Unfortunate events

I thought of writing about unpleasant things that happened recently. I initially considered the kid in a motorcycle who bumped into my (parked) car, the cooler box which got ran over on the way to the beach, and the car accident we had on the way back, which threw us off-road, broke my car’s front axis, and made me forget all about the motorcycle kid and his bump. Nobody got hurt in these events, so it’s all unimportant, especially given the number of sad stories around, a couple of which took place afterwards. Two days ago, a friend of mine saw a kid being ran over by a car. It seems the kid ran into the street after stealing a mango... Last night, one of the street kids who randomly sleep in my building’s entrance was unconscious on the sidewalk. This is not, in itself, a very unusual sight, as several of these kids prefer to spend the money they earn on hard liqueur and drugs rather than food. My flatmate and her brother actually dragged him closer to the building, where the rain wouldn't reach him. This morning, as we left to go to work, the kid was in that same spot, covered with a white sheet, dead. People say it might have been the drinking or the drugs, or maybe disease or hunger. It was most likely some mix of these... In Cacuaco, northern Luanda, some mysterious disease has been spreading, and keeping specialists in the dark as to what it is. So far there are not many dead... This is indeed a land rich in sad stories.

Amenities

(photograph received by email)

Somebody I know has recently told me that she doesn’t remember ever having electricity, running water and a functioning telephone line at the same time. For the time I have been in Angola, I confess, I have been luckier than that. However, days there are, like the recent ones, when a random combination of those fail to apply. I have in the meantime developed my preferences: I now know I prefer water to electricity, and electricity to the telephone. Preferences aside, it was with suspicion that I realized the water had been gone for 2 days, especially since in my neighbourhood water tends to be much more of a companion that electricity is. Unlike many other times, however, the answer was this time easy to find. It was just, literally, around the corner from where I live. For the sake of my co-workers, I can only hope they fix it fast.