Mr. Benguela 2009

Angolans seem to love beauty pageants, and unlike Americans they have no problem parading around attractive young people without regard to gender. An Angolan friend of mine was organizing the “Mr. Benguela” event and was surprised by my enthusiastic response when he asked if I would be interested in attending. The fact that I could channel my enthusiasm through a female date visiting from Luanda was all the better.

The excitement we both had leading up to the night was tempered immediately when the sponser for the event abused us with a 47-minute power point presentation about globalization that appeared to be a summary of Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat.” While entertaining ourselves by swapping text messages with notes like “he is sucking my will to live” and “OMG, is he still talking?”, he rambled on and on, apparently unaware that he was standing between both the evening’s entertainment and, perhaps more importantly, the promised post-event dinner. The crazy part was that this presentation was apparently part of his sales pitch to get us to visit his table full of jewelry and shoes. Poor guy. Poor, clueless, sponsor guy.

The pace and audience interest picked up considerably once he finally shut up and the 22 candidates for Mr. Benguela entered the performance area and began a choreographed hiphop dance intro. The rest of the program invovled novel talent competition ideas, mostly centered around the theme of “Drugs Aren’t Cool.” There was a skit involving soccer players shunning a friend that was trying to convince the others to try pot. A surprisingly similar skit appeared later titled “Basketball” with pretty much the same plot. There was traditional dancing and some pretty bad singing, but my favorite event was something called “Locutor” on the program. This involved one candidate acting like a radio reporter, interviewing other candidates on the social ills of youth drug usage. Tragically, there was no swimsuit competition.

The "Locutor" in action:


The unofficial "look good in a wife-beater" competition:


Scene from "Basketball"...or was it "Soccer"?



The night ended without a winner being named – apparently this was only the first phase “introduction” of the candidates, and a second phase selection process happens later. Way to keep us in suspense, Mr. Benguela 2009 organizers! We enjoyed the aforementioned dinner with some quality champagne-like product that proudly advertised itself as “naturally lively white” and called it a night shortly thereafter. All in all not bad for a random Thursday night’s entertainment…

An "essence of champagne" beverage thoughtfully provided by the event sponsors:

Spin the Wheel o' Holidays

I think I’m getting a taste of what it might be like to be a federal employee back home. Since New Year’s Day we’ve had four public holidays here, with four more on the calendar before the end of May. That definitely beats the New Year’s – to Memorial Day holiday drought that I’m used to.

A brief summary of the Angolan holiday calendar to date:

5 JANUARY: MARTYR’S DAY
I have no idea what martyr-related event this is supposed to comemorate, but I appreciated the chance it offered to rest after a stressful trip back to the country after spending New Year’s in Cape Town (blog post about that pending, but I haven’t had a connection strong enough to post the accompanying video).


4 FEBRUARY: START OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE DAY
Somebody needs to come up with a shorter name for this holiday, which comemorates the start of the Angolan independence movement in 1967. Or something like that. The holiday seemed to parallel the American 4th of July, which brought back some hazy memory of my social studies teacher saying that revolutions usually starting in the summer (don’t tell the Bolsheviks).

Anyway, it was one of those random middle-of-the-week Wednesday holidays that seem sort of clunky. In a way it forces you just to relax though, and I took an invitation to spend the day at the beach with some new friends from the gym. The day was relaxing, even though the refreshments my friends brought left something to be desired (canned processed meat was a little too abundant).

Making new friends at the beach:


Here's to the end of the armed struggle:



24 FEBRUARY: CARNAVAL
After reading a description in the Lonely Planet guide about Angolans parading around with semi-dead cats to celebrate Carnaval I had some pretty high expectations for this holiday. To my surprise it turned out to be not much of a big deal, especially in Benguela, which swaps holding a parade with its sister city Lobito, 30 km to the north. This was Lobito’s year, so when I left the house with camera in hand all I found were some kids from Benguela boarding a bus heading north. I spent the day reading in the park instead, enjoying the shade and cool sea breeze while trying to avoid getting pecked by a persistent rooster. All things considered not a bad way to spend a holiday, if a little less festive than one might expect for a day associated with revelry. In fact things got even better when I met up with a friend to share a carbonated malt beverage and a huge plate of freshly prepared french fries while watching the parade in Luanda on television at an outdoor bar.

Who could resist reading and/or playing with chickens in a park like this:


Watching the events in Luanda in comfort and style:


The real highlight was a 2-stage beach party held the previous night (the first stage was the prior Saturday night) in Baia Azul, about 30 minutes south of Benguela. It was a pay-one-price-all-you-can-eat-and-drink affair, and I made sure I got my fill of grilled chicken and red bull in between attempts at dancing. The locals took the costume aspect of the party to heart, with results ranging from entertaining (sexy nuns seemed to be a popular choice) to disturbing (adult diapers entered the picture at one point). It was the best party I had been to in a very long time.

PS: Don’t believe the Lonely Planet comment about Angolans parading semi-dead cats around Luanda. An Angolan friend debunked that story, so there you have it.


8 MARCH: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
This was observed here this past Monday, which made for a 3-day weekend and a perfect excuse to take a trip somewhere. I hitched a ride with some coworkers to Lubango, about a 7-hour trip south of Benguela in a region much cooler and more lush than anything I have yet experienced in Angola. It was nothing short of friggin’ awesome and deserves it’s own blog entry, so stay tuned for more details. For now I’ll just say I’m glad the regional bus lines offer separate compartments for humans and live fowl.