My Trip to Moxico and Angolan History
Monday, August 12th 2002 - DAY 1
Luanda
At 6 AM, I had a glimpse of what my life could become in a couple of years. To wake up at 4 AM and have a 12 kilo bag and to take a plane at 6 AM, when 90% of the population is still sleeping.
It was still dark; the air was fresh and windy. Only a few buses started their lines to pick up early workers or late “partiers”. Luanda was silent and I wished I knew that Luanda better.
Father José (Jojo) picked us, Maria (my Mother) and I, at 6 AM, in front of our building. He took us to the Military Air Base of Luanda. We would go on a beech craft of the United Nations World Food Program. A plane of 10 places and where I thought if I was a little fatter, I wouldn’t be allowed to get in.
The flight from Luanda to Lwena was of 2 hours 10 minutes. I slept most of it; because I haven’t slept the 8 hours I need each night. Went to bed at 11 PM to wake up at 4 AM. By 1020 AM, I was sleepy!
Lwena, Moxico Province
We are at The Bishopric of Lwena, the Bishop D. Gabriel Mbilingi’s house. In here live D. Gabriel, Father Emílio and Father Jorge (two local priests), and Father Manuel (Noel), a Filipino.
My room is next to Maria’s. I am staying at the room of Father Imbamba, who actually lives in Luanda because he is the vice-chancellor of the Catholic University and is a Philosophy Professor. His room is full of books that can give you headache! Hundreds of books! Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Descartes, Aristotle… In Italian, Portuguese and French. There are lots of books about Africa too. About youth in Africa, the democratisation, the decolonisation, the future for Africa and a couple of biographies about Mandela...
While D. Gabriel was working, I decided to read in front of the apartments. I sat on the floor, in front of D. Gabriel’s office, where the sun was shining like mad and it had a good light to read. Then Maria gets out of the office and looks at me, probably wondering what did she do wrong with her first daughter! Why sitting over the floor? She was already talking, before she managed to close the door of D. Gabriel’s office.
Then, D. Gabriel arrived and shook his head “This is a democracy. She feels at home, so let her be”. Maria laughed.
I guess that at that moment, she was seeing how Bantu I was. I guess she never imagined the expansion of my Bantu identity! Of my Africanity! I really take it to heart, and when I can and am authorised to do so, I am totally Bantu. Well… I am the total Bantu I can be because I wasn’t raised that way and at the age of 20 is quite hard to learn what you should learn from the cradle…
About the City: Lwena is a small city. From the airport to The Bishopric, it’s 5 minutes by car. As D. Gabriel says, “This is a very economic city”. I understand why. The streets are wide but there are no cars. The few cars in the streets are from the Party (MPLA), the governor, the religious congregations, the United Nations, Red Cross, the NGOs, Save the Children, Médecins sans Frontières, Caritas, etc.
Lwena is so silent, so quiet! It remembers me the South African Veld (like the Australian Outback). The city doesn’t have electricity or water in spite of the several rivers around and in the whole province. D. Gabriel says that we have 90,000 inhabitants in Lwena.
What makes me revolted is that it’s a city that could be restored in about two years. With only 90,000 inhabitants, call it incompetence from the governor’s side! Really! It’s not like Luanda that really needs to be evacuated and be exploded!
We ate dinner (D. Gabriel, Maria and I) at the Sisters of the Company of Saint Theresa of Jesus. They were Sister Avelina (the superior), Sister Rosa, Sister Marta and Sister Inês. We talked for hours! It was so nice! So… I don’t think I will have words to tell. It was simple and very enriching. At one moment we were talking about Prophet Elijah, Jezebel and Acaab. For those who don’t know, the king Acaab married Jezebel, a pagan princess. Jezebel ordered the murder of more than 400 prophets because she thought they were dangerous. Prophet Elijah escaped. This is the sum up of the sum up of his story (I know this cause I read Paulo Coelho's "Fifth Mountain")!
Then, the question was how Jezebel had the power of such, to adore idols and take her husband with her? I just said “men are weak”, but I soon blushed because D. Gabriel was at the table. If it was at Maria’s time, I don’t think I would have the opportunity to say something like that. D. Gabriel laughed and said “you are right, men are weak. Men suffer a lot. We suffer a lot!”
When we came back, at 9 PM, although it takes only 5 minutes from a house to another, only a couple of houses had generators. The whole city is completely pitch black! D. Gabriel says that only a couple of generators could solve the problem of the whole city, but that governor of theirs… ouch! Incompetence!
Living in the past: It has been this way for over 10 years. The people of Lwena don’t have electricity or water, so they go to sleep when the sun sets: at 7 PM. Then, they wake up by 5 AM, having slept 11 hours already. And D. Gabriel says “And there is people who say they are early starters!” They don’t have radio or TV, they have no amusements in town, they have nothing. They can’t listen to the radio because it’s difficult to find batteries in the market or very expensive.
With the lack of electricity, several houses don’t have refrigerators and the only solution to keep the food “fresh” is to salt the meat and fish (from the meadows or from Luanda). But the salt is rare or too expensive. So the other solution to keep food is to dry it. I haven’t learned how to dry the food, probably next time.
With so many rivers around, the government is not able to put water in those tubes! South Africans would be crazy in that province! South Africa has major problems because the territory doesn’t have water. So they managed to create artificial lakes to get over that problem. And now, in Moxico, the women have to pick water at least 12 kms from their place, at the spring of the river Lwena, to cook, wash and drink.
“The people of Moxico suffer too much. They suffer too much!” says D. Gabriel.
I went to sleep short after 10 PM… Since 4 AM I have been counting my blessings!
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