When we arrived Chilufya went to drop off his luggage and I went to the TAAG desk to switch my flight. No one there knew any English so we discovered just how far we could get in pantomime... not too far. I think what I understood is that they couldn't switch my ticket at all for today, but if I were to buy a ticket outright, I could be on stand-by. The attendant walked me over to the check-in counter, but a fellow with limited English told me to stand over there and he would call me at five past the half hour (5:35) if there was to be a seat for me. That was almost an hour to wait.
While I waited I looked at what they had printed for me. It was an acknowledgment that I had purchased a ticket to fly to Huambo on the 21st of September! I stood anxiously watching as people kept arriving for the flight: about 10 Asian fellows carrying bags with pink bed rolls and about a dozen athletes. I kept seeing myself sitting in my seat and breathing a sigh of relief that I got a seat on the first flight.
The line was complete chaos. There was a worker who was supposed to check documents before people went to the counter. If he was there you showed him the documents. If he wasn't there people just let themselves into line. Some people just brought themselves to the front of the line until there was just a mass of people around the desks.
At 5:45, the sometimes screener called my name (everyone seems to call me Mister Jeanne Goodman.) I got into line but for the longest time I couldn't figure out how to actually get served. I finally just pushed my bag on the conveyor and handed in my ticket.
Now there was less than 10 minutes until the gate closed and I still had to go through security. The line was very short but everyone seemed to be completely clueless about how security works. Literally every person in front of me tried to walk through the security barrier with either a pocket book or cell phone, which meant they kept delaying things.
I finally finished there and ran into yet another time when I had to show my passport (which I had just put away for security.) I can see that they are closing the doors to a shuttle to the bus that I somehow sensed was my bus. I ran to the gate and they held the bus up for me. I scooted on the bus, and we took off. They held the bus up one more time for some of the participants in the front desk insanity, and then we went to the plane. I sat down and gave a big sigh of relief that I got a seat on the first flight. Coincidentally, Chilufya was in the row right in front of me.
The flight was very short, but they still managed to serve food to everyone but only offered water and juice when I really wanted coffee. When we landed we were a little confused about why some people were standing in a line when we were just let through so we decided to be good and went to the line where we were supposed to show our passports. They asked me where I was staying and I couldn't find the papers (that I filled out so many times at the Embassy) so I ended up saying that I would check into the same hotel as Chilufya.
Adriano met us along with the driver and it was a very short trip to the office. Lourdes met us with all hugs and smiles. She took us around to meet everyone and I got to meet my "boys". Adriano I had already met and I got to see Mango and Mauro. I have spoken to them so much by Lync and Skype that it's really wonderful to meet them in person. I have spent so much time with Mauro especially and they are absolutely delightful in person.
Lourdes had a driver bring me to her house (which is actually close enough that we can see it from her office. I unpacked, took a shower and then they came back for me.
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| Lourdes's house is lovely. I feel privileged to be a guest here. |
We got right to work. Mauro showed me how he had set up the data entry computers and servers and I was able to get Chilufya up to speed on how it all works. I got to show A, M & M how the data is put into text files, zipped, sent to Cambridge, unzipped, appended to one another, exported as text files and zipped again. That was probably about the last time things worked correctly. I couldn't get my internet connection to work properly and it was really frustrating because I couldn't send them files that I wanted them to have. We also had some really constructive conversations about the mobile data entry tool and ways to make things as efficient as possible.
Soon it started to rain outside, and then it started to pour. Soon there was thunder and lightning. It was about the pouring time that we lost internet in the office. There were brief periods when it came back on, but mostly it was lost. By 5 we had run out of things we could think of doing without the internet so we decided to call it a day.
A driver took me the 1.5 blocks to Lourdes's house. It is close enough that we can actually get internet access that is sent from the office and retransmitted here. By the time I got here the internet was working in the office again.
I wrote for a little while and relaxed and wrote until a group of us went out to this very cool place. Lourdes, Ragheb, Addy (from the CDC) and I went. I asked Lourdes to order for me and she ordered a terrific pork dish that I really enjoyed. My educational moment today was that when they bring you bread and butter and beans and olives before you eat, none of that is complimentary. You see it all on the bill. My portion came to the equivalent of $31, which is high, but not as bad as I imagined it might be.
Oh and my new friends told me that there actually WAS water in the hotel in Luanda. It was in the mini-fridge that I hadn't noticed.
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