Four-wheel drives, mosquitoes and giant black sables

Luanda is the kind of city that, at once, depresses and lifts your spirits. It is also more than a city; spending a while in it is an experience, the memory of which, instead of fading over time, lingers on only to strangely intensify, as more insights prod the mind, and deeper emotions fill the heart.

The blessing of peace in Angola is accompanied by an almost tangible sense of urgency among the people we worked with, that not a day should be lost now in the awesome task of looking ahead and rebuilding a nation crippled by thirty years of civil war. One NGO poised to do this is Angola 2000, who with Open Society funding, entered into a collaborative partnership with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) from South Africa. Angola 2000’s vision is to nurture the fragile but oh so longed for peace, by sharing among all Angolans, AVP’s practical skills of authentic communication that builds respect for self and others, and the effective non-violent resolution of interpersonal conflict.

In the space of ten days in November 2002, eighteen Angolans keenly and actively participated in the three-phase AVP programme, enabling them to become AVP facilitators; no mean feat in a context where every English word had to be translated into Portuguese (a task which the able participants in the group took upon themselves for the benefit of all), and every Portuguese word translated into English for the sake of the three facilitators from South Africa. The group comprised mostly of young people, all of whom carried horrific memories; be it of detention without trial, political indoctrination, torture, witnessing maiming, starvation or death, or having at too young an age to take on overwhelming responsibilities in a camp for displaced people. Despite all this pain, they held an enthusiastic resolve, a heart-warming resilience to be the generation that would build the kind of country they would be proud to pass on to their children. And never once did they forget to show respect to the two older participants in the group; one from the War Veterans’ Association and the other, a man involved in war trauma work.

What images remain with us from our brief stay in Luanda? The absolutely incredible number of four-wheel drives in the city.... true, the state of the roads makes a sturdy vehicle a necessity, and true, they do in some way capture a spirit of robustness that was so clearly visible in the young people we came to know. But with the price of vehicles in line with other exorbitant prices ($3 - $5 for bottled water and $80 per person for a night in a B&B), one is left with nagging and seriously uncomfortable thoughts. Thoughts of wide-scale corruption (Angola is the third-highest on the world corruption index, after Bangladesh and another we cannot remember), as the government uses four-wheel drives to pay civil servants, and thoughts of gross injustice as some fat-cat businessmen (very often from outside Angola, including too many from South Africa) draw extortionate profits from a few in a country where so many are hopelessly impoverished. Sadly, like the pools of fetid rain or sewage water breeding malaria mosquitoes in every pothole (and there are many), this greed spreads its deadliness even to the most impoverished, as larger-than-life CUCA (the local beer) billboards beckon alluringly, creating vicious cycles of alcoholism, domestic violence and ruined lives. Add to this a frightening number of small arms in a total population of 12 million people (mostly provided by first-world countries, as well as, again, by South Africa during the years of apartheid), and you have a potentially lethal cocktail that simmers right now under the veneer of peace. It is with foresight, therefore, that Angola 2000 has also chosen to work with an NGO, Safer Africa, that deals with disarmament issues throughout Africa.

The hope for AVP and Angola 2000 now is that we will go back and support the newly-trained core of facilitators in running their first workshops, which will gradually radiate out to all the provinces of Angola. While it would be naive to think that the debilitating scars of war do not run wide and deep across the psyche of this land and its people, it would be cynical not to feel the new spirit of hope that breathes like a gentle, healing breeze across the landscape. Even during the ten days of our stay, the participants were beginning to put their empowerment in non-violence into practise; one young man gently defused a conflict over seating on the bus he took into town. Small beginnings perhaps, but in a climate where mistrust and violence were the order of the day, such events deserve every recognition. So, even though a huge political and social overhaul needs to be undertaken in the country, we know that the small peace-filled seeds that ordinary Angolans begin to sow in the soil of their everyday interactions will quickly grow to fruition and beauty.

It was therefore, no surprise to us on our return to discover in a local newspaper that the long-thought-extinct national animal, Palancas Negras (giant black sable antelope), had been spotted in Malanje Province for the first time in twenty years – what more convincing sign could there be that harmony and dignity and grace and strength will return to Angola. And we, as fellow Africans, are proud to be a small part of this.

The South African AVP team.
http://www.phaphama.org

Judy Connors, Phaphama Initiatives, South Africa