At Kennedy

Made it to JFK without incident and will shortly be boarding SAA. The flight is 15 hours 25 minutes. We take off at 11.15am and US time it will be 3am when we land in South Africa. Luckily I stayed out too late last night with the girls and so will have no trouble sleeping.

Some findings from my recent reading to share with you:

• Angola gained Independence from Portugal in 1975
• Civil war waged for 25 years ending in 2002 when Savimbi (rebel leader) and two dozen of his body guards were shot dead by government troops
• Since then Angola has become one of the richest African countries, largely due to oil and other natural resources.
• Despite the oil bonanza almost three quarters of Angola's people live on less than $1 a day and 45% of its children are malnourished.
• in 2005 the UN development programme ranked Angola 160th out of the 177 countries in its human development index (Norway, Sweden would be in the ranking of 1 or 2)