Kizua Mwangola: Newspaper men

Our days have been incredibly busy of late. Not only because I'm spending longer hours at the tech support at Uni but also because the cream of the reporting crop is staying at our guest house: being the only hotel with a name in English and having an American expat running it makes it the obvious choice for every other English-speaking foreigner. These are famous people in their fields, contributers to papers such as Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Die Spiegel, BBC, et al. This, of course, excluding Nigerian and Angolan papers.

All this excitement not only makes my tech support somewhat harder - we now have people that rely on the Internet to do proper work rather than the occasional browsing - but it also means me and even Shahin are on "translation duties" at all hours. For example, yesterday I translated an interview with the Zambian coach for local newspapers. I've also spoken quite a lot of really bad French (but fortunately, the Swiss are here to help!). Shahin's claim to fame is translating French to Portuguese, the unfortunate targets being our Gabonese guests. I've also been quoted twice (if not entirely precisely). And to top it all off, we're traveling to Lubango tomorrow with journalist and book author, Jonathan Wilson - a gem of a bloke by the way. Mind you, Pete was looking over my shoulder as I write this and he swears that his book is better for the common man, so I may end up buying both.

There is nothing scarier than watching a football match on telly with five or ten of these guys. You just feel afraid of shouting even the most trivial things, lest they look at you with disapproving eyes - "do you know _anything_ at all about football, young man?". On the plus side, they are a really great bunch to chat over a few cucas. There were a couple of comments that really made me laugh. One was that "the stadiums were just too good, you couldn't tell whether this was Germany or Angola" which made me pretty laugh pretty smugly. Apparently Ghana and Mali's African cup had a more African feel. Don't want to discriminate against our African brothers, but I'll take that as a compliment. The other, which made me laugh really hard was - "I hate those Scandinavians! Their biggest problem is a complete lack of cynicism! I mean, just look all the NGO's they have which actually _believe_ in changing the world!". I wish all my Scandinavian friends could read this now.

Kizua Mwangola: Why I love Benguela (part I)

Everyone is always asking me, but what makes you like Benguela so much. I thought perhaps a piece of photo-blogging would help. So here's my first part of Why I love Benguela:

Our brand spanking sidewalks. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

Loads of lovely public gardens. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

The new Ombaka stadium. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

The sunsets we get every day. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

The rush hour traffic. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

Great colonial architecture. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

Caotinha beach. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

Catumbela river. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

Local capoeira school. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

Kizua Mwangola: We're through!

Awful game! I'm sure Mali and Malawi thought it wasn't cricket any more too, but hey - we probably would have lost on a real game. Now, lets see how we fare against the elephants.

Kizua Mwangola: Deadly Mambas

So, the entertainment of the day proved to be entertaining. First course was a pleasing Nigeria v Benin, with the Super Eagles displaying the usual not-so-super form. Somehow they managed to scrape a win with a penalty that didn't look that obvious to me - but then again, that's the biggest problem with live games: no replays. Benin looked good though, or maybe it just was a weak Nigeria that made them look so good. Second course was the very much waited Mozambican mambas against Egypt. If Egypt had a great support from the public against Nigeria, this time they felt the might of 30-odd thousand Benguelans against them. I mean, jeez, we even sang _Mozambican_ songs. This was better support than they would have in Maputo, I tell you.

Mozambique v Egypt, Benguela. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

The first half was exciting, mainly because Egypt didn't quite manage to score, but Mozambique did make a few interesting moves. The crowed got to the interval screaming very loudly every time Mozambique had the ball in Egypt's half (my own voice is almost gone). It was clear that the Mambas were feeling the pressure to score, so they decided to let loose and make the deadly mamba venom felt. Rather unfortunately, the target of all of that uncontrolled aggression was themselves, with an own goal starting the second half. Or was this the old score-an-own-goal-to-distract-them, a strategy tried and tested on the previous game against Benin? If it was, it didn't work.

Egypt didn't really need the extra help - but didn't deny it either - and looked very much the part of champions-waiting-for-a-crown. In some ways, watching Egypt play is not that dissimilar to watching a well drilled army fighting against a bunch of territorial reserves. Its not that they do anything particularly flashy, or flairy or crowd-pleasing; they are just a really well oiled, well drilled machine, where everyone knows their position, everyone knows who they're covering, everyone knows where they should be when attacking and everyone - and I mean _everyone_ - knows how time waste when they're winning. Its amazing. The only chances they give away, other than the rare defence mistake, are free-kicks and shots from far away - and Mozambique never looked dangerous in either of these.

* * *

If you're in Angola you've seen the "Miudo" (kid) TV ad, featuring Angola's captain Kali and the "Miudo". Well, we thought we'd find our Miudo too and gave away a bunch of tickets to kids waiting outside the stadium - hey, at 500 Akz a pop one can just about afford the luxury. One of them we decided to drag with us, and he reluctantly accepted or invitation. The miudo was pretty quiet. In fact, he didn't say a single word during both games, communicating only by affirmatively shaking his head to our inquisitive questions: do you want some juice? are you enjoying the game? do you want a cap? He then quietly disappeared minutes before the end of the second game. He seemed amazed with the big stadium though.

The "Miudo" (c) Shahinara Craveiro

* * *

On our way back we decided to avoid the crows at the parking lot's exit, taking instead some really alternative routes. This involved trekking through some very dark bairros, places where the electricity hasn't got to (nor will it) and where people can't afford generators either. Goes to say a lot about safety in this country when you can ride the back of a pick-up truck across the "dangerous" bairros, chatting to the people as you go along without worrying about being mugged.

* * *

Shahin has decided to busy herself by becoming a cook; as I write this she's serving Pizzas to starving journalists from many different countries.

Kizua Mwangola: Angolaaaaaaa!! Angolaaaaaaa!!!

ANGOOOOOOOLAAAAAAAAAA!!! ANGOOOOOLAAAAAAAA!

Kizua Mwangola: Benguela's first game

We made it to the stadium! Shahin covered it on her facebook, but here's a teaser. The crowd was much bigger in the end, but it took ages to get in!

Kizua Mwangola: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

There isn't much in common between the Angolans and the English. One exception is an uncanny ability to engineer defeats where no one else would believe them possible. That was most certainly the case against Mali tonight.