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Feature no.10
* Paulo Moreira is an architect and researcher at the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Design, London Metropolitan University.
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might have gone off and nobody knows when work can begin again. “Be patient, it’s Africa,” you will hear. You will need to show a clear criminal record, and an international certificate proving you have been vaccinated against yellow fever, polio and hepatitis. You will also need to present a bank statement proving you have withdrawn $6,000 (officially, you are expected to spend $200 per day during your stay in Angola). Once you have fulfilled all these requirements, you will still need to pay for the flights and visa services, which adds up to another £1500 or so. Then, sit back and wait for four or five weeks.
If your Angolan friend cannot put you up, you will need to find somewhere to stay. Hotels are out of the question (Luanda topped the cost-of life ranking in 2010). Fortunately for me, by the time I had started planning my journey, a friend of a friend had returned from Angola, and recommended staying with a local family. He showed me photos of a courtyard with a vibrant sense of inhabitation: kids playing; hens wandering; a tyre rim used as a barbecue; a man shaving holding a piece of mirror. At the back, the room which was to be my home for the month I was to spend in Luanda. Everyone in Portugal knows someone ‘earning loads of money in Angola’. In practice,
the expatriates speak in warning tones: “There’s no-one to pick you up at the airport? You must be crazy! No driver? You’ll never survive here.” Even though, as soon as I’d collected my visa, I bought loads of mosquito repellent, expensive anti-malaria pills and jumped onto the plane. Once I arrived, Luis was a couple of hours late. There I was, in the recently renovated airport, waiting for someone I did not know. I watched the courteous greetings between American oilmen and their company drivers, as a plane landed from Houston. A TV screen showed São Paulo, Shanghai and Lisbon on the arrivals list. Finally Luis arrived. Once I had met my “chauffeur”, it took us over an hour to drive home; through a never-ending, chaotic traffic jam. “Be patient, it’s Africa”, I thought. 87
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