A Smorgasbord of Personal & Professional News

University Life

            Classes finally started (about a month and a half late) at the university. I’m enjoying being in the classroom again, but it does not come without its frustrations. This is definitely my most challenging teaching situation to date, mostly due to the lack of materials, class size, and general dysfunction of the administration. Let’s be clear here: This institution does not at all resemble an American university. Just to give you an idea, I asked the head of the English Department for a class roster and he looked at me like I had 3 heads. I have on average about 30 students on each of my four classes, but I am told that there should be more like 50. I really have no idea if the people sitting in front of me should be there or not.  I have come up with a strategy for situations such as this — “laugh it off and improvise.” I have to constantly remind myself that this is not the US.

            Being with the students is by far the best part of my job. My students are respectful, motivated, and receptive to me. The students are used to a very passive, rote style of teaching, so I have been impressed at how easily they have adjusted to my method, which is much more interactive. Upon meeting new students, their first question for me, without fail is, “Are you married?” More accurately, “Is the professor married?” Yes, they speak to me in the third person. This is how you show respect in Portuguese, but in English it’s totally weird. We are working on it. Anyway, when I answer, “No,” their follow up question is always “Why not?” What they’re really asking is. “What’s wrong with you?” I still haven’t come up with a clever response to this inquiry. Usually, I just shrug and say, “I don’t know. I’m just not,” and then feel really bad about myself for like 15 minutes.

            Tardiness is epidemic in Luanda, and the university is no exception. Culture, as well as the ridiculous traffic jams, are the major contributors to this problem. I decided to nip this in the bud, because if there is one thing I do not tolerate, it is tardiness. I instituted a very strict lateness policy, which was met with shock and appall. I’m pretty sure no one has ever tried to do this in the history of the Angolan education system. I like to think of myself as a trailblazer. Much to my surprise, the policy is actually having a positive effect on their behavior. I have far fewer late students, and when they do show up late, they are terrified to enter. Success!

            One other problem is that the courses I have been assigned to teach are not appropriate for the English level of the students.  Luckily, there is absolutely no oversight within the department so I pretty much do whatever I want. For example, I teach a course for the 4^th year students (Seniors) entitled “Thesis Workshop.” I was instructed to teach them how to conduct research and compose a thesis. Right now, we are working on writing complete sentences. Clearly, there is somewhat of a disconnect between the skills and needs of the students and the expectations dictated by the administration. Again, “laugh it off and improvise.”

ANELTA (National Association of English Language Teachers of Angola) Conference

Last weekend, I was invited to give a presentation to about 60 local English teachers. My presentation was called “5 Tips for Creating a Student-Centered Classroom.” I assume it was riveting.  

Cazenga

            I’ve been working with the high school students in Cazenga regularly, and it is quickly becoming my favorite part of the week. Amidst the poverty and suffering, these kids offer a ray of hope. They make me feel like maybe everything won’t suck forever.

            The students came to the Embassy today for a tour and a Q & A session with the Ambassador. They asked questions like, “What can we do as students to improve our country? and What do you think about gender equality?” Pretty impressive. On Friday, I am taking two of my students at the university there to speak with them about continuing their education and studying English at the university level.

Easter Party

Party planners

          










 I helped organize the Easter party at the Embassy a few weeks ago. We had an Easter egg hunt, egg on a spoon races, egg toss, and arts and crafts. The kids had a really good time playing on the Embassy lawn, which I am pretty sure is the largest area of grass in Luanda.

Egg on a spoon

Birthday Festivities

            I have to say that I could never have imagined that I would be celebrating my 27^th birthday on a rooftop in Angola, but that is exactly why I have chosen this life of adventure. My housemates and I had a BBQ complete with a DJ, rain, and hookers.

What?! Allow me to explain. An unfortunate reality of expat life here is that many of the men are not faithful to their wives back home. They often have Angolan “girlfriends,” who they provide for financially. They don’t speak the same language so I assume that they are not connecting on a deep, intellectual level. At best, these types of relationships are mutually exploitative; at worst, prostitution. Anyway, they know how to have a good time and they really brought a certain something to my birthday party, so no judgment.

     
On my actual birthday, I took off from work a little early and went to the beach, then out for a fancy dinner. Not a bad way to start the 27^th year of my life. I have a feeling it's going to be a good one...

This event was also a going away party for my housemate, Andy

Dance party in the rain

Embassy friends

What's a BBQ without a few DJ's?

Birthday dinner

Rasta Party at the Marine House

No explanation necessary. 

Alambamento or Bizarro Wedding

Last Saturday, my colleague, Rocha, invited me to his alambamento, or traditional Angolan wedding, which turned out to be one of the most fascinating cultural experiences I have ever had...and an awesome party!

Getting there was half the battle:

2 weeks before the wedding, Rocha invited me and I accepted. He gave me the date but wasn't sure about the time yet. Fine. As the days go by, I ask repeatedly what time the ceremony starts and what I should wear. The answers usually went something like this, "Oh Brigid, you can do whatever you want!" Not helpful. Finally, 2 days before the wedding he tells me it starts at 4:00. "Does it really start at 4:00? Or is that Angolan time and it's actually going to start at 6:00?" I ask him, "Oh no! It definitely starts at 4:00," he assures me. OK, we'll see about that.
I got some mixed messages about the dress code as well. Rocha told me I could wear a suit (not happening) and my female co-worker told me she was going to wear jeans. Again, not helpful.
On Friday afternoon, Rocha calls me to tell me that the ceremony will now begin at 3:00 but if I want I can meet the bride (who I don't know) and her family at her house and go with them. Uhhh, no thanks. I schedule the driver to pick me up at my house at 4:00 because I know that there is no possible way this thing is going to start on time. Learn and adapt.
I didn't know exactly where the hall was so my other co-worker told me to have my driver call him when we were on the way. Of course, when I called him his phone was not in service (that happens a lot, especially when you really need to speak with someone). I called another co-worker but she didn't know where it was either. "Just call Rocha and ask him," she says. Are you serious? It's his wedding day! Left without options and an annoyed driver, I reluctantly called Rocha, who was happy to give directions. Rocha instructed me to wait in the car until he arrived. Note at this point, it's about 4:45, remember when he told me it started at 3:00? I got to the hall and waited about 30 more minutes for him to arrive. Finally, around 5:30, his friend escorts me up to the room where the meeting of the families is about to begin....

10 cases of beer and a pant suit:

This is where it gets interesting. Rocha's friends and male family members start lugging cases of soda and beer into the room and placing it in the space between the two families. The guest next to me informs me that these are the gifts being offered to the bride's family. So I guess this is the going rate for an Angolan bride these days. Once all the gifts are in place, the bride's uncle reads a list of the items while the groom's uncle presents them. This list has already been agreed upon prior to the ceremony, so this is a way to prove that the groom has indeed purchased the necessary gifts. Also included were shoes for the bride's father and a pant suit for her mother.

 After this, the groom enters the room, while the bride is still in an undisclosed location. Now the families must decide on a date for the casamento, which is the legal wedding. In this case, the bride, Marcia, is pregnant, so her family would like the official wedding to be sooner rather than later. The groom's family, who just shelled out big bucks on beer and soda and who also need to pay for the casamento, would like to push it back a year. This results in a disagreement that required the aunts and uncles of each family to discuss it among themselves and then report to the other side. It looked something like this:










This process took about 40 minutes and it was fairly tense at times. They decided to have the legal documents in the next 2 months, but wait one year until they have the party. Everybody wins as I see it. Now it's time for the bride to join us. Plot twist! 2 women about the same shape and height walk up the stairs covered in sheets. Rocha must choose which one is Marcia. At this point, the mood is very light and the guests are shouting at him about who to pick.

He got it right!

The couple kissed and exchanged rings and we all shared a champagne toast. Rocha's uncle gave a beautiful speech and at the end motioned for me to stand up. What??? Mind you, I have never met a single person in this room aside from Rocha. I awkwardly stand up and wave at everyone as the uncle explains that I work with Rocha at the university and that I am American. I can immediately feel the confusion lifted from the room, as I can imagine everyone up to that point was thinking, "Who is this white girl and what is she doing here?"

Once all the business was taken care of, we all moved downstairs for the party. In typical Angolan fashion, there were exorbitant amounts of food, drinks, and dancing. These people definitely know how to have a good time. Rocha's brother explained to me that since life is so hard and you never know what will happen tomorrow, they have to celebrate the joyous moments when they can. And celebrate we did....

The Newlyweds - Marcia & Rocha

Happy Peace Day!

Angola: Mixed Progress After Ten Years of Peace

When stunned Angolans picked up their copies of Jornal de Angola in February 2002 to see the bullet-riddled body of UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, many immediately knew that the long years of war were over.

The conflict, which first erupted upon independence from Portugal in 1975, was about many things. It was a war of UNITA's oppressed rural peasants against oil-rich, predominantly coastal and urban élites. It was a struggle between different ethnic and geographical groups; and it was a proxy war pitting the United States and Apartheid-era South Africa against the Soviet Union, Cuba and its allies. It was even a war of minerals, with oil underpinning the army of the ruling MPLA, while diamonds fed UNITA. Most fundamentally, though, it was a war of ambition by Jonas Savimbi, whose dream was to rule Angola, no matter what the human cost.

When Savimbi died, Angolans had seen too many false starts, and most were too cynical about the MPLA leadership to get too excited about the future. But then there was, of course, the oil: three quarters of a million barrels per day (bpd) back then, with a bevy of billion-barrel deep water oilfields in development. Production rose steadily, and today stands at over 1.8 million bpd, making Angola Africa's largest producer after Nigeria. The government has splurged on infrastructure, helped by large loans from China and other friendly governments, and in 2010 The Economist gushed, in an article entitled 'Angola Rising: Oil, Glorious Oil', that 'the country's breakneck growth is slowly benefiting the masses.'

The surface signs of development are indeed striking: the shiny and vibrant nodes of prosperity in Luanda today bear little relation to the shabby, unkempt and raucous city of cold showers, warm beer and shortages that I knew and loved while serving as Reuters' Angola correspondent nearly 20 years ago.

Politically, however, the changes are less impressive. A few days ago an IMF report said something that could have been written back in 2002: that the authorities 'have begun to phase out quasi-fiscal operations by Sonangol, the state oil company, and are incorporating them into the budget.' This lack of progress is apparent elsewhere. A highly controlling, rather secretive government under the ageing José Eduardo dos Santos has dominated the political scene since the war ended, and, true to old form, has recently been violently cracking down on protesters and intimidating journalists.

When it comes to the ordinary lives of ordinary Angolans, a more troubling picture emerges.

One of the more unusual indicators provided by the United Nations Human Development Index is called 'GNI per capita rank minus HDI rank,' on which oil-rich Angola has a score of minus 38, among the world's worst. This number tells us that Angola's human development indicators - which indicate how well ordinary folk are faring - lag remarkably far behind where they should be for a country with so much money. For all the outward signs of progress, Angola is not harnessing its oil to make its people's lives better. (All the countries with worse scores in this particular respect are minerals exporters.)

Ten years after the war's end, Angola appears to remain a poster child for the 'resource curse'. Life expectancy at birth, at 51.1, puts it at 181st place out of 187 countries ranked. Adjust the figures to take account of inequality, and Angola slips three places further down. On the poverty statistics Angola ranks almost as badly. Politically, Angola remains rather authoritarian.

Angola may be peaceful and even, up to a point, rich. But ordinary Angolans are still waiting for their peace dividend.

Nicholas Shaxson is Associate Fellow in the Africa Programme of Chatham House.

More news about Angola:

Country Considered Peace Example

Violent Crackdown on Critics

One Month In

Random thoughts about my first month in Angola:

·  I completely understand why everyone I met when I first got here told me to “be patient.”

·  Note to self: Do not, under any circumstances, marry anyone in the oil business!

·  If you ask 5 people the same question, you will get 5 different answers and end up more confused than when you started. I have decided to succumb to my daily bewilderment about everything that is going on around me.

·  I am keenly aware of my whiteness everywhere I go.

·  Angolans believe me to be extremely privileged and wealthy.  I am not at all comfortable with this assumption, which is based entirely on my appearance, but I understand it. I recognize the immense disparity between my lifestyle here and that of most of the local people.

·  People don’t go to work or school when it rains. This was also true in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, so it doesn't come as a shock, but it also doesn’t make it less annoying.

·  Every time I ask a group of high school students which American singers they like, a teenage boy inevitably yells out “Celine Dion!”

·  Most of the Angolans that I have met realize that things are pretty messed up here, but feel powerless against the authoritarian government and its control over the resources and economy.

·  I have come to the conclusion that African women possess some sort of genetic advantage which allows them to carry massive amounts of stuff on their heads.
·  Going out for dinner usually leads to spending $50 on a mediocre meal.

·  Having a driver was at first very exciting, but is now getting a little old. I'm still getting used to the idea that I have to schedule everywhere I go at least a day in advance.

·  The streets and beach are used as public restrooms.

·  I live across the street from the beach but have never been there (see above).

·  Angolan people speak louder than anyone I have ever encountered.  What are you yelling about? Relax.
·I wish the cleaning lady would stop stealing my bananas.

·  The students all stand when I enter the room. It makes me feel very important and embarrassed all at the same time.