Boys Scouts Christmas party at boys orphanage

These weeks are crazy or is it me? We haven’t been to the beach for at least a month! The weekends are mostly busy with kid’s activities. Same this time. A birthday party on Saturday and a Christmas party at the boy’s orphanage on Sunday. The second was a Boys Scouts activity and this time I was “allowed” to join! Well, under one condition, if I bake them cookies! I was still very tired after Friday and I spent most of my Saturday baking. But they insisted I had to go with them.

This party was really different from those I’ve seen before. The music was so loud it hurt my ears and even my jaws were in pain.

Some boys played soccer and some were busy creating Christmas decorations.

After that we served snacks and drinks and every boy received a Christmas present.

The children had a great time.

I was looking for bathroom and I found those three guys doing their laundry asking me to take picture of them.

This kind boy named João brought me to tears.

Maarten was not really into taking pictures.

Some of the boys are very creative and great painters. Too bad their paintings were not for sale! One big downer of the day: our box with speculaas cookies mysteriously disappeared shortly after our arrival.

Polio vaccination

This all came together very quickly and we have received approval from the Ministry of Health to provide polio vaccinations to the KII community already this Friday!

We needed to do a brief training on giving the vaccinations first. The training should take place at a government building just 10 minutes drive from home but it was only after half an hour when we arrived at the Administração Municipal. But the official sent us across the street to another building covered with posters announcing the vaccination campaign for this weekend.

That looked promising but also here no one was expecting us. After making many calls and waiting for another hour we found out that we were sent to a wrong Município. To sum up the conquering the bureaucracy took us almost 3 hours and at last we could start with the actual vaccination.

It’s always fun to see how the kids quickly spread the news that “the Americans” arrived. As usual we received a warm welcome from the people at KII. We didn’t really have to discuss how to fall on the vaccination itself.

We got immediately surrounded by curious kids watching us preparing the vaccines. So we just started with the youngsters around us.

It wasn’t without tears at moments and I can understand that some were scared.

Luckily, there was more laughter than tears! I remember what Maarten did when a strange nurse put him on his back only to measure him.

It was good to have our drivers with us. I have to say I was proud of our Bernardo. He was so sweet with the children comforting them with his “ A estrelinha que cuia como sambapito”.

It was not easy to tell the kids’ age. Not because of our broken Portuguese but some kids were trying to lie about their age. Maybe they were jealous at their younger friends and also wanted some attention from us or rather they simply enjoyed teasing us.

I also learned that the local children are crazy about taking pictures, especially when pictures were taken of them. When we took out the camera they were really eager to be in the shot!

That’s why it’s hard to find a picture without their poking smiling faces. It was hot and more demanding than I could imagine but enjoyable at the same moment.

Just look at the pictures!

English Center

I joined my neighbor on his weekly visit to a center started by an Angolan who teaches English to fellow Angolans. His students are very eager to move forward in life and are hoping that a mastery of the English language will help them. Our driver can confirm that.

There are students of any ages, kids and adults, some are civil war orphans. Their location happens to be a home of an extended family who just allows J. to use their space. The teacher, who is also a French – English – Portuguese interpreter has a lot of plans to build a real language centre here but lacks resources. I was impressed with the students. Within only few months working with their teacher they’ve already mastered to communicate in English.

We received a warm welcome. They performed songs and poems, in impressive English of course, and asked us many questions about our lives.

And in the end they wanted to take a lot of pictures. Here are some of them.

Chinese farm

This is what I like about the expat life – meeting people from around the world! With some of my friends we met for a lunch the other day and I was amazed by the diversity of vegetables on the table.

And because there were also ladies from China, Thailand and India the food was very yummy. I was curious where did they get the fresh vegetables and that’s how I learned about a Chinese farm which sells good quality vegetables at affordable prices. I joined Aon on her weekly trip to the farm and I was truly amazed! A gardener's dream!

Jog-a-thon & O Sapo e o Canto do Melro

Things have been pretty turbulent lately. We have been experiencing constant power fluctuations since last week and also the internet connection is bad or none at times. On Thursday week ago Maarten injured his leg. Nothing extraordinary. The day after it became a bit swollen but it seemed to be nothing alarming.

On Saturday morning M’s school was holding the 2nd annual charity Jog-a-ton to support the Viana orphanage.

Because Maarten has collected some money he insisted to walk symbolically at least one lap. It was necessary for the sake of the poor kid’s food, as he stated. Walk not jog! But once at the start line he forgot about his pain and was running with the others. He ran for second lap but could hardly reach the finish line. His wound actually burst open.

Maarten was very proud when Sister Dominga herself comforted him and thanked him for his effort but I felt bad. We had to hurry to the clinic. Luckily the bones were fine but his leg was badly infected. Since then we've been playing nurse and patient twice a day and it hasn’t been without tears and screaming.

Also this week we went to visit the poor community that I’ve already mentioned before. I volunteered to support the kid’s literacy, to help them with reading and writing. I know that this might sound crazy surely because my knowledge of Portuguese is very basic. But there is no public school in the neighborhood and the children are very thankful for any attention. According to the community chief there are some 980+ children of all ages in this tiny village! So, honestly, I didn’t really know where to start. I went to the school library and found some children’s book.

I even found one of Maarten’s favorites, from the Dutch “Kikker” series! And of course I had to do my homework first. I had no idea if the kids can read at all! I was surprised! Some of them were excellent readers but some couldn’t read even in their teen years. Not only children but also adults joined us and it was a lot of fun!

Trip to Kissama

This was our first trip beyond "the boundaries"! And it went easier than expected. On Friday afternoon our family was just put on a security list with our friends and that’s it! At least that’s how it was communicated to me. On Sunday morning we drove South without any major problems. I only wish our driver would have improved his drive style finally! I heard and read already many stories and saw lot of pictures of the Kissama National Park! Of course I wished I could experience it myself. After about an hour we finally reached the Kwanza River Bridge.

Maarten’s friend was riding in our car and pointed to the wreck of an abandoned tank. A Russian tank, said Bernardo, remnant of the civil war. After the bridge we turned into the Kissama Park itself.

The guard didn’t want to let us through without giving him a bribe but unfortunately for him, after a phone call with the Kawa Camp, the park’s main camp where we intended to go on a guided tour, he just had to let us go.

This park is immense with its 12,000 ha! We traveled another 40 kms on sand tracks before we reached the main camp.

We had to go through another gate to enter the area protected with the two-meter electrified fences.

Here we had to pay the entrance fee. It seemed we drove for ages, the boys were getting impatient. I had to think about this place's recent history. Almost all the wild animals here were killed during the war by landmines or poachers. I can understand that the hunger forced the local people to do so but many animals were hunted down and slaughtered by the military just for fun.

Luckily a programme, known as Operation Noah's Ark, was started to repopulate the park. We were warned it’s not easy to see many animals in Kissama and many people complain about that, but we came mainly for the nature and wilderness just to escape the urban chaos and it delivered.

Already arriving at the Kawa Camp was so relaxing. There were many monkeys playing and fighting.

The view over the Kwanza river from the deck.

We got onto the old (war?) truck ready for the guided tour.

Remaining seated and avoiding swipes from the thorny branches hitting us in the face was almost impossible.

But that was part of the adventure. Unfortunately, at one certain bouncy moment I hit my shoulder very badly and at the same moment I noticed Maarten is crying hiding his face.

When I hurt my shoulder Maarten hit his face on the bench in front of him and had bitten his upper lip. I was trying to clean the blood and he whispered that he hates all safaris.

The terrain and vegetation in the park varies from highlands with dense thicket to tree savanna

and large open grasslands close to the river where you can sometimes spot the elephants. We weren't that lucky today.

His lip got pretty swollen but he forgot this painful experience very quickly. Our friends suggested having lunch "at the Golf". I had no idea what was it about but was nicely surprised, or rather overwhelmed by the beauty of this place.

We had a lovely afternoon in an amazing setting, nice food, children playing at the pool but still... I couldn’t help but think about the immense contrasts between the lives of a rich and poor Angolans.

I would never expect something like this here.