Home again

There isn't much to say about Amsterdam. I spent most of my time there writing and publishing the blogs. I did discover that the airport limits you to two connections of 30 minutes each so I did "run out of internet" while I was there.

After writing the blog I did go to the duty free shop and buy some chocolates for some of the people that I love.

Then I decided to get some of those Noodles that I got on the way to Angola. I've decided I like Soba noodles better than ramen and miso broth more than soy broth and that I really have to find a place for good noodles in Boston.

I walked the brief distance to the gate and, even though I was really early, it was very crowded. There was very little seating available in the pre-security area. I took a little time to publish the blogs that I had written and then I got in the line to go through security even though it wasn't scheduled to open for more than 30 minutes.

As usual, every time I thought I was finished with my passport, I was asked for my passport again. I tried making conversation with a few people but most people seemed to be reluctant to get involved. I did find people who were returning from Kenya, Switzerland and Italy.

Talia finished her painting

I tried chatting with Chilufya on my cell using WhatsApp. He had been experiencing a nightmare in Luanda trying to get a new flight. He had been put up by TAAG in a hotel, but he implied that calling it a hotel was not exactly an accurate description. Before I got to finish my conversation was when I lost my last free internet option.

We boarded the very full plane so an empty seat next to me was not an option. A Russian woman sat down next to me. We did not talk much as communication wasn't easy.

I watched several TED talks and I really enjoyed the movie The Way Way Back. I'm definitely finding long flights easier. Even though I don't sleep, I know how to exercise and move around just enough so that it's not excruciating.

Our box in use!

When we landed I remembered to put my phone in vibrate mode so that when I turned the internet on, the phone wouldn't beep for 30 minutes while I received all of the text messages, tweets and status updates. I had landed an hour early so David scrambled out of the radio station to come pick me up.

I moved through Immigration and Customs pretty quickly. David still beat me through since my temporarily downed baggage mojo made my bag one of the last to come out.

David, who is on a strike from trimming his beard or mustache until the Red Sox have been eliminated, was still a delight to see.

I am adjusting now to the time zone, to television shows that start on the hour and the half hour (instead of 20:39); and hearing English wherever I go. It makes me appreciate being home and I appreciate having had the opportunity to travel and explore and meet so many wonderful people.

The Long Way to Luanda

I ended up waking up a few minutes before my alarm went off at 5, so I turned the alarm off and got ready to go.

Lourdes woke up early and gave me a beautiful gift that I later couldn’t find and I’m afraid that I may have left it there. I will ask Beth to bring it back with her since she’s on her way there now. Lourdes also made coffee for me even though I figured I would have plenty when I arrived in Luanda shortly. I am SOOOOO grateful for that coffee.

The driver arrived at about 6:10 with Chilufya and an Entomologist who was also traveling to Luanda. The trip to the airport took about 5 minutes. We were able to check-in easily and quickly and I made the mistake of saying that things seemed to be going smoothly so far.

Mango drove to the airport to say one last good-bye. Adriano and Mauro had planned on coming as well, but they weren’t able to. So we went through security and waited for our plane.

We saw the plane arrive and we got in line to board. I was assigned the seat 9F which was nice because it was an exit row and an aisle seat – an economy traveler’s bonus. Unfortunately when I showed the man sitting in 9F my ticket  said in English, “Its open seating!” Hmm. Then why print the seat number on the ticket? I sat in 10F and sure enough, no one asked me to move and people did seem to be getting on and choosing their seats then.

Just about the time we were supposed to take off – 8:05 -- the flight attendant gets on the microphone, and says something in Portuguese that included the word equipment and Luanda and people began to groan and get their belongings. I realized we were all getting off. I asked the Entomologist if he knew what was going on and he said something about being lower and having to wait. He had admitted earlier that he didn’t know much English. I grabbed a woman who I thought I had heard speaking English earlier and asked her if she knew what was going on. She said that the plane had a flat tire and a replacement tire would have to be flown in from Luanda and we should expect to leave by 11. We were let back into the boarding area. I heard a woman getting off the plane saying in Portuguese, “That’s Angola!”

I informed 9F and Chilufya. I knew my flight wasn’t until 19:00 but Chilufya’s flight to South Africa was scheduled to leave at 14:00 and he was really worried whether he was going to make it. I was confident that all would be ok. If we left Huambo by 11and got to Luanda by noon, he should have no problem making his flight.

The boarding area is just one room with the tarmac on one side and security opposite that, a bar on one wall, a blank wall opposite that and chairs in the middle. Several men on the flight went straight to the bar. Chilufya and 9F got a few beers and we talked for a while about all of the travels that 9F had done. He was Zambian (as is Chilufya) and apparently one day he got bored so he decided to go to India for a few weeks. When he was finished there he went from there to China for a few weeks and then decided to go to Portugal. When he got back some friends invited him to come to the US to do some fishing. He talked to us about the process for getting a visa and how he told the people at the embassy that it wouldn’t be convenient for him to come back the next day for the visa so they told him to come for it that afternoon. They gave him a visa lasting for 6 years.

Initially the room was pretty quiet. But as the folks at the bar got drunker and drunker they started getting louder and louder and the whole room got louder and louder so that they could hear themselves. Our Entomologist started off quiet and wearing a nice tan jacket. As the drinks kept flowing he lost the jacket; then his shirt started getting unbuttoned one button at a time. He was speaking a lot with a fellow who was shouting in Portuguese. It became clear that Entomologist was not his only intended audience. He began to walk around the room and shout at any cluster of people whether they were meeting his gaze or not.

There were two babies on the flight – a little boy and a little girl around the same age. The boy screeched with an ear piercing screech every time he didn’t get what he wanted. After an hour it was REALLY wearing on me. After that I started getting awful thoughts many of which involved duct tape.

Chilufya and 9F went walking around the airport (there wasn’t much to walk around) so they left the boarding area and went upstairs. I stayed with our stuff and knitted. The women’s room started off with toilet paper, but as the hours went on and on and on the toilet paper was never replaced.

Chilufya returned and went from a “nothing you can do about it” philosophy to “I really can’t miss my flight” and “If only they would give us SOME news!” mode.

Caught in the act
9F sitting to the left.
Chilufya wearing headphones on the right.

A few hours into the wait I realized that my headphones had been stolen – well – lost – well – kinda donated – to a tall handsome Zambian. Chilufya had been borrowing them since his earbuds broke. He liked them so much that I knew I would have to give them to him. In return he promises to give me so much great African music that we’ll be begging him to stop.

The plane from Luanda arrived about 11:30 and this big crowd of airport people were standing around as work was being done on the tire. It seemed as though there was a joke just waiting to be told there someplace starting with, “How many Angolans does it take to change a tire?”

I think it was about 12:30 when we were finally allowed to board again. I worried about the bar shouter. I know he would never have been allowed to board a plane in the US in that condition. Would he be belligerent? Aggressive? Loud? Sick? Or would he pass out. It turned out he did the last.

The screecher getting up and down on the plane

Entomologist, whose shirt was unbuttoned now half way down was clearly lit. He kept making very loud comments in Portuguese that made everyone in a four row radius laugh. He kept on trying to talk to the screecher who was directly behind him, but it would sort of wind the screecher up even more.

FINALLY we were off. There was just a chance that Chilufya would make it. After about 45 minutes into the flight Chilufya comes up to my seat and says, “Do you know we’re not going straight to Luanda? We’re landing someplace else first. That’s it! There’s just no way I can make my flight now.”

Sure enough we landed and it was clearly not Luanda. I was told we were in Cunene – the completely wrong direction. After a few minutes another announcement was made and people started getting up. They needed to refuel and we all had to get off for them to do it. BACK off the plane, and for some, back to the bar. Chilufya and I are blindly following other passengers into the terminal and up the stairs into the bar area. Eventually we blindly followed into the VIP room where at least the seats were comfortable.

I'm not accustomed to seeing
the insulation behind the overhead compartments.

As soon as people that I recognized started to make a move back downstairs I followed quickly behind. Of course each time we board and unboard it takes a lot of time. Somehow they managed to collect some new passengers as well. I don’t know where they were putting them, but the new passengers weren’t willing to sit next to Entomologist – in fact his seat mates were trying to get rid of him until he stumbled around unable to find a seat.

We take off again and they announce that it will be an hour and forty minutes to Luanda for a flight that was originally supposed to take 50 minutes. That last flight felt even longer. By the time we landed people were clapping and I think some were getting ready to kiss the ground.

When I was at the baggage claim, Etymologist  asked me in English whether I was ok. I gave him a thumbs up. He only had the bottom two buttons still buttoned on his shirt.

This whole debacle has used my entire layover time. When I last saw Chilufya he had an agent from the TAAG airline helping him, but this guy seemed completely clueless about what could be done. I got my bag and started looking for how to get to the international terminal. I asked a few people who responded in Portuguese before they called another fellow out. He spoke English beautifully and pronounced his words very carefully. He took me around to a few places before he concluded that I would need to take a cab to get from the Domestic Airport to the International Airport. The cab ride took about 5 minutes and cost $15.

I got on a line to check in and there were only three women ahead of me. Two were together but in both cases they had some bags that were too heavy and they kept their place in line and started moving things from one bag to another. I think the check in for those two groups alone was about 20 minutes. I still had time to go to the currency exchange since I couldn’t find any shops.

There was another long wait as an American ahead of me is getting annoyed at all the work it is taking to get his $83 exchanged. After about 15 minutes I finally get to the front of the line and I’m told they can’t exchange my $61 because I’m not there on a work visa. Why that has ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING I have no idea, but there you have it. I tried to explain that I was there doing business, but that didn’t help my cause. He pointed to the place in the visa that made this impossible and there was nothing left to be done.

I headed to security where they did an x-ray scan and I walked through the metal detectors, then for a passport check, then a physical bag check (they didn’t steal my scissors, yay!) and then a wand body scan before I was allowed in the boarding area.

It wasn’t too long before we were put on shuttle buses to our waiting plane. I literally felt a weight lift when the flight attendant greeted me in English. The plane was cool and it left on time. The plane wasn’t very full so I asked for, and got, a seat with no one next to me.

I watched a strange Dutch movie about a kid who gets a job as an elevator attendant, but the elevator is magic and ends up shooting out of the building and going to New York and then to some Latin American country in mid-revolution. It was supposed to be funny, but it wasn’t.

Then I watched Man of Steel. I liked the twist on the old story, but found it so violent and digitized that it looked like a video game.

I managed to sleep for a very little while and then watched a few TV shows until we landed at 4:22 in Amsterdam.

A few more pictures here.

Do You Still Work for Abt?

On Friday morning we all received a notice from Mary Harper of Abt about an IT reorganization. I’m barely part of IT any more so I knew I wouldn’t be mentioned in it. Several people did lose their jobs though. Since I’m so involved with the IT related matters in my department (CTC – Client Technology Center) a lot of people assume I’m IT. I had a few people reaching out to me during the day with some concern that I had lost my job.

Lourdes took us all (Mango, Adriano, Mauro, Chilufya and me) out to breakfast at a restaurant called Huambo. It was quite swanky. We reviewed where we were and what the challenges were. Adriano feels really strongly that about 10 of the phone users were so rough that they won’t be ready to use the phones on Tuesday. Lourdes agreed to give Adriano time for review on Monday with the remedial students and all spray operators would receive more supervision and support when they are in the field on Tuesday. We also had the opportunity to give rounds of appreciation to each other.

Mango working furiously on an Actors list

I raced to do as many final things as I could before I left. I didn’t get to give Mango and Adriano some of the final training that I had hoped to, but we can finish remotely. I also started getting a lot of requests from the other countries which have been waiting patiently for assistance with their activities while I was in Angola and they were discovering that I wasn’t fired.

Mauro gave me a great idea and I had as many people as I could find sign my project t-shirt so it will be a great souvenir for me.

We finally left the office. Raghesh, Miriam,

The tire completely broke off this car
in the middle of an intersection.

Lourdes and I drove to where we wanted to go to dinner. Traveling was difficult because many of the roads were blocked off for a road race scheduled for the following day. We finally made it and discovered that the place was closed for good. We decided the simplest thing would be to go back to Huambo even though we had been there earlier that day.

Raghesh couldn’t stay, but Miriam, Lourdes and I decided to order two plates and share them. We got an octopus and potato meal and a beef, pork, and shrimp dish. They were outstanding. We sampled a few of their mousses and Raghesh joined us for that. I treated Lourdes in return for all of the meals that she had made all week.

After that it was time for me to pack and go for my last night of sleep. I fell asleep listening to All Things Considered on my iPhone and had some pretty weird dreams. 

A few more pictures

Real Last Chance

This was a big day for the project. Thursday was the opening of Angola’s very first Insectary – a mosquito research laboratory. This was a really big deal. There were lots of VIPs who came for it.

Lined up to meet the Minister of Angola

Lourdes was told only on Wednesday that there were protocols that she was supposed to be following for such an event including a red carpet and a priest to bless the place. Renting red carpets alone cost $150. Thursday morning she was still looking for a priest.

Unfortunately as we were leaving for the Insectary, Lourdes hurt her knee so she spent the rest of the day – in fact, the rest of my visit – limping and suffering.

You can't even tell how much Lourdes is suffering

Amazingly by about 8:15 everything had come together except we were waiting for the minister. Everyone from the office was there, even Allen who was leaving on an 11 AM flight to return to Bethesda. We waited and waited. Finally at around 10:15 an entourage of cars pulls in, goes past us and walks up to ANOTHER building also doing an inauguration. So we wait as the Minister and his whole group visit that building before they walk to ours. We take a cue from the other inauguration and we line up on either side of the red carpet so that the Minister can greet everyone in line. I shook a lot of hands and they had no idea who I was or why I was there.

When the Minister had left I got to get a tour of the insectary and discovered that they grow their own mosquitoes from larva there and keep precise temperature and humidity settings for each of the various stages of growth. They also showed us how they feed the mosquitoes and how they deal with escapees (Zap!)

I hadn’t realized that only one species of mosquito can catch the malaria virus. They get it only after biting a human who is already infected. In the lab they carefully identify the mosquitoes and send off to labs at the CDC the ones that can’t be identified.

After the big event we decided to go one last time to Bailundo to finish the team leader training. We got a land rover for the trip but we were asked to bring the lunch for the workers. We drove to the store where they were being prepared, but we couldn’t wait any longer. We knew if we didn’t get there soon it wouldn’t be worth it.

Mobilizers filling out forms.

As we drove up the workers were busy tabulating their Mobilization sheets. Mango overheard them saying, “Let’s not agree to do any more phone training. Let’s just refuse.”

We went back to the same hospital classroom. Mango asked how many of them had taken phone training and no one raised a hand or said anything. He finally released the students who weren’t doing the phones and Adriano took the others back under the tree. I was left with the team leaders with help from Mango and Mauro.

We finally finished. I found this training difficult too, because the sample data weren’t realistic for the team leaders so they were having trouble realizing what they were doing. Essentially I think the message was understood enough so that on Tuesday they will stumble through with some support from Adriano and Mango.

Team leaders using their tablets

Lunch finally arrived at 4 PM so I ended up eating in the car on the way home. We had one final drive back from Bailundo and some work in the office before heading home. Lourdes needed a ride because of her knee. She offered to come back to the office after dropping off Miriam at her hotel. Since I had a few more minutes of work, I agreed. I finished what I was doing, packed up my stuff and went to wait outside. I waited for about 15 minutes before Mauro came outside and said that Lourdes was home and they had forgotten to come and get me (it had been THAT kind of day.) Mauro walked me home.

I told Lourdes since she couldn’t walk and I can’t cook, we should just eat out, but she decided to make something “simple” which didn’t seem simple to me at all. I could have managed without dinner since I had lunch so late, but since it was there, I managed to eat very well.

I might have found the opportunity to blog on Thursday night, but the router at the office wouldn’t send a signal to the house and I didn’t have the ability to reboot it so I had to live internet free for a whole night!

Pictures

Last Chance

We had a meeting with Lourdes early Wednesday morning to report where we were. I admitted that we hadn’t finished the spray operators training and hadn’t gotten to the team leader training at all. We agreed that, even though we had hoped to start mobilizing today, we would go back again and finish the training.

Mango stayed at the office to finish getting the tablets ready for the team leaders. They still needed the SIM cards activated which ended up involving another long meeting with the cell provider. The plan was that he would get the tablets to Bailundo by 2PM

So now we got a late start out of the building and I just couldn’t wait to get there. We didn’t even know where we would be meeting. Initially we thought we had been able to get the cultural center again, but as we arrived it became clear there was another event happening there.

There were a group of women in beautiful, matching African dresses standing near the generator rehearsing singing. I got to record just a little bit of it before we had to go.

We ended up going to the hospital on which our warehouse is being built. They had a classroom in the back of their property. Of course, it was nothing like a classroom we would typically recognize. It was a dark room that got light only from the six or so wooden shutters that could be opened. There were several dozen desks set up in the room and plastic chairs for the rest. It quickly became quite hot. In spite of that, a few students were wearing down jackets and scarves. I really don’t “get” it.

It was about 11AM before we got started and, of course, before we could start the lessons, Mango needed to do more shifting of groups. A number of people were eliminated from using the phones because it was decided they weren’t getting it.

Mango called people up to stand on a line and soon it became clear these were people he was not going to allow to continue to use the phones.

At one point a fellow, who I think they were calling Alberto, was called. He responded, “Presente!” so loudly and cheerfully that it was clear that he was thrilled to be removed. After talking to several people who had been called out, Mango told Alberto to take his seat again. He looked SO disappointed. Adriano said to Mango in English, “You had better take Alberto out again. He’s complaining too much!” So again, Alberto was moved to the “excused” group.

Poor Albert gets to show that he really does understand.

Mango felt it would be best to have a few of these weaker students retained in case others dropped out so he gave a quick test – start the phones, enter the PIN and start ODK. Poor Alberto was the first one done and was forced, one final time, to take his seat.

At 12:30, Mango told me Mauro was having trouble getting transportation to Bailundo so the tablets would not arrive by 2. They did finally arrive around 3:00 but we were also told that Lourdes would be visiting us with some VIPs – the project director and a representative from our client – the Presidential Malaria Initiative (PMI.) We had been asked to get everyone wearing the Project T-Shirts and hats. By this point it was really hot, stuffy and uncomfortable and a few students resisted putting on their T-Shirts. The teachers and trainers got off with just wearing the hats.

Adriano took the phone users outside under a tree to continue to practice and repeat. When Lourdes showed up with her guests and saw all of the students under the tree with their white T-Shirts and phones she literally got goose bumps and felt so proud.

They came into the classroom to introduce themselves and to have a group photo. My stomach was in knots because I knew we would have to stop around 4 to avoid the dark roads leaving me about 30 minutes to do all of the training for the team leaders.  On top of all of the other delays, shortly before 4PM it went from cloudy to a downpour in seconds. All of the phone students came running in from outside. One of them tripped trying to run in and smashed one of the phones. I gave up. There was just no way we were going to be able to do it.

By the time the students went through the routine that I showed them for returning their phones, the rain had stopped and it was time to go even though I hadn’t finished teaching the team leaders.

The ride back to the office was really quiet. I think we were all exhausted. We made it back to the office by around 18:30 and worked for a few more hours. Lourdes and I were completely exhausted. She still managed to make us eggs and sausage which really hit the spot.

My cold was clearly starting to improve at this point and I slept with many fewer coughing interruptions.

Pictures