Kizua Mwangola: OMG, Ghana!!

Unbelievable. Watching Ghana v Nigeria was exactly like watching Angola v Ghana. One attack from Ghana early on in which they score, then 90-odd minutes of Nigeria attacking badly. Amazing, like a carbon copy. Off to the stadium now, to watch Egypt v Algeria. Hopefully my predictions will come to pass, and we'll have an Egypt v Ghana final - either way, I think Ghana is running out of luck, fast.

Kizua Mwangola: Peter and the Kupapata

After a prolonged stay here at Nancy's, Peter decided to move to Hotel Praia Morena. We were all getting quite used to him (and to Mark too, another recent defector), but that's the gist of a guest house I guess - people come and people go. But that's not the story; the story is _how_ he got there.

Like any practical South-African-come-Irish-come-German he thought the fastest way to move hotels was to take a kupapata (a bike-taxi). However, he had some luggage, so he decided to go for a kupapata with a trailer - something fairly common around here. He immediately caused chaos amongst all the staff by asking them to arrange one for him: surely not!! A Praia Morena guest riding on the back of the kupapata with the luggage?! Unheard off! Debates immediately started, and heated discussions too; people wanted to see this crazy foreigner riding with the luggage. I was even asked to take a picture, an undeniable proof that this event had actually happened.

Peter with Senhor Viana. (c) Marco Craveiro

No one believed the security guards would allow them to park at the entrance of the hotel. In the end, the mission was successful. Whilst the locals were getting agitated, the foreigners didn't quite understand what the fuss was all about - seemed like the sensible thing to do, really. I guess they don't quite get the "never lose your style" moto.

Kizua Mwangola: Aiwee!! Ta Doeeeer!!

That's how an Angolan song goes, and it seems to accurately represent the nation's feelings; translating it loosely it means "I'm in pain". We certainly are. It wasn't meant to end like this. And to make it worse, we saw it all unfolding live, minute by painful minute, at the 11th of September stadium in Camama.

But lets rewind it all back to the Friday. Two new photographers had joined our lovely guest house - a couple from Harlsden (of all places). While chatting over a few cucas they told us of their crazy plans: take their South-African bought car from Benguela to Luanda on the Saturday and drive back on the Monday, resting their heads only a few hours at some cheap hostel. This got Shahin's brain going. Perhaps we could join them? After a quick check, we concluded that all of our commitments could be postponed by a day or two - in fact, in a more general form, it can be said that there is no activity held in Angolan soil that is deemed to be so vital that cannot be postponed by a day or two. So we joined the quest. We tapped all our contacts for a living room in which to crash, but none was forthcoming so the only other option was to camp. At 120 km from Luanda, Cabo ledo was the destination of choice.

We set off a bit late in the day - midday or so - and had a more-or-less uneventful trip there, with a short stop at Sumbe. The roads from Benguela to Luanda are now in a decent state, so one can drive at full speed, making it a seven hour journey.

Cabo Ledo has changed a lot in three years. The dirt-track has been superseded by a sandy road, the two lonely bungalows now have mushroomed into ten or so and - even more surprisingly - there is a whole new resort at the very end of the beach. This was a luxury place, with rooms going for 300 USD a night. They didn't have any camping area, but the chap there was very nice and allowed us to camp for a negligible price.

Camp at Cabo Ledo. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

The evening and morning were great, very much like a proper beach outing. We left early for Luanda, as the photographers need to start work quite early on. In addition, cousin Rui fought hard to secure a couple of last minute tickets for us, and the plan was to meet him at the stadium for delivery. He deliver the goods, and did so in proper Angolan fashion, arriving at around 15 minutes before the game. In Benguela this would have meant losing the first 20 minutes or so of the match; surprisingly, in Luanda - amongst a 50-thousand crowd - we still got in _before_ the game had started. I was amazed. Unfortunately, I was also quite pissed off too as they forced me to bin my newly bought bolos secos (dried cakes). Apparently these can be quite lethal. No cameras allowed inside either.

What can I say about the game. I thought that we played well overall, and other than not scoring, we did everything best we could. One defensive mistake produced one goal; to make just one mistake in 90 minutes is quite good for us. Manucho and Flavio let us down, the first by not scoring any of the many opportunities he had and the second by not creating any for himself. The crowd tried their best. We even sang Angolan songs:

Nossa Angola, Ole, Ole

Nossa Angola Ole, Ole

But it was all in vain.

Angola v Ghana. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

The post-match was quite good though. There were hamburger vans selling beers at the parking lot, with TVs showing the Ivory Coast v Algeria game and selling cold'ish beer. In fact, beers and drinking have been handled quite well by the authorities. I was expecting a stadium full of drunken Angolans on all matches - lord knows we love our cuca - but instead I didn't see a single drunken spectator. Police was quite strict and didn't allow the selling or consumption of alcohol until the end of the game, an arrangement which proved to work well.

Afterwards, we drove back to Cabo Ledo in the dead of night - with a few scary near misses. Driving in Angola at night is not recommended for the faint at heart. In keeping with the depressed Angolan spirit, the night was dreadful, with rain and thunderstorms. To make it all worse, our 25 USD-chinese-shop tent had a leak and we got soaked and blasted by sand. And to top it all off, it was still quite rainy in the morning, so I couldn't even go for a swim before heading back to Benguela.

The road back was again uneventful. We got to Benguela just in time to watch the Egypt v Cameroon live in Ombaka. And so it was that three of my teams are now out of the African Cup: Angola, Ivory Coast and Cameroon. Like one fan said, "who shall we support now? Ghana?".

Egypt v Cameroon. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

Go on Zambia! Ow no, they lost too. Maybe its me?

Kizua Mwangola: Lubango

Well, Lubango was certainly an adventure. We convinced Silvano and Jonathan that the bus was the most sensible option to get there and back - on the vague advice from Lau that the roads from Benguela to Lubango weren't too bad, 50-100 km's or so of picada. I didn't think that they would _really_ take us up on that offer; one tends to associate important reporters with five-star hotels, chauffeurs and all that. Turns out they were actually keen on going to Lubango by bus, to experience the real Angola rather than the sheltered one. It makes sense, I guess. After all, these are guys that have been covering African cups for a long time and are used to the, how shall I put it, vagaries of African travel. So by bus we went.

Jonathan and Silvano. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

By the standards of most of our trips, this bus journey was remarkable for its non-eventfulness. No flat tires, no drunken passengers, not that many chickens on board, not that many passengers picked up en route, buses roughly on time, roads not too bad - it was as if the Angolan transport system knew they were carrying reporters and wanted to behave.

We got to Lubango at around 14:00, and were greeted by nasty weather. After enjoying a constant stream of hot, cloudless days, it was a real shock to see rain and - gasp - feel the cold.

Main road in Lubango. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

Luckily we were promptly picked up by Remidor, our contact in town. In fact, he proved to be a really valuable resource and - surprisingly for Angola - a stickler for time (if you need a driver in Lubango, give me a shout and I'll send you his number). Remidor took us to a couple of hotels, but the whole town appeared to be booked. After much searching, there were only two rooms to be found: a posh one at Hotel Amigo and a crap one at Hotel Diocema - and by crap I mean _crap_; it would have been a 5-10 USD one in Thailand but in our lovely Angola it was going for just over 50 USD. To add some excitement to the occasion me and Shahin picked the short straw and got Diocema.

The rest of our stay was a story of rain, more rain and then some real thunderstorms. I even managed to get a really bad cold on the process, something unthinkable in Benguela. On the plus side, the games were pretty good, in particular the Cameroon v Tunisia. This was a fantastic game, if I ever saw one, even including the horrendous defensive mistakes by Cameroon; the fact that the whole group was being decided on a minute-by-minute basis added even more excitement to the equation, so much so that by the end even the professionals were somewhat confused as to who had actually qualified and which team had won the group. In the end, Zambia and Cameroon qualified, giving us an exciting Egypt v Cameroon here in Benguela.

Nigeria's Peter Odemwimgie. (c) Shahinara Craveiro

The other interesting highlight of Lubango, and one which I hope to pursue in the future, is the huge white Angolan community down there. Not only are there the well-do types, but there is also a down-and-out white Angolan community, something which I had never seen in my life. For instance, I saw a white Angolan living in the bairro and carrying her young child on her back, just like a black Angolan woman would do. I couldn't believe my eyes so I got Remidor to confirm this for me - no, it wasn't a really light-skinned mulatto but a real white Angolan. Apparently this is a common sight in the bairros of Lubango.

Update: Jonathan has also posted about this trip, just not quite as eloquently as me :-) Also, ignore the terrible headline ("In a haunting account", "encountering remnants of war and weak bladders" etc) - just another great display of terrible sub-editing (e.g., not his fault). Just read the whole thing.

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.