Bye Bye, Benguela

My last few days in Benguela were quiet and spent mostly by myself. I’ll miss the privacy and the wireless internet, but mostly I’ll miss the relaxing weekend days I’ve become accustomed to. On what was my next-to-last Saturday in Benguela I took advantage of the fact that the weather is finally cooling off to going for a walk around town, which is pretty much my only entertainment since I don’t have transportation. The goal was to check out a recommendation for ice cream at a place called “Sete” or “seven” in Portuguese. Seven flavors? Seven hundred kwanzas per scoop? These were things I was thinking about as I made my way through town. I arrived and ordered the baunilha and maracujá, otherwise known as vanilla and passion fruit. As advertised it was good ice cream, and I struck up a conversation with the friendly scoop ladies while enjoying it. I asked which flavor was most popular, and they proceeded to give me their entire inventory list (so much for my attempt to conduct flavor research). I left and promised to return the following day, when they said they would have pistachio. That’s a flavor worth returning for, after all…



I continued my walk by the Kalunga, the outdoor cinema that’s across the street from the Chinese restaurant, and shuffled on towards the Praia Morena beach. I sat on the beach wall reading for a bit, enjoying the breeze until I realized my legs had fallen asleep and I would be better off on a park bench instead. I stumbled my way to the park as my leg muscles woke up and finished the book there (“Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson…an entertaining history of the English language for anyone that’s interested in that sort of thing). Afterwards I just continued home, content with my day’s activity and relegating myself to an evening of watching the rest of the episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race that I had downloaded onto my iTunes in Germany.

Just as I entered the house I got a call from my friend MCM, who has a weekly hip hop radio show in Benguela. He wanted to know if I wanted to come do the show with him and before I could respond with my standard “is a fat baby heavy?” reply he was outside my door to pick me up. I had no clue what to expect, but it turned out to be a blast. I was laughing in the studio when he introduced me as a “cool brother” and the show’s guest for the evening and was impressed with the smooth way he handled the portion of the show when he takes calls from listeners. The upside is that I got introduced to some great lusophone hip hop music.



Afterwards I spent some time driving around town with MCM, and after telling him about my ice cream adventure earlier in the day he insisted we try a different place. I was scolded when I reached in my pocket to pay for my cone – in Angola whoever comes up with an idea like this also expects to pay – and I enjoyed helping #2 as we discussed politics on the dirt sidewalk near the ice cream stand. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was lactose intolerant and hadn’t planned ahead to bring enough lactaid pills with me, but I decided to accept the kind gesture and brace myself for the consequences later. It was worth it in the end – not such a bad way to wrap up my time in Benguela…