Solving the washing puzzlement: Part I

Although living in Benguela has its perks over Luanda (no traffic, quiet neighborhood favorable to sleeping, and a picturesque beach in walking distance), some aspects of life aren’t so easy.

Take washing clothes for instance. In Luanda the housekeeper washes and irons at least once a week. I tried to negotiate the same deal with the current housekeeper here in Benguela but to no avail. Her price was too steep and while my management was busy figuring out what to do I was down to my last pair of clean socks.

There was a new washing machine in my bathroom after all, and the marketing on the side of the box was irresitible. Not only did it have the “super fashionable” design, but it also came with “the satellite pulsators.” I don’t know what could be more exciting, and I don’t know how I contained my curiosity for as long as I did.

I had a colleague help me with the box, and within a matter of minutes it was clear I had no clue how this machine worked. I made the mistake of reading the instruction manual, which was tragically yet comically written in perfect Engrish. Reading the manual didn’t help me get my clothes any cleaner, but it did lift my spirits.
















Here are just a few of the gems:

“Surper quiet design: it adopts the low nose drive system with balanced running”

“It has the nice shape, beautiful and attractive and it takes the fancy of the consumer”

“There are small pulsators add to the big pulsator, image the hand washing”

“It may effectively get rid of fine hair scraps in washing course”

And, my favorite:
Large capacity design that “may solve the whole family washing puzzlement”

I like the fact that the authors left room for the possibility that the family washing puzzlement may just not be solve-able. But if it can be done, rest assured this is the machine to take you and your family to that happy place!

Sour Patch Post Office

In something of a test of the capabilities of the American and Angolan postal authorities, a friend of mine sent me a care package from Seattle at the beginning of September. My friend and I were joking that he hoped the package would arrive in time for Christmas, but by some miracle of international commerce during the first week of October I got a notice in the office that a package had arrived. However, instead of actually delivering the package to the office, I had to take a type of claim slip to the main post office to pick it up.

I was expecting a quick exchange, but I should have known better. I sensed trouble as soon as I saw that one of two possible windows had a sign stating “Alfândega” above it, which means “Customs” in Portuguese. Hoping to avoid ending up at this window I started at the adjacent one, and kindly handed my claim slip to a confused-looking postal employee. I think her job was to take the slip and go find my package and bring it to the customs folks. Somehow this act invovled first shuffling through a book of papers about 100 pages thick presumably full of notices for other arrived packages. Of course my matching claim slip was near the bottom and only after rifling through the huge stack twice did she manage to find it. Then she went to look for my package with tortoise-like speed. This part of the process invovled the biggest leap of faith – not only did I not yet have my package, I also did not have my claim slip. Fingers crossed and breath held, I waited.

After twenty minutes my package arrived at – of course – the customs window. I was nervous; during the time it took for my package to arrive I witnessed the process I was about to be subjected to. Wielding a large, opens-any-kind-of-box knife, the customs lady (picture a sassy Marla Gibbs* and you’re pretty close) tore into packages with a little too much gusto for comfort. When it got to my turn her disgruntled customs employee expression changed with the crack of a grin. She rifled through my beef jerky and skittles without much interest, but the big bright bag of Sour Patch Kids caught her eye. She asked what it was, and wielded her knife once more to slash open the bag of what is perhaps the most perfect candy ever known to man**. She must have been relishing the look of terror on my face as her greedy little fingers reached into the bag and plucked an orange one (my favorite flavor!!) and poped it into her mouth right in front of me. The nerve...

Exhibit 1: Customs lady adulterated bag:
















It turns out I got off easy. She only ate one and while completing yet some other paper-intensive process muttered the Portuguese word for “yummy” under her breath. I wasn’t quite done yet unfortunately. I had to go back to the window where I started originally and pay 172 Kwanzas (about $2) as a “customs fee” before I could pick up my package. Not only do they steal your goods they make you pay for the experience! Of course they didn’t have change for me and tried to make me pay too much, but I wasn’t going to fall for that and told the original lady I dealt with that I would wait. The problem wasn’t that she didn’t have change, it was that she somehow lost her key to the change drawer and couldn’t open it. I asked the driver (by now he had come to check on my progress anyway) to make change and before long (but after forty minutes of this madness) I was on my way, finally, with my cherished box o’ processed sugar. I’ll never see a bag of Sour Patch Kids the same way...

*remember the maid from The Jeffersons?
**based on a scientific candy poll conducted by yours truly

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: