Pepino Birthday Party & Tree o' Crustaceans

One weekend I was invited to a birthday party for something of a local legend. Pepino was turning 86 and is probably Angola’s most famous cyclist. He’s cycled from Benguela to Luanda and back more than once and his latest project is to get a group of world-wide "Pepino’s" to come to Angola and do the ride with him. He’s a communist (huge paintings of Marx and Lenin adorn his bike shop) and has his coffin already made and waiting for him in the attic (confirmed by trustworthy inside sources).

While most people came to celebrate another year in the life of this amazing man, I was personally more fascinated by the tree-o-shellfish. I’ve never seen anything like it – there’s an aluminum foil tree laden with lobster, shrimp, and crab and you just reach in an grab what you want off the tree. I took a lobster tail. For as rediculously expensive as food is in Angola, lobster is surprisingly affordable so I didn’t feel too guilty doing this (the fact that I didn’t even know Pepino didn't bother me somehow…)

I wish Pepino well. And if they’re going to have that shellfish tree again at next year’s party I hope I’m invited…

Benguela Street Party Series: Dancin'

The fashion show was definitely entertaining, but the dancing was probably better. Don't take my word for it:

Freestyle Dance-Off (don't try this at home)



Butt Dance
It's obvious the poor girl has been training for this dance for weeks, only to be upstaged by the girl in the audience.



Kizomba Time
Something of a national pasttime, this slow dance requires one to first locate and then deftly employ the hips



Spectators Not to be Left Out
I had this guy as separate post before, but thought he made a nice cap to the dance series also. If they ever decide to do a worldwide search for a human gumby they should start in Benguela.

Benguela Street Party Series: Struttin'

It was a Friday afternoon and I was trying to explain how to work with formulas in Excel to our office administrative assistant when it all came down. The street in front of our office had been closed and the huge speakers blasting hip hop could only signal one thing: A STREET PARTY EMERGENCY WAS NOW IN EFFECT.

The following videos attempt to capture the fun. The runway show was a subplot through the entire afternoon, with at least five or six installments filling the intervals between lip syncers, dancers, skit performers, and poetry readings.

Sure, the red carpet might be held down with rocks in the middle of the street, but the attitude was first class (some of the end-of-runway turns needed a little work though).

Rolling the highlight reel:


Purse Drop


Sunglass Swoon


Sock-boy lingers


Crazy lady accosts contestants



BONUS VIDEO: The World's Worst Rap Lip Sync Artist

Get out of town!

So I was complaining earlier about having trouble with getting my work visa processed. To no one’s surprise, it didn’t happen before my regular visa expired, and it came time to leave the country or face a daily fine and a nasty little black mark against my passport. A last-minute messy travel planning session ensued and involved brief consideration of options as diverse as flying to Ethiopia or taking a local flight to a southern Angolan town and taking a bush taxi to the Namibian border from there. In the end the only available option was flying to Johannesburg, South Africa. We booked the day before we flew, and spent 4 welcome days in the developed world.

Top ten highlights of the trip:
1. Apartheid Museum
Fairly recently opened, the museum traces the history of South Africa’s settlement and frames the dark chapter of apartheid effectively. Visitors are handed passes randomly – depending on which pass you receive you are forced to enter the museum through the door for whites only or blacks only. Groups are thus forced to experiece the first part of the museum separately, only meeting outside for the walk up to the second (and much more substantial) part of the museum.

The "pillars" of the South African Constitution:


Museum Entrance:


2. Wildlife in Pilanesburg National Park
About a two-hour drive from Johannesburg, this national park is full of wild animals. The lions remained elusive, but the elephants put on a nice show. Zebras, hippos, and giraffes were also in abundance. It was the rhinos that caught my attention mostly though – it was was the first time I’d seen them in the wild. They don’t do much, but they’re so improbable it’s hard to stop watching them. Especially the baby ones…







3. Jacaranda blooming season
These trees are stunning in bloom, and we visited in peak season. I was hoping to visit Pretoria, which apparently is covered in the bright purple blossoms in October, but had to settle for the street we were staying on.



4. Thai food
I just so happened to pick a lodge located in an area of great restaurants, and one of them was Thai. There is no Thai food in Angola. Thai food is my favorite cuisine of all time. I ate there twice (and would eaten there more often if I didn’t capitulate Burch’s pleas for a more diverse dining experience during our visit…wuss).

5. Roller coasters
Unexpectedly, there was an amusement park next to the Apartheid Museum. It did seem like an odd combination at first thought, but on second thought roller coasters are fun. We got to the park just in time to ride the “Anaconda” twice. The second time was in the middle of thunderstorm and they shut the park down afterwards. Friggin’ lightning…



6. Top of Africa
I love views – and this is the best one in Joburg. It also takes you downtown, which is a bit shady. Atop the tower is a large observation area offering unobstructed views in all directions. The remnants of the thunderstorms passing through the area made for a nice backdrop, and I was lucky enough to snap a photo of lightning. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do that again if I tried.



7. Hot water showers
It’s the little things sometimes. We sort of a have hot water at the apartment Luanda, but it only works by heating water as it passes the showerhead. You can only use it for 10 minutes at a time without shorting the fuse and even when it’s working it’s sort of random. But I digress…hot showers rock.

8. Working internet
Even though we had to pay separately, the internet actually worked in South Africa. The Angolan pasttime of hitting “page reload” five times before reading your email was not missed.

9. Favorable exchange rates
We happened to visit during one of the more active of global financial meltdown weeks, and the dollar kept strengthening to the rand by the minute. We arrived at 9-to-1 and left at close to 11-to-1. In other words, everything was cheap. As an American tourist abroad, this was a relatively new feeling…

10. Beat
Pronounced Bay-aht, this was the name of the friendly Afrikaaner that ran the lodge where we stayed. He was more than willing to discuss just about anything and reminded me what good customer service was all about. I never did work up the courage to ask him about his name…

BONUS PHOTO!

Benguela Dance-Off

A few weeks ago the high school next door to our office in Benguela had an end-of-year street party complete with lip syncing contests, plays, poetry readings, a fashion show, and a dance competition.

The videos in this series try to capture the spirit of the event; this first video shows how the spirit captured one of the spectators. I had no idea it was possible to move like that until I saw this guy get "inspired."

Solving the washing puzzlement: Part III

So after tying a neon green rope between two air conditioner brackets on the balcony of the room adjacent to mine I hung my clothes out to dry. I left to go have some dinner at a little snack bar not too far of a walk from the house and when I got home I was so tired I didn’t notice anything strange.

Around 3a.m. I thought I heard something, and rose to look out my second floor window to catch a glimpse of what seemed like someone scurrying away from the house below. That was strange, but startling enough that I grabbed the flashlight (the power had gone out per usual) and headed out to check out the rest of the house.

That’s when I noticed the door to the room adjacent to mine open. This was the room that had the balcony where my clothes were drying, and upon closer inspection the sliding door that leads to the balcony was also open. My heart was racing by this point, and I went to check out the balcony and noticed that one of my shirts was missing. It was in a position that made it impossible for a random gust of wind to have taken it, and it was the first thing anyone approaching from inside the house would have been able to take. The funny thing was that it was my least favorite polo shirt and had a stain that I couldn’t get out. If someone came to my house and forced me to give away an article of clothing, I would have handed over that shirt without thinking twice. So at least there’s that.

I was, however, struggling to figure out how this happened. Did someone enter while I was sleeping and I didn’t notice? Had someone come in while I was out? Why would they have only taken one shirt? If they really were a burglar, why would they pass up all the electronics we have on the first floor? I know I locked the door when I left - could it have been someone with a key to the house? I pondered these questions the rest of the night and jumped at every noise. I asked my team to solve the riddle the next morning but they didn’t have any suggestions either.

Who knew the washing puzzlement would have such a literal ending? We’re looking into hiring a security guard…

Solving the washing puzzlement: Part II

I solved my washing puzzlement the next day with the help of a colleague, although the process involved manually draining water from the machine into a large tub, over and over. I probably also shouldn't have the machine in the bathroom but it’s the only place in the entire house where an outlet and a water source are located anywhere near each other. I put the power strip in a plastic bag and put a towel over it to protect it from any errant dripping water, but the whole scene was a little shady if I’m honest.

Safety concerns aside I have to say the partly manual, partly mechanized process of washing clothes was enlightening. It was amazing to see how much dirt was in the wash when I was emptying the water from the basin via a flimsy plastic drain tube into a plastic tub, the contents of which then got dumpted into the bathtub.

There was a separate spin dry compartment that sort of sucked excess water away, although I could only manage to put about 3 items in there or else the whole machine shook so violently and loudly that I was afraid I was going to anger the cockroaches en masse (definitely something I wanted to avoid).
It may have taken a few hours longer than I would have liked, but I managed to have some clean clothes after all. After going through all that I'm gonna try a little harder to keep 'em clean...