Angola Update - October 2008

Dear friends,

I survived the anniversary celebrations and almost managed to get through the entire 4 days without having to 'do an interview' for anyone. I say almost because there was one occasion when a microphone was shoved in my face and I was asked if I spoke Portuguese and when I said "no" the interviewer then said "that's OK we can do it in English". Next time I won't bother lying, I'll simply tell them the truth, that I don't want to do the interview! If you're wondering why I don't like them it's because in such a moment of intense pressure I usually end up saying something really stupid, and spend the rest of the day regretting it. So lying was simply and act of self preservation!

Back to the anniversary. There are varying estimates of how many people were here, some reckon 2000 and others say 4000. So I'm going for the average and saying 3000, at any rate I can tell you that when I looked out from my veranda all I saw were people, filling every available piece of space on the grass and just about everywhere else on the mission too. There must have been at least 10 people sleeping on my veranda at the front and also at the back.

Angolans are very sociable and like to party and to have a really good party you need three essential ingredients, old friends to swap stories and just generally hang out with, lots of food and music. There was plenty of the former and the latter was provided by the many choirs who came from all the various IEBA churches throughout the country. There must have been about 30 choirs altogether, two even came down from the sister church in DRC.

We rang an emergency clinic for the four days and dealt with the usual assortment of aches and pains induced by long hours riding in trucks over bumpy roads. I think the prize for most original injury should go to the young man who injured his foot when he trod on a discarded chicken bone.

It's taken a while for life to return to normal but I think we're there now and I have a number of things on my mind as I sit and write this update. The first is that the town generator is not working. It hasn't been working for a week now and we're told that an electronic gizmo has burnt out and needs to be replaced. Unfortunately the replacement has to come from South Africa and no one is willing to commit on how long they think it will take for the part to arrive and for someone to fit it, it could be weeks or it could be months we just don't know. I have the generator that I brought up from Luanda but its big and heavy and a hassle to set up so I only use it when absolutely necessary which roughly translates as when my telephone needs to be recharged. If any of you have any romantic notions of how romantic and lovely it must be to live without the 'trappings' of modern life, no telephone, no computer, no TV and spending every evening in the gloom of petrol lamps, well I'm sorry to spoil the image for you but its really not all it's cracked up to be. Give me electricity and mod cons any day.

The saga of my passport and work visa continues. Two weeks ago we were informed that the reason it has sat on someone's desk for two months was because I hadn't paid the correct fee. This was a blatant lie, the receipts had been put in with the application but unfortunately they had got 'lost'. So we handed in photocopies of the receipts and waited another week to be told that my passport is now in Luanda which is apparently where it needs to go to get the visa. So everything I was told about it being processed up here in Soyo was a lot of nonsense and I might just as well have taken it to Luanda myself. I have no idea how much longer it will take to get the passport back and in my less than positive moments I wonder if I will ever see my passport again. Everyone is being terrible reassuring and all seem to genuinely believe that it will be back within the fortnight, I am not able to be so optimistic. It's just eight weeks before I'm due to return home and I am beginning to wonder if this is going to be a repeat of the retreat fiasco of two years ago.

I am doing my best to continue working as if I will be leaving for Home Assignment in December so we are busy getting ready to distribute the last 200 mosquito nets and sort some things out with clinics before I leave. The rains have started and we need to get the nets out to people and we also need to get visits done while the roads are still passable. The rains have already been very heavy and it won't be long before some roads are cut off.

The last thing I want to tell you about is my toe, because it's infected. It's been poorly for over a week now and I finally gave in and started taking antibiotics but its not responding very well to treatment, and it's sore!!!!

So that's me. Feeling a little sorry for myself but hopeful that life will improve before it's time to write the next update in November. Please keep praying.

Love to you all Joanx