Life in Huambo

the biggest avocados you've ever seen

Since I am clearly too busy living in Huambo to write about it, here are some pictures.

We had some water and power problems when we first moved to our new office/house. Here are the professionals (after many attempts by amateurs) trying to bring electricity from outside the house to inside the house.

A couple of my colleagues play chess on Saturdays in the park. This is not them, but this is where they play.

 

 

 

MENTOR staff at work, packaging Coartem for sale in private pharmacies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hills on the edge of Huambo, where I go biking sometimes.

The taste of Ireland – there’s no escaping it.

Vamos a praia!

If ever, on a Friday night in Africa, you are thinking about whether to take the suddenly-available project vehicle and leave your house without running water or electricity, for the 3-day weekend, and you go to a cafe because you can’t stand to watch the friend of the brother of the landlord not fix the electricity as the sun is setting, and there you meet a Spanish friend who is in the country for 3 months and her Spanish friend who has been in the country for 3 weeks, and you tell them you’re not sure where to go and they tell you some friends in another city are going to a beautiful beach with amazing fish and corrals and other things, and this beach is just outside the city that is 5 hours due west, and you should all go together and camp for the weekend… just keep in mind that things may not go exactly as planned.

For example, when said Spanish people tell you they’ve been somewhere before and know exactly where it is, don’t be surprised if they later tell you, when you are looking for that place (perhaps a place to camp when it is already after dark), that of course they are not seguro, nada esta seguro. And if they take you to a garbage dump by the seaside and tell you that it is a beach and that you’re going to camp there… but I am getting ahead of myself.

First we drove for a few hours in the rain, with our bags imperfectly covered in the back of the pickup, and passed a car on its side with someone trying to climb out. I thought it was children playing on an abandoned car, but we turned around to check and it was the immediate aftermath of a rolled car. There was a man sitting on the side of the road with his ear partially detached, a woman trying to pull another woman out of a window, and another man still in the car. Lots of other cars stopped, they got the woman and the man out of the car and they were fine, although the driver may have been drunk (at noon). Someone took them off to the next town that had a doctor. We got back on our way. We drove for a few more hours, met the Spanish and French friends in Benguela, spent some time trying to find groceries, and by 4pm were ready to head to the beach, hoping to get in at least an hour swimming before dark at 6. Then we had to stop to get gas.  Angola is a petroleum huge producer. Gas is about 40 US cents per liter. This is what a gas station looks like.

Then we were given wrong directions and drove a good way on the road back to Huambo. Then we turned around, and met the Spanish/French, who were at the roadside drinking beer. Without asking us or even saying what they were doing, they dismantled our rain cover and took our bags into their car. (This should have been a sign.) Then we stopped to by charcoal. Then one of the Spanish/French drivers lost his car keys. This is what the locals thought of the situation:

Then we continued driving on gravel roads until about 6pm. Then the French decided to stop for another beer at the road side. We asked if we were almost to the beach. They laughed. This was a sign. Words were exchanged in multiple languages. It turned out that it was maybe 3 more hours to the beautiful beach. We had been in the car for 11 hours. We agreed to go to a nearby beach that was just an hour away, on some roads that would probably have been terrifying if we could have seen more than the area in the headlights. Instead they were just unpleasant. We arrived at the beach. I went for a walk and then drank the French peoples’ beer and we ate barbecued meat and I felt like I was finally having the African adventure that everyone talks and writes about. When I went to go to bed, I discovered that the blanket I’d taken out of the closet to sleep on for 2 nights (no sleeping bag) had previously been used to wrap around animals on their way to the slaughterhouse. Or something that made it smell equally revolting. African adventure seemed suddenly less appealing. I did not sleep much.  But when I woke up, the world looked like this:

So that was okay. The French/Spanish packed up to drive as far south as they could before turning around to drive back home again.

But they didn’t get very far, to our amusement.

I went swimming and was stung by something in the water, and ended up looking like this (a day later, after the swelling went down):

After maximum sun, we decided to head to another beach that was closer to Benguela, which would give us a shorter drive home the next day. Much driving later, we ended up at garbage beach. I offered to sleep in the car. I have issues with garbage. We drove some more and found a tiny, lovely beach. We waited until the enamorados left and pitched our tents on the strip of dry sand, where the rising tide would not reach us.

Right. At 2:39am, we frantically packed our things and relocated to higher ground. Somehow we found a flat spot with a beautiful view and the sound of waves far below. We pitched the dry tent and guy who wasn’t at all seguro slept no ar livre. I was jealous, until we were awakened again (at a thoroughly civilized hour) by rain. By then we were experts at repacking and got everything into the truck and covered with the tarp before the heavy rain started. And then we drove home for only 6 hours, where we had running water for a cold shower, and electricity and internet for a little while. And cortisone cream. God bless cortisone cream.

Angola: nicer than you’d think

After having no internet for almost a week and knowing I won’t have it again for at least 4 days, I feel like I have to write the next post now. But I’m not ready! I meant to take some photos to post and show How Nice Huambo Is. But so far I only have photos of Coartem malaria meds and a rapid diagnostic test. So I will tell you a little bit about how nice Huambo is.

There are wide, well-paved roads in the center of town, many of them tree-lined. There are parks with grass and decorative plants. There is a main square with fountains, a children’s playground, a chess table and–get this–a bike rack! You hardly see any bikes here, but it’s actually a really pleasant place to ride a bike. Except for the whistles. Speaking of whistles, no one pays any attention to you at all EXCEPT when you are a woman in shorts on a bike. You can walk down the sidewalk (because yes, there are sidewalks! and crosswalks! and cars stop if someone is in the crosswalk!) and not one single person tells you that you are white. It is altogether unlike Africa as I know it. The main drawback really to living in Huambo is that all the locals are so much more fashionable. And the water and electricity comes and goes, but the air is clear, you can walk outside day or night, and as a former Portuguese colony, they have really good coffee and fresh bread. And as a tropical country, they have the mango and avocado and papaya and thunderstorms that are pretty impressive, even when you are out riding a bike in one.

I will absolutely never, ever… okay, maybe.

For a number of years, one of my career goals was to not go to Nigeria. Then in a moment of weakness/unemployment, I agreed to go to Lagos in October 2008. I was only there for two weeks, staying in a fairly low-density area not far from the airport. The hotel was pretty poor value, but it was kind of like being in a college dorm again, but this time full of pilots from developed countries who would spend half their time flying planes in Nigeria and the other half back home, a South African film crew, and other random people you tend not to meet in countries where you can leave your hotel at night. But it was in a neighborhood where I could walk around during the day, taking care not to fall into an open sewer or walk into a wire dangling from an electrical pole and shooting off sparks. Aside from one four-hour trip across town and back for a 15-minute meeting, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. The people I worked with were really sharp, hard-working, and friendly; the local food was good; and I never once felt I was in danger of losing my life or winning a million dollars from a prince.

This all could mean only one thing: I had to pick a new country to never go to. One of the South African film crew suggested Angola. He gave some pretty convincing reasons that I can’t remember exactly, but they definitely involved streets full of dead animals and garbage. There are lots of things I fear or don’t like, but dead animals and garbage are up there with inadequate sanitation and drug-resistant syphilis. And since it was pretty likely that an African country recently emerged from a decades-long civil war also had inadequate sanitation, I figured Angola was a pretty good choice for the One Country I Will Never Go To, and so I declared it in October 2008.

From May to August this year, I took five vacations: the County Kerry, Poland, London, France and Italy. I had a contract that allowed me to work for essentially unlimited days until September 1, but in 4 months I spent nearly 2 months on holiday. I came back from three wonderful weeks in Italy on August 19, ready to work 12 hours a day to get ready for the close of the ten-year project, and on August 20 got an email from DC saying, “You’ve been a great help. We don’t need you any more.” I counted up how much money I’d spent on my five holidays, and began to panic, so when a friend sent me the terms of reference for a two-month consultancy in Angola, I thought, Angola is the One Country I Will Never Go To. There is clearly not even a decision to make. But simultaneously I thought, This could be a great opportunity. Because I have some trouble making up my mind. So I thought about it for a few days, sent an enquiring email, and with shocking speed ended up with a contract where I agreed to do something I wasn’t quite sure I knew how to do, in a language I don’t really speak, in a place I fear and where the average number of rainy days exceeds Dublin’s, for two months, with a massive pay cut.

In the six weeks it took to get visa and travel sorted, I spent a little bit of time studying Portuguese and learning EpiInfo, and a lot of time telling everyone I saw that I was going to Angola for two months. And then suddenly I was here (okay, 40 hours in transit is not so sudden, but I was barely conscious the last 24), and it’s actually pretty nice. But you’ll have to wait for the next post to find out more.

We just moved house so at the moment have no power or hot water or enough water pressure for a shower, but the de-miners down the street let me take a shower at their place, and I have a brand new ultra-powerful headlamp.

Avoid other swimmers grabbing your ankles by putting Vaseline on them before the race starts.

This was one of the swimming tips on the Windsor Triathlon website.

I’ve seen Breaking Away, so I know that pro cyclists are competitive and dirty enough to stick a pump into the spokes of a geeky teenager from Indiana. But only the most pathetic amateur athlete would grab the ankles of a competitor and pull him or her underwater in order to swim over them. Right? And certainly there was no chance that I’d be in the water with these losers (or winners?). Right?

My friend Elaine convinced me to sign up for the Windsor Triathlon on June 14, 2009 in celebration of her 40^th birthday. I know a lot of people who did marathons or climbed mountains when they turned 30, or 50, so I figured it would be my turning-40 accomplishment as well. This was in December or so. In March, I met a number of women who were very inexperienced cyclists and they were doing triathlons, which I found inspiring. I heard about this triathlon on May 30 in Athy with a “downhill swim”, which was supposed to be a good first triathlon, and I figured if I was going to put in all the training to get ready for one triathlon, and invest in a wetsuit, I might as well do a couple. So I signed up. It would be fun, they said.

Okay, there is fun and there is fun. I am all for putting yourself into situations of suffering or discomfort or pain, and think that can make you a better person. But I don’t confuse that with “fun”. Fun is playing in the waves wearing only a bathing suit, in a place with warm air and warm water, where you get out and lie on your towel to dry off in the sun and maybe eat an ice cream. Stuffing yourself into a second skin of neoprene, putting an extra swimming cap on over your goggles so that no one knocks them off, and then swimming half a mile with 150 other people through an icy brown river is… something else.

  

Someone hauling you out of the water when you get to the end of the swim—now that is fun.

For about 15 seconds while you try not to fall over on the floating dock. Then you run to your bike, if you can find it, and try to peel your wetsuit off, which is harder than you might think. In the franticness of it all, you forget you have a towel to dry your legs so getting neoprene knee braces on is a bit challenging. You remember the towel for your feet and brush off the gravel before putting on socks (yes, a real triathlete does not wear socks) and shoes. A real triathlete also wears a form-fitting lycra one-piece racing suit, but aside from my body image issues, I can think of nothing more unpleasant than cycling and then running in soggy bike shorts. (Okay, I can think of many things more unpleasant, like this: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=150441&start=1 but I prefer not to.)  So I also had to pull on loose running shorts and tank top, and sunglasses (because it was SUNNY and WARM, and of this I am thankful), and fix my hair, and stuff a snack in my pocket, and put on my helmet, and then run to the bike mount line. All this took me nearly 4 minutes, which is a pretty slow transition in TriWorld, but I did enjoy and appreciate my socks and clothes in the bike and the run, and it was really the wetsuit that slowed me down.

I thought I was a rock star on the bike, cruising past cyclist after cyclist (or perhaps more accurately, person on borrowed hybrid after person on road bike who couldn’t figure out how to use toe clips). No one passed me for the first 10km and then about 4 or 5 people did in the last 10km, but my post-race theory is that all the fast people were already ahead of me, and the folks who were passing me were the ones who started 15 minutes later.  Anyway, I did 20km in 43 minutes, which was about what I’d hoped to.

Bike to run transition was fine (thanks in part to my special new laces!), until I couldn’t remember where to exit the transition area to start the run. After a bit of confusion and running around in circles, someone pointed me in the right direction. So I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran—somewhat slowly, I admit—and I thought I just might make it to the finish, when I saw the sign that said “1km done, 4 to go!” I think that was the low point. The high point was watching everyone roasting in their form-fitting black lycra while I breezed along in my loose, cool, not-very-tri clothing.  And I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran (then they handed out water), and I ran and I ran and I ran and I ran, and I ran and I ran (somewhere around here there was more water) and I ran and I ran, (1km to go!) and I ran and I ran (there was Eoghan ready to take a photo! then some children jumped in front of me so he only got me running away, but at least I didn’t fall)

and I ran and finally finally I ran across the finish line into a crush of people, one of whom thankfully gave me a bottle of water. 

Drinking the water was pretty fun.

Why Poland is better than Ireland… and why it’s not

I’ve often thought the Polish are the Irish of Eastern Europe–they’re Catholic, they eat a lot of potatoes, they move to other countries to work in the building trade–but a recent visit to Krakow and Tarnow made me realize that Poland is infinitely superior to Ireland in so many ways. Except for the ways in which it is not.  Here is how things add up. + is why Poland is better than Ireland and – is why Ireland is better. I’m leaving other countries out of it because things would just get too messy otherwise.

+ It is warm enough for bare arms and legs in May, even if the sun goes behind a cloud

+ Sometimes the sun is not behind a cloud

+ This can occur for days at a time

- Bugs as well as people thrive in this sort of environment 

+ The streets have street signs

+ Restaurants and homes have napkins on the table

- Restaurants often have smokers at the table, and Eastern European cigarettes are a special kind of smelly

+ There are bagel vendors everywhere

- They eat just as many potatoes, but they peel them before cooking

+ There is more than one kind of good draft beer

- But good coffee or black tea are hard to find

+ But the automated “espresso” machines are kind of funny, and you pay way less for the bad coffee than you would in Ireland

- but in Ireland these days, there’s a fair chance you’ll get a good coffee 

+ They have cheap trains with windows that open

+ It is warm and dry enough that you might choose to do this

+ The streets have street signs

- Poland is even more monocultural than Ireland

+ They speak a different language where letters make funny sounds

- They speak a different language where letters make funny sounds

+ Did I mention they have street signs?

+ And bagels!?!

Riding the Wicklow 100. Slowly.

Originally published June 11, 2008

For the last few months, every Saturday I rode the third hardest ride of my life. The hardest was the Mountains of Misery metric century, and the second hardest was the Civil War Century metric. (Why are metrics harder than full centuries? Is it because they are not on the flat Eastern Shore?) We were training for the Wicklow 100. Yes–another metric century! But luckily the Wicklow 100 was not the hardest ride of my life–I got that out of the way a few weeks ago. I don’t remember much, except for some big uphills, but I’m pretty sure there was some wind involved. Those hills were much bigger than these hills, which you can see me flying up.

I slowed down somewhat after eating the performance-enhancing food on offer. If anyone ever asks you if you want a chicken and stuffing sandwich in the middle of two 1,000ish foot climbs, just say no. I didn’t. My mistake.

We got medals at the end, which is not nearly as cool as a long-sleeve t-shirt and certainly not worth the €42 entry fee. I was going to write a letter and ask if next year we could have oranges and homemade banana bread instead of medals, but I think the medal is something of a tradition.  I would post a photo of me wearing mine, but I think it got eaten by the washing machine.  Maybe that’s why it keeps breaking down.