inhabitants, this soundtrack made us feel right at home.

Gemini lodge is pleasant enough, very tidy and extremely green. There is a nice but fading snooker table, at which I spent almost all my waking hours, and a swimming pool, but the water of the pool is not clean enough to swim (or maybe it has too much chlorine). This is a common theme in most backpacker's lodges we've been to. They all have swimming pools (with filters running and everything) but the water never seems clean enough for swimming. I don't quite understand why they bother to have the pool at all.

There are some significant differences between the African backpacker and its Asian/Australian counterpart. First, there are lots of older people, some in their fifties, some older. Sleeping in dorms and all. Second, the younger crowd is not quite your lets-get-drunk-on-the-plane, fiesta-all-night-long sort of people. They are very quiet and often reserved, go to bed at ten'ish, wake up early and spend days in silence reading books. Our living room reminded me of a library. Incredibly enough, this holds true even for the English we met.

Deep Sleep in the Burg

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. Not to let our fans down, the sleeping-monsters-couple did just that: we slept. We got to the lodge at midday and we slept all day, and then all night, and then most of the morning of the next day. We were exhausted.

We decided to use the four days in Jozzie to recover from the onslaught of the previous days. Besides, not much can be done other than going on organized trips (such as the Soweto tour). Everyone keeps on telling you not to go out walking but to take the "shuttle" instead. The "shuttle" is actually just a normal car driven on demand by one of the guys from the lodge, so it would be better named "the taxi", but there you go.

So, in four days, all we did was chat to people, go to the local supermarket and mall and read books. On the subject of malls and shops, I advise the men out there not to allow their women into Mr. Price as it is an evil shop - days can be spent waiting for them to come out... Mind you, Shahin was really good, didn't buy anything and didn't take too long (and this was not written under duress! ouch!).

We also watched the movie Beat the Drum, which is good but not brilliant. In parts it is a bit like government propaganda against the AIDS epidemic. On the whole its worth watching, in particular for those less familiar with the African way of life such as ourselves. There are many scenes from rural life which are quite candid and the photography is great. The storyline is just a tad too optimistic, everything turns out too all right for our liking - certainly not at the same level of Tsotsi. But actually, surrounded by so much talk of danger and violence, it was good to watch a feel-good movie about the townships.

One thing we liked about hour five-hour stretch on the mall (half-a-day outing...) was how normal and integrated it seemed. There were lots of black people shopping, quite a few Asians, a few white people too. It seemed as if the ever illusive black middle-class is indeed forming in South-Africa.

The Quiet American

One of the lads in Gemini was American. A good American (democrat), quiet and not overly patriotic. He had just finished a teaching stretch in Namibia, and was on his way to India. We had some great chats about development but the one thing I remember best was his joke:

Two UN members, an African and a Chinese meet at a conference. After merrily chatting, the Chinese invites the African back to his country. When the African visits, he's shown to an incredible mansion. The African asks: "How do you manage to afford this on our pauper UN wages?" to which the Chinese replies: "I'll let you in on a secret. See that new bridge there? Ten percent of that went straight into my pocket!". The African nods, amazed. Later on it is the Chinese's turn to visit the African. When they get there, the Chinese is even more surprised with the African's house! Its much bigger and much posher! He asks, "how do you manage to have such a house?!". The African takes him to the window and points "Do you see that massive bridge over there?". The Chinese replies: "What bridge?". "Exactly", replies the African. "100% of the money went straight into my pocket!"

This was funny. I pointed out that the same exact joke could be made by replacing "African" with "American in Iraq" and "Chinese" with "Indian". I liked the quiet American.

The Spider Incident

One of the downsides of being surrounded by greenery is the amount of African wild-life you're exposed to. For some reason, normal insects just seem a lot more menacing in Africa. They're just bigger and meaner. One day we got back to our room and I noticed a spider. It was big, perhaps about twice the size of an English house spider, but, much like it, it seemed pretty harmless and was quietly relaxing on the wall. I dutyfuly pointed it out to Shahin.

Its pretty difficult to describe her reaction in words - I just wish I had a camera. She reacted as if a hungry pack of lions was in our room. First she was petrified, babbling something which I could not quite understand; then she started shouting at me. Then I had to open the door for her to run (and I mean RUN) outside. The funny thing was, by the time I came back to the room to catch the spider it was gone! I double-checked with the owner, who said the "big ones" are actually harmless. However, he didn't fill me with confidence by talking about the "little ones". These, apparently, are deadly. "But don't worry, if you get bitten by those ones you'll die pretty quickly".

Eventually I got back to the room, found the spider and removed it. We didn't sleep very comfortably though, thinking about the "little ones".

Bafana Bafana

A quick word on football. South-Africans are actually less enthusiastic about the World Cup than I thought they would be. I asked a couple of locals, and they seemed a bit worried about it. First, they think their national side, the Bafana Bafana, are not in their best form. Some players such as Benny Mcarthy are seen as spoiled brats that can't work hard for the team. Its amazing to think that Angola has a small budget, very few players in European leagues (and of those, most play in lower Portuguese divisions), almost no sporting facilities and still manages to qualify to the World Cup and had almost all of the supporters behind the team; whereas South-Africa has got the best facilities, massive budget, most players play in Europe and they still can't get their act together.

The second thing people seem really concerned about is security. They think the government will have to do a huge effort to step up security in order to host the event. Some people doubt the government is up to the task.

Finally, there is the huge expenditure associated with it, which some think would be better used elsewhere.

On the whole, the reactions where quite surprising. I was expecting everyone to be really positive about the first ever World Cup on African soil.

Aaron

After a few days of peace and quiet, it was time to make a move. We ended up not doing the Soweto trip this time round - it will have to be done later on. One thing that is very annoying about Jo'burg, and in fact spoils the town, is the constant need for supervision. You just can't do anything that isn't organized, with a drop-off and pick-up by a known good taxi driver. After a while you get this feeling of being fenced in, and it is quite oppressive. On hindsight, we could have probably ventured out during the day without too much trouble - one of the guys, a Venezuelan backpacker, did go to New Town and said he thoroughly enjoyed it. But these were our first few days in Southern Africa; and since we were surrounded mainly by foreigners and cautious lodge staff, we just didn't know where the limits were. It seemed safer to err in the side of caution.

Organizing the departure was interesting in itself. Gemini has this one-man-band approach and all administrative tasks are done by one chap, Aaron, who is a bit like a general manager of the place. Aaron literally deals with pretty much everything, from booking people, to collecting payments, to sorting out spiders in your room. We've seen him at his desk from the first light of day till late at night. And doing a bit of cleaning on the side too, on his spare moments. In fact, as far as we could ascertain the only thing he doesn't do is driving the shuttles, for which there are two or three drivers - who seem to sit outside all day waiting for passengers. The actual owners of the lodge, a nice white family, also seem to sit around relaxing pretty much all the time. Unfortunately, because there are quite a few people coming in and out, Aaron is always running from one place to the next and its almost impossible to get his undivided attention. And since we can't actually go anywhere without a car (which has to be organized by Aaron for you), we couldn't do much without him either. To get an idea, it could take an hour or two to get a Fanta and it took us more than a day to buy a phonecard. While we were waiting for the card, we got Aaron to ring the bus people for us. They told us that it would be pretty difficult to get to Cape Town by bus at that time. The holidays were just beginning and everyone was heading down that way. Unfortunately this meant it would also be pretty difficult to get to Windhoek by bus too as the buses have part of the route in common, up til Uppington. In the end we got Aaron to ring ComAir, and they got us a flight to Windhoek pretty much straight away. This was a win as the flight is only a couple of hours instead of the 26 hour bus journey. Although the buses are slightly less expensive, once you factor in the extra days we would have to wait round plus the time, flying is a much better deal.

So we got the plane and went off to Windhoek.

Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 5

Angolan Red Tape

While I was moaning about our lovely Angola, my cousin Elsa sent me the following reply, which I found so enlightening I just had to share with everyone. My translation does not do justice to the original, so I've attached her email below. For the non-portuguese, a "bridge" happens when a national holiday falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday, and basically means that people don't turn up to work on the Monday or Friday. A holiday on a Wednesday may also result in a two day bridge...

I would like to placate your despair somewhat as I will be joining you soon on the battle against Angolan red tape. On top of my to-do list, as soon as I reach our beloved motherland, is to renew my ID card and passport! I started doing the usual prayers, since one has to exclude Fridays (which, of course are reserved as weekend preparation), the Mondays that follow Friday holidays, the bridges that follow the previous' week's mid-week holidays, the preparation for Christmas and New Year, etc... And we still have to pray that there are no rainy days, days in which it is impossible to have any functioning public services (the imaginary quote "Rain is the number one enemy of public work" will one day be said by an eminent Angolan authority, who has to sort out her paperwork); Mental note for any wannabe-users of the Angolan public services: Angola is the number one country in the WORLD when it comes to the sheer number of national holidays! And rain is the number two national catastrophe – number one is of course lack of that item essential for the survival of any Angolan, "birra", also known as beer... True, we are not quite yet in the rainy season but we all know that the most unexpected events always happen when you need to sort things out... That's how it goes... Contingency plan? We haven't got one yet but probably - as a person who can choose between the best of both worlds - I'll get an Angolan visa on my Portuguese passport, just so that, god forbid, if I can't get my Angolan documents sorted out in time, I'll at least get out of the country in time to celebrate Easter with the family... Well... If it does rain I might as well forget about sorting out the passport and the ID card; at least, as a consolation, there's nothing in the world that quite compares to the smell of red earth wet with the worm rain...

Só queria minorar o vosso desespero juntando-me à vossa batalha pelo ultrapassar das angustias de combater a burocracia angolana partilhando com vocês a noticia de que no topo da minha lista dos afazeres assim que pisar o solo da pátria é renovar o BI e o passaporte! já comecei as minhas rezas uma vez que tirando as sextas feiras que são, claro, de preparação para o fds, as segundas seguidas de fds em que a sexta
foi feriado, as pontes a seguir aos feriados a meio da semana, preparação para as festas do natal e ano novo, etc... ainda temos de rezar para que não haja dias de chuva, dias em que se torna impossível ter algum serviço público funcional ( "a chuva é o inimigo nº1 do funcionalismo publico" , não disse, mas diria qualquer erudito angolano que tivesse duas semanas para tratar da sua identidade caducada algures em meados de 2001); Nota para futuros utilizadores do aparelho estatal angolano: Angola é o país com mais feriados nacionais do MUNDO!!!! A chuva é a 1ª catástrofe nacional a seguir à falta do bem essencial para a sobrevivência de qualquer angolano que se preze, a "birra", vulga cerveja... é claro que não estamos propriamente na altura das chuvas, mas por experiência própria há alguma coisa que não aconteça quando realmente precisamos de alguma coisa? Pois é... O plano de contingência? Ainda não há, mas provavelmente como detentora do melhor de dois mundos terei de apor um visto angolano no meu passaporte português, para que, caso não consiga documentos angolanos em tempo útil, possa pelo menos sair do país a tempo de festejar a Páscoa com a família... Bem... resta o consolo de que se realmente chover posso não ter nem BI nem passaporte, mas não existe nada que se compare ao cheiro da terra vermelha molhada pela chuva quente...

The Eye of the Storm

The last few days in London were rather convoluted. Many, many things happened in those ten or so days. It felt pretty much as if we were riding a high-speed roller-coaster, and the only way to stay on was to work till exhaustion. The daily routine involved waking up around eight in the morning, doing endless chores and going to sleep around one or so in the morning. Of course, this being us - renowned for our sleeping ability - occasionally we had to take some time for a siesta in the afternoon. But mostly we worked.

I just recall these days as one big blur.

On hindsight, my decision of leaving work so late was not a win. At the time, things looked pretty much under control at home so when the guys asked me to stay for a bit longer I didn't think twice. Work was in a bit of a state and I wanted to leave things in order. However, Shahin and I underestimated the amount of things that needed to be done at the end. This was to some extent because we were basing ourselves on Shahin's travelling experiences with Chris and Sham, which gave us a great baseline for organisation. After all, they are the most organised people we know. What we didn't realise at the time was that we had four additional things that made matters more complicated by several orders of magnitude: a) our visas were difficult to obtain b) I was working all hours of the day c) we had a company to sort out; and d) we were moving out of our flat.

I've already explained some of the fun we had getting the Angolan visas. I must say all other visas were trivial to obtain; but we still had to take two half-days to go to the Mozambique embassy, and this was at a point where time was at a premium.

With regards to work, I was rather busy just before leaving. I was chasing an annoying bug deep in the guts of the glue layer between the analytics (quants) engine and the user interface. This bug proved to be rather elusive, and it took all of my might plus some of Sushila's to be able to track it down. We had to work some very long hours but we did it in the end.

Sorting the company things also took its time. In particular going through year end accounts at midnight after a very, very long day in a very, very long week was not nice.

And we also had to buy the remaining items. These were not many, since Shahin had been at it for three months, but there were still a few scattered ones and they required trekking around London.

All these things pale in comparison to moving.

Voortrekkers

The logistics of moving were daunting. Its hard to believe we actually made it. We had to pack everything up we wanted to keep, bin everything else or give it away, ship all the items to the four "storage" locations provided by family (none within walking distance of another or of our flat), clean the flat, sort out the closure of all the utility bills, sort out the change of address, say goodbye to as many friends and family as possible and many, many other things that I have by now managed to erase from my brain. This was exhausting.

We ended up doing several trips on public transport taking bits and pieces because the cars we were going to use to move were not big enough (conversely, one could say we had far too much stuff, but we'll leave that to the discretion of the reader...). When things got desperate, we used cabs as well. One of the highlights was the day when took a load to my sister's house in North London early in the morning (a fairly large load, it must be said), rested for half-an-hour, went to the Mozambican embassy, got back to our flat and left almost immediately to take a massive load (and I mean massive) to Shahin's mom. On the train. We got back to the flat late, only to find that there was still lots of stuff left to ship. The house just did not want to empty itself. It was a Sisyphean task.

You have to understand, we didn't expect the move to be an issue. We planned it well in advance. When we moved from Southampton we left huge amounts of boxes at my sister's house and we gave away everything we did not need. So it was a great surprise to find that we still had so many things. "The more things you own, the more things own you.". At this point, I was ready to take my vows and join a Buddhist monastery. Getting rid of all the material things seemed like the only thing to do. I suppose I had a bit of an epiphany: I suddenly realised how hard it is to own absolutely nothing.

In the midst of this delirious state, someway, somehow we managed to get to a point were things could mostly fit in the two small cars. This was just in the nick of time, as we had organised with Sham and Mina to come and pick up the stuff on the Sunday. After some of the usual heated discussions common to the Begum women - on which we almost lost one of the cars - things got underway.

A special mention must be made to the efficiency of the inhabitants of Bethnal Green, fondly known as the "Bethnal Green massive innit" crew. We had a set of shelves, a desk and a chair, all in pretty good condition. We were worried these items were going to end up in a council dumpster somewhere, with so many people in need of good furniture. None of our friends and family needed these items. We tried to sell them or even give them away to local second hand shops, to no avail. We even mentioned it to local shop owners, which were by now our good friends, but nobody needed them. Just as we were contemplating calling the council and organising a pick-up, Shahin convinced us (us being me and Afaj) to leave it under the bridge and see if anyone from the local council estate would want it. For those who have seen Lord of War, the events that followed were almost identical to the fast disassembling of an entire plane in the middle of the African savanna. We had people around the goods in no time. In fact, people were already there collecting things whilst we were dropping off the rest. Some of the characters looked a little bit shady and my ghetto-sense started tingling; we wouldn't want people collecting things other than the ones we were giving away - in particular the items which we were loading in the cars. But the "massive" crew was law-abiding and all was well in the end.

Thanks to the help of Afaj, Chris, Sham and Mina we managed to get all the goods to the Herts "storage" locations.

Hello and Goodbye

Unfortunately, we didn't manage to say goodbye to most people. There just wasn't enough hours in the day. I remember looking at my Google calendar and seeing a sea of red and blue, appointments of all shapes and sizes.

The only exceptions where those who invited themselves and came up to our flat: Natalie, Stacey and Jay, JC, Nantha, Sam, Chris and Sham, Afaj, Mina. Of course, we made sure they all packed and cleaned while chatting; and they all left with as many things as they could possibly take.

Everyone else will have to wait until summertime, unless we bump into you on our travels.

Exhaustion

On Wednesday, the day of our departure, we still had to take stuff to my sister's house and clean the flat. We were thoroughly exhausted and we had no thoughts in mind other than to rest. Somehow we managed to sort out the flat and get the stuff to my sister's. But then, both the buses and trains from North London to Heathrow were not working. Incredible. We ended up taking a cab, which was just as well with the amount of stuff we had on us.

We met up with Chris and Sham at the airport, sorted out last minute details, including getting Sham and Chris to buy us an extra bag for our tent and sleeping bags; we then had some food and were on our way.

On our way to deep sleep, that is.

Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 4

Maior e Vacinado

• Hepatitis A
• Typhoid Fever
• Meningococcal Meningitis
• Diphtheria
• Tetanus
• Polio
• Cholera
• Hepatitis B (three injections)
• Yellow Fever
• Very large amounts of Lariam pills for malaria (interestingly enough, don't seem to have nasty side effects for me or Shahin, unlike many people we've spoken to).
• First-aid kit, with hydration, salts, etc - still to be purchased.

My arms hurt. Note to self: next time don't leave it all for the last minute. In the context of vaccines, last minute is last two months, really. Otherwise you may end up leaving the clinic with a much lighter wallet, five injections on one arm, four on another, high like a kite and sick as a dog. And wondering if it is really all right to have that many injections in one go.

And remember to moan. I moaned so much that the very nice nurse Helga gave me some of the kiddies sweets. Result.

The Tide Has Turned

This Thursday two major milestones were achieved.

The first one happened in the morning, when I went to the Angolan embassy to collect our passports. On them, one can find a beautifully embossed sticker with the words "Angolan Visa". While holding it in my hands, I could feel my eyes getting slightly moist.

At that point, I had the time and peace of mind to reflect a bit on the whole visa process. To be fair to the Angolan government, they were extremely efficient: the process was detailed on the embassy's website (with the important exception of the 60 days "sell-by-date" rule); once we complied with the complex requirements, they produced a visa within three days; and they charged us 40 GBP each for it, which is in line with a Gambian visa. The two unfortunate key points where a) the lack of a tourist visa, which the government has already addressed by legislative means, and which hopefully will start to filter down to the embassies in the near future; and b) the difficulties of communication with the local contacts. No solutions for the latter as of yet.

The second major milestone was accommodation in Luanda. After finally managing to speak to my auntie Linda and my cousin Rosa, they were more than happy to have us for the time we need to stay in Luanda.

These two major achievements were only possible with the help of many, many people, to which we are very grateful.

My usual optimism was a bit dampened, as I remembered Rui's words. Elsa was bemoaning the difficulties their poor cousins were facing in trying to get home. Rui, making a muxoxo, said: "You think they're having a tough time now?! Just wait until they get to the Banda!". Banda is how Angola is affectively known.

Still, I continue to claim the whole affair as a huge victory of desenrascanço over planning.

Shahin protests most vehemently.

Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 3

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. -- Lao Tzu

...

Lau Tzu must have been Angolan.

The Angolan Triangle

One interesting thing we found with Angola, Luanda in particular, is how hard it is to communicate with people down there. Around here we're used to getting replies to emails in matter of minutes or hours. If you send an email to Angola it will most likely be days or weeks until you get a reply - if indeed you get a reply at all. This is partly to do with the Angolan-speak (see part 1). But there's something deeper. Sometimes you meet what appears to be a really good contact, with impeccable references; you speak to the contact several times when he/she is in Europe; you get everything agreed and start allowing yourself some hope; only to stop hearing from the contact as soon as he/she boards the TAAG plane. Literally. The first few times this got us worried, "Jesus are they OK?". We soon got used to it.

Much like Bermuda, Angola has a triangle of its own. But, being Angolan, our triangle is intermittent. Sometimes it malfunctions and you suddenly hear from people you thought were long gone. Sometimes you receive a reply to an email sent many, many days ago, which you had forgotten all about. Unfortunately, odds are the answer is "sorry, no can do".

If you stop hearing from us for a while, don't worry: we've probably been got by the Angolan Triangle.

The other interesting thing we've learnt about communication is the importance of mediation. This, in typical Angolan fashion, is counter-intuitive. Around here we think that, the shorter the path between you and the person doing the work, the better. Not so with Angola. Much more important than that is having someone you know really well chasing someone they know really well. It is amazing how one can get a large chain of people connected like this to work; but, were you to try chasing someone you don't know that well directly, the odds of getting anything done are very close to zero.

Proxima Estacion Esperanza

The Angolan visa has been in our minds quite a lot of late. After the previous problems with the invitation letter (see part 1), we got my cousin Elsa involved. Between Elsa and Rui we had contacts in every Angolan embassy on the planet. But first we had to get the invitation letter sorted out. Elsa's grandma has been in Angola since the beginning of time but she decided to stick to her Portuguese nationality. This was a precious advantage because Portuguese citizens don't need to send an authenticated copy of the passport (but they do need to attach a copy of their residence card). So Elsa convinced her grandma to send us the invitation letter and associated paperwork via her young cousin Claudia (one of the twins). If you recall, in addition to having the fax sent to the embassy, we also had to bring a faxed copy with us. This complicated matters somewhat as the only inbound fax we had available was at Shahin's work, miles away from both our house and the embassy.

The clock was ticking. Communication was slow as we were going through Elsa to speak to Claudia. And to make things even more exciting, Elsa's phone decided to die right in the middle of our discussions. At the time Elsa was working far from Lisbon so there was no other way of getting to her. After a day and a bit of much stressing, we finally managed to reach Elsa in Lisbon. Elsa had indications from Luanda that the fax had already been sent, but not to Shahin's work. However, she suspected the indications were not totally accurate. We were fast running out of time. The visa could potentially take up to two weeks and we had two weeks and a bit left; and we also had to worry about the Mozambican visa too. So Monday was, in our minds, the make-it-or-break day.

The day started with a lot of messing around, both with the invitation letter and with the collection of the remaining documents. Even the English were against us, and my employer references turned out to be a lot more involved than expected. Shahin spent so much time sorting my letter (don't ask) that she didn't have enough time to pick up hers. We finally got to the embassy, just before 12:00 PM, with most of our paperwork filled in, but we still had no way of knowing if the invitation letter had been sent.

Shahin had been to the embassy before and was convinced that there would be no queues. I know, I know. Under normal circumstances I would have insisted in going for the usual Portuguese queuing hours - i.e. no later than 06:00 AM for a 09:30 AM opening time, if you want to have a chance in heaven of being seen on that day. (This reminds me of that time when I was queueing outside the Portuguese embassy, around 05:30 AM; an English couple walked past and asked "what demonstration are you guys organising?" "No mam, we here for the Portuguese embassy, 60 metres down the road. Yes mam, this many of us. Yes mam, we are aware that, like every other embassy, it only opens after 09:00 AM"). Now, if you recall, the consulate shuts at 13:00 for visas. But since Shahin had been there before and at the time there were only three people in the whole of the consulate, we were still hopeful.

And then we opened the door.

I know of several Portuguese clubs that would have been well happy with that kind of crowd in home games. You sure can fit a lot of people in a small room. (Mind you, this crowd was several orders of magnitude smaller than the crowds in the Portuguese embassy on a slow day). Like good obedient British-ised citizens we took our tickets, went to a corner and watched the numbers on the screen. Time went by. The numbers weren't moving. But people were going to and fro, to the counter and back. We soon understood how the informal queueing worked and went along with the program. Fortunately, our queue was the smallest.

Shahin begs to differ: "While Marco believed that he was waiting patiently for his turn, I was quick to realise that the Angolan's were surely not that organised. The guy with twenty different coloured tickets kinda gave the game away! Marco, by the looks of it still a bit lost, was being slowly nudged by me into the queue... I had to explain to him that the whole thing was pretty messy so our best bet was to stay as close to the front and pray."

While we were queuing I kept on staring at the girl behind the counter. Somehow, something kept on telling me I'd seen her before. Finally, around 12:45 we got seen. And wouldn't you know? The consular affairs representative was none other than Carla, from da 'hood. Lordy Lord, we never lost faith in You.

But Carla had some bad news: we needed Shahin's employers reference, the fax hadn't arrived yet, and she could not keep the application forms without both documents. She also asked if I had my Angolan birth certificate, which could potentially make things easier. I didn't have a birth certificate, but I vaguely remembered mom mentioning something about having the Church's "Cedula de Baptismo".

When we went back home, I asked my mom (via my nephew Mauro) to fax the "Cedula de Baptismo". We returned to the embassy on Tuesday - 09:00 AM on the dot this time, 6th in the queue. We got seen around 10:00 AM. Our fax still hadn't arrived. But, in a turn of extreme good fortune, Carla was able to enter me into the Consulate with the Cedula. This immediately made our life simpler.

Many, many forms and pounds sterling later, we managed to get our visa request in. And, because I am now registered in the consulate, it will be ready for Thursday. We won't celebrate until we get our passports back, of course.

As we were coming back from the embassy, around 12:00 PM, with that sort of high you get when you finish an important exam, I remembered Elsa's words: "The funny thing is, whilst its all done in the desenrascanco sort of way, and whilst it always seems as if everything is so hard as to be utterly impossible, for some reason, somehow, when all seems truly lost, something almost miraculous always happens in the last moment and makes everything all right."

Omnia mutantur, nihil interit, I quietly said to myself. And at that point I finally understood that the roots of my optimism are actually genetic.

Notebook of a Return to My Native Land - part 2

Sometimes I'm up and sometimes I'm down
Yes Lord, you know sometimes I'm almost to the ground
-- Louis Armstrong

Dog Years

Its funny how time flies. I mean, really. Our days are so densely packed with action that it feels like a week is at least a month long. An average day can entail going to the bank, printing and sending several letters, packing things, ringing 4 or 5 people - some of them on phone lines so bad you can't tell whether there is a person at the other end or if you're having a conversation with the echo of your own voice - and, on weekdays, spending nine hours at work. Our calendars are so full that we're even running out of time for fair well drinks. But the biggest problem isn't having so many things to do; its this unshakable sensation that we aren't actually getting anything done.

Take the VISA card mission, for instance.

One problem faced by all long term travellers is access to cash, to hard currency. Its one thing to go somewhere for three weeks and take money with you or pay extortionate credit card commissions; its quite another to take a wad of cash to last you six-months, or to pay ridiculous commissions for that long. For starters, you can imagine how many milliseconds a wad of cash would last in your pocket in downtown Luanda. So, intrepid Miss Begum conducted her usual thorough investigations and figured out that the cheapest way to survive out there is to have a VISA debit card.

We've been with our current bank for a good while. We like them, and they like us not-particularly-clever customer types too. We're not really the sort of people that like change, or that shop round when it comes to banks. Plus, they have a really well designed web-interface that works well with Linux. And they're fond of students. What's there not to like?

When we asked our old faithful bank for a VISA debit card, their answer was like something out of the Simpson's: a) "we don't understand your question; are you looking for a VISA credit card?" which quickly progressed to b) "nobody would ever need a VISA debit card! Switch and Maestro work everywhere!" and ended in apotheosis: c) "nobody else does these newfangled VISA debit cards anyways". The latter was particularly funny since we found out that their India operations use VISA debit cards - the only small catch is you need to open the bank account in India. And, yes, I did think "Indian bank account... How hard would that be?". Only for a split second. Shahin's slap brought me back to reality pretty quickly.

These problems and many others we've had in the recent past with companies such as Amazon highlighted a wider problem. The new global companies are great for 99% of the cases. Trouble begins when you want to do something slightly out of the ordinary. For instance, we tried to find out the bank's closest branch that opens on a Saturday. There wasn't a single person in India who was able to provide this information. And we did speak to all of them. (One member of staff even told us that a branch was open just to flog us off; needless to say, we got there and it wasn't.)

So it came to be that, having exhausted all the simpler avenues, we ended up trying to open a new bank account. We first wanted Lloyds TSB but we couldn't find any branches open on a Saturday. As we were walking back home in sheer desperation, we stumbled across Abbey National. To our surprise, they did provide their customers with shiny new VISA debit cards.

We then went through the motions. After what it seemed like hours of form-filling and question-answering, we were then very politely told that they could not give us an immediate answer - but would be in touch with us as soon as possible. "But, you do understand that we only need this card to withdraw money on holidays? We don't need an overdraft or anything! Can you not give us an answer right now?"

She could not. We would have to wait.

And all of this before 12:00 o'clock on a Saturday.

Interesting...

Blogs

If you're a gnomer, you're bound to know Lucas Rocha and his blog. I've been really enjoying his latest set of posts, which describe his move to Nokia, in Finland. Now his wife has also started a blog, but this one is in Portuguese. Make sure you check Diário de Cá.

If you don't know yet, both Rui and Dina have blogs (in portuguese). Dina's blog is Nascida Ontem and Rui's blog is Estrelas na Minha Coroa. Great pictures.

Miguel's diary has been an invaluable source of information about contemporary Angola: Sem Destino. The pictures are pretty cool too.

Last but not least, if you're a Microsoft-oriented nerd, be sure to check Scott's blog: Using Tangents.

Articles

If you're interested in the complexities of IT startup companies, you must read Paul Graham's essays on the subject.

A great insight on Google's development methodologies is available here: Good Agile, Bad Agile.

This is an old one by Herb Sutter, the C++ demi-god: The Free Lunch Is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software.

Events

We went to see a play called Township Stories. I cannot make justice in words to the excellence of this play. It paints a very vivid picture of life in South Africa's townships. Unfortunately, Presley Chweneyagae of Tsotsi fame was not around but I can't say his absence had a negative impact on the play; it was absolutely brilliant. We even had the usual running commentary from the African audience. An experience. If you have a chance, go and see it. Unfortunately, it wont be in the UK for long.

Books

If you're interested in Google, David A. Vise's book is a good start: The Google Story. Not everything is perfect: in some parts the book is a bit too pro-Google; David is not exactly Steven Levy; and it's a royal pain in the backside to have to carry around an hardcover book. But, in balance, its worth the read.