Visa Woes? Visa Woes!

So I'm having trouble processing my work visa here in Angola. Aside from a Portuguese copy of my diploma, a police report from my hometown, my resume, and a to-date grand total of 12 passport-sized photos, the authorities require a letter from a physician stating I'm in good health. I arranged all of these documents and turned them in well ahead of time.

Just last week, 2 months after submitting my documents to be processed, I got a note saying my physician's letter was rejected. I asked why, since the letter stated, "the patient is in excellent health and should have no limitations to his travel plans or locales." It was rejected, I am told, because it didn't specifically say "fit to work in Angola." Good lord.

While trying to sort out this mess, I wanted to know if a letter from an Angolan doctor would suffice (since getting a new letter from home was going to be difficult). With this thought in mind, I wrote the following email to the person assigned to work on my case (names have been changed to protect the unhelpful):
_____________________________________

Hi Mr. Blobby,

Can you please confirm that a doctor's letter from within Angola will satisfy the requirements for the work visa process?

Based on the prior experience of some of our colleagues XXXX and I are under the impression that the doctor's letter may need to come from a doctor located outside of Angola. Obviously this would negate our need to see a doctor locally.

I'm hoping you can help us clear up this confusion prior to moving forward with our appointments as scheduled for tomorrow.

Thanks,
Jeremy
_____________________________

The oh-so-clear response:

Hi Jeremy,

requirements says it must be from a doctor abroad, but as you have already one and in spite of not have the required information, I intent to use it as a tentative, the currenty one that you bring from abroad along the one you will apply for. It has result in some few cases before so I intend to try it again.
In the meantime, when you go abroad please apply for another one that can be used in case this one to be denied by the authorities,

please contact me for further clarification in case you have any other question upon this issue,
Mr. Blobby
_____________________________

I went ahead and asked my dad to run around town and procure a new letter. The physician that originally gave me the physical back in June had since retired, but he was willing to come into the office and sign an updated letter with the magic words included. I found out later the office printed the letter with the wrong date of birth. Luckily my dad noticed the error and took the letter back to the doctor's office. Since they didn't want to disturb the doctor's retirement a second time, the office clerk corrected and initialed the changes. This adulterated letter is now costing a fortune to overnight to DC to the organization sponsoring my employment here, and the DC folks in turn are sending a $120 DHL to get it here next week. All this and I'm giving the authorities a 49% chance of accepting it since it involves hand-written updates.

Oh, and the visa people want 4 more passport photos...

I have a headache.

Kizomba Dance Break

This video belongs with the Huambo road trip entries - I think it sums up the type of road trip we had pretty well (quality internet connectivity made uploading possible only now).

Kizomba is something of a national pastime in Angola and involves a kind of close dancing that I haven't managed to learn yet. Featured dancers are Nancy (the American expat who runs the language school in Benguela) and Chinho (whose family we were traveling to visit in Huambo).

Yes, this is the main highway between two of the largest cities in the country. And yes, that really is a woman carrying a log on her head.

Feel free to dance along if the mood strikes...

Palin vs. Clinton SNL

One worth keeping...

First Week at Work

The irony of officially starting my job here in Angola on what was Labor Day in the US wasn’t lost on me, but we ended up having two holidays here during the same week so I can’t complain. Friday was always planned to be a holiday to allow people to vote, but Wednesday ended up being a holiday too. It was an impromptu one, declared on the radio Tuesday night. To top things off Thursday was a half-day that involved a long team lunch.

I did manage to actually get some work done, though, and went on my first company visit by the second day of work. I’ll get into the nature of my job here later, but for now I’ll say it involves playing a consulting role to small and medium sized Angolan businesses. The company I visited was a small IT consulting company that also offered computer training courses. It also manufactured ice. That's right. Ice. If I hadn’t seen this establishment with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it, but I can verify that this improbable combination of enterprises does in fact exist under the same roof. In one room there is space to conduct training classes and in the next there are about 8 deep freezers full of plastic buckets of ice. It may seem random, but Angolans can be very practical – the ice is for cash flow while the other part of the business establishes itself (or so I hypothesized).

I don’t know what other interesting combinations lie ahead, but after the visit to the consulting/ice plant I’m definitely curious to find out.

Hamburger à la Angola

Sometimes after a day of work and dealing with Luanda traffic on the way home the last thing you want to do is cook a meal. There aren’t that many quick meal places in our neighborhood, but the one we do have sort of makes up for the lack of options. I’m talking about the burger stand right across the street that has become something of a household addiction, and for good reason. It’s time, dear blog readers, to tell the story of the Angolan hamburger.

For starters, there is actually a layer of “ham” on the hamburger. Right on top of the familiar ground beef patty. What could be more logical? Or endearing? Or tasty!

And that’s not all!

On top of the ham layer comes a fried egg, because you really want to get as much protein as you can in one bite. The egg is topped with whatever condiments you want, but if you want to impress the locals you need to ask for “gindungu” which is a type of spicy diced pepper topping. Otherwise ketchup will do (or mayo or cheese).

But wait, there’s more!

The over-the-top secret ingredient to the local version of the American classic is a layer of crumbled up potato chips underneath the ground beef patty. Whoa.

Did I mention the hamburger patty is cooked with beer? And you thought the story couldn’t get any better. Salvador cooked up a mean version tonight; at 350 kwanzas a pop ($4.67) I’m sure we’ll be back for many more…

Salvador in the process of creating a masterpiece:

Would you like finger grease with your popcorn?

So the other day our crew decided to go to the movies. Lucky for us there’s a new mall on the south side of town with a modern 8-screen movie theatre complete with stadium seating. The movies are pretty modern and subtitled (we saw the latest Indiana Jones movie), so I imagine we’ll be making frequent visits.

The “Angola Moment” came when I decided to treat myself to a bag of popcorn. The concession vendor dutifully filled my bag per usual protocol, but before handing the bag over to me he took a big handfull of popcorn from the top of the bag and chowed down. I asked if anybody else had seen what had happened, but the vendor gave himself away by masticating the evidence with gusto as he took my money. I just laughed and went on my way. What else are you gonna do?

Driving in Angola

Angola, like many developing countries, has its own special protocols when it comes to the rules of the road. The main protocol is that there doesn’t seem to be many rules. The other protocol is that it’s impossible for anything bad to happen to you should you be riding unprotected on a motorcycle. That seems to be what is going through most cyclists heads, anyway. On a trip on the road from Benguela to Lobito, for example, we were overtaken by at least 4 motorcycles exceeding 100km per hour where the driver’s legs were extended parallel to the road. In other words, their bodies were flying behind them, superman-style.



















In gridlocked Luanda, part of the problem (aside from too many cars on the road) is a lack of traffic lights. What’s more, when there are traffic lights they either aren’t working or are working in areas that could get by fine without them (like traffic circles). Much of the gridlock could be helped by relying more on basic traffic flow technology and less on the perpetual game of chicken that determines when you get to make a left turn. The most persistent driver usually prevails, but the game of chicken is conducted respectfully, so at least there’s that. That said I’ve also seen people attempt unannounced right hand turns from the left lane among other incredibly daring motoristic feats. Did I mention how glad I am not to have to drive here? Is motoristic a word?

Tango Delta

So we’re not allowed to drive in Luanda (or all of Angola, technically), and for the most part we’re discouraged even from walking around on our own. We get around thanks to “Tango Delta” – otherwise known as the BP car service. People’s houses have code names (Beta Charlie 55, for example) and when you call for a car an English-speaking dispatcher sends a car to pick you up. Once the car is dispatched they send a text message with the type of car and license number, and they call again when the car arrives. To say traffic in Luanda is bad would be an understatement, so sometimes it can take awhile for the ride to arrive. When it does it’s usually a clean 4x4 with the air conditioner blasting (which is completely unnecessary this time of year). Talking up the drivers is good Portuguese practice, and through interacting with them I’ve managed to become known as “Mr. Geremy.” At least that’s the name they use when sending the confirmation texts. With a little more conversation I might even get a J in there somewhere. I'll take it - at least it's better than being called macaco...

Election Day

The national elections held yesterday represented the first since 1992. The civil war reignited after those elections, so hopefully things to go more smoothly this time around. I’m told there are 10 political parties and 4 coalitions of parties on the ballot, and when Angolan citizens go to the polls the only decision they have to make is which party they support. It’s up to the parties, then, to designate who will represent them based the proportion of votes the party receives. I don’t understand this process fully, but with a little more research I bet it’s easier than explaining the electoral college system in Portuguese. I’ve tried to do this a few times when the subject of how American presidents are election and realize now that this is a fool’s errand. I just say “it’s not a direct vote and it’s complicated” and leave it at that. But I digress.

A lot of the political parties have posted their party platforms around town, and among the more interesting ones promise things like “treating the 7th Day Adventists as equals to the Catholic Church.” Some of the party symbols are interesting also – my favorite features a writing pen with a big star on one end.

In a way I feel like I’m in some kind of bizarro civics class. I have no idea what the level of political discourse is like among the average citizen, but to the uneducated eye there seem to be open displays of support for a diverse number of parties. Are some of these people paid walking advertisements? Maybe, but it’s an exciting atmosphere nonetheless.

The MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) are the two strongest parties, the former being the party in power and the latter being the main resistance party during the civil war. It’s widely expected the MPLA will win based on their record of managing rapid economic development in recent years. If that doesn’t work, the freebies (bikes, TVs, beer) that the MPLA is apparently handing out at rallies might do the trick. Groups like Human Rights Watch have cited trouble in some rural areas and claim that the MPLA is trying to intimidate opposition parties, but I have to say my own uneducated eye sees pretty visible support for a variety of parties, UNITA included. Unlike in Zimbabwe, representatives from both the EU and the US were invited to Angola to observe the elections as well, which should help lend credibility to the results. Time will tell.

"Vote MPLA" banner outside our apartment:














UNITA and MPLA flags in Luanda (and an idea of what traffic is like):














Not sure how effective the giant beach ball was for the PRS:














"Bread, Peace, Liberty" with non-waterproof party platform posters:



















"We are all part of this flag" general election poster encouraging voter registration:














MPLA outdoing UNITA in the flag size competition:














"MPLA: The right path for a better Angola"














Benguela Party HQ for the FNLA Party "Land and Liberty":

The t-shirts in Angola

There is definitely no shortage of style in Angola. One unexpected fashion-related feature of this country is that the most random t-shirts find their way here. Apparently that load of clothes you took to Goodwill that didn’t get bought locally winds up on a container to Africa, where they have another chance at life. The fact that many locals here don’t read English leads to some comical results. Unfortunately getting photos of these t-shirts is kind of hard, since they’re usually spotted while driving quickly through town. I promise to try harder.

I imagine this to be an ongoing theme during my time here, but here are my top 3 so far:

#3: Red and white jacket with “ZEBRAS” printed on it
I went to a high school where the mascot was a zebra, and our team colors were red and white (a topic for another blog entry). What’s more, the font and style of the jacket look exactly like ones I used to see all the time growing up. What are the chances some other school in some parallel universe is represented by a red-and-white zebra? Pretty slim, so the fan base for Claremore High School is a little bigger than may have been previously thought.

#2 “West Salem Cheerleading”
At first glance this isn’t so weird, except that the decidedly girly pattern on the back was worn by a tough-looking young man on a motorcycle. If he only knew…

#1 “My Other Ride Is Your Mom”
This one was spotted on a 9 year-old boy (I’m guessing the age) at a gas station in Huambo – the one across the street from a tall green buildling in the central part of the city that has yet to be renovated. I give the details in case anyone happens to run across this one again because unfortunately my attempts to take photos failed. The slogan was in big black letters on the back of a bright red t-shirt. Reward offered for anyone who can track this shirt down.