Sofrimento

Cultures tend to develop a special relationship with part of their vocabulary. Indeed, it is relatively straightforward to identify words which in spite of existing in other languages, carry nevertheless much more significance in one particular language. Whenever you detect them, the part of your brain in charge of speech recognition lights up, while less obvious parts of your brain get busy on the ‘special meanings section’, something that can be overwhelming to the inexperienced, and a reason why some advantages exist to being a grown up. By hearing it more times, you get more used to the confusion it causes, and wisely choose to allot a special and deeper meaning to it all. Allow me to exemplify with saudade in Portugal, and, well, probably ‘pancake’ in Sweden. In Angola, one such word is sofrimento. It can be loosely translated as ‘suffering’. It is probably special over here because there’s so much of it, or because it comes in so many shapes and forms. It’s a very common experience to hear it being said. You can even see people smiling while saying it, using it in songs, or writing it in big bold letters in the rear window of their cars. The first time I realized it was a special word was curiously through a Dutch, in my first outing, by a grill, on the beach. He said to me, knowing I had been here only shortly, “So what do you think about Angola? (…) This is what Angola is to me. The rest is sofrimento”. It struck me as the kind of thing I wasn’t expecting to hear, in my first outing by a grill on the beach. But deep and wise nonetheless. On my own share of sofrimento, I can add that my girlfriend was supposed to be flying this very minute to come and visit me. Her flight was cancelled. It seems the Angolan government forbid British Airways from landing in Angola. Retaliation?

Gasosa

Let’s say you bought a second hand car, and want to have the paper work recognized by public office. First, you manage to get to the office. Well done. Then, and in spite of carrying all the necessary documents, one document is found to be missing: the fiscal id. It could be any other, really, but this is how the story goes. You confirm with the lady behind the counter that there’s no way you can have the document recognized without your fiscal id, so you submissively lead yourself downstairs while switching to bargaining mode. At the entrance, you expectedly find a big commotion of kids who had already insisted to help you as you went in. So you pick one and engage in the conversation. He says “car papers, fiscal id, no problem...”, so you start discussing the gasosa. If you have some skills, you might even cut it by half, and then you agree to hand him your documents, passport included. He goes to other kids, he buys official stamps from them, takes some photocopies and comes back a bit later to pick up the gasosa, plus, of course, the normal office price. Then you stay there and wait. You take your time to look at other people engaging with other kids, you wonder a bit about the ways of the world, and in conversation with your Angolan mate (without whom you’d have probably not felt comfortable enough to lose sight of your passport), you find out about the probable gasosa process. Part of it is for the kid who is selling you the service, part of it is for the guard who sells the kid the service of letting him through the back door. In the absence of more intermediaries, the rest is certainly for the lady who 40 minutes before assured you that there’s no way she could help you without your fiscal id. All in all, and to make the story short, I spent about a hundred dollars in gasosa that day. I am currently waiting for the vehicle property card, for the fiscal id, and for the Angolan driver’s license. These were all different gasosas. Some of these documents are known to take years to be ready (literally), in the absence, that is, of further, and greater, gasosa. Luckily you can usually drive (or do whatever documents allow you to do) with the respective receipts. Well, you may have to extend the receipt’s validity, in which case you know what you’ll have to do. On a related note, the IMF said Angola will grow by 35% this year (!). If they’re any precise on their numbers, it can only be more than that. Anyway, I can drive now.

Imbondeiro

Behold the imbondeiro, national tree of Angola. Mukua, the fruit, is visible on the younger tree. With the tree, its leaves and fruit, you can make juice, jam, soup and medicine, you can color things red, make rope and rough cloth. You can also use craters in older trees as barns or graveyards. Judging by the picture, parking your Toyota Hiace inside one is also a possibility. On an almost entirely unrelated topic, Mukua is the name of the club I am going to this coming Friday. It's famous for the Angolan dances kizomba, semba, and tarrachinha.