Yesterday was a great first day. We were hosted for lunch by the country director, a Belgian doctor who has been here for two years but with Unicef around the globe for close to 20 years. Very interesting guy. We also got to meet the rest of the local team: Lone from Denmark, Sergio from Brazil, Graham from Scotland (married to a girl from Kerry) and some others I did not yet get credentials on. His apartment was on the sea front and on a strip which could be Nice or some other beautiful coastal town other than the fact that there is abject poverty all around. I will update photos when I can. The government planted trees along the strip for the African Nations football contest hosted here a few months ago, and then took them out once the games were over, you can see the large holes left from uprooting them. This is also where the Togo team got shot, at least in Angola, not Luanda.
So we had a very civilized lunch on his veranda looking out on the bay.
After lunch Lone took us to a very trendy part of town on the beach. We had drinks in a bar which was literally on the beach and could have been the W it was so cool. Certainly seeing how the other half lives here on our first day.
Today we are off to the Unicef offices, followed by some urban projects here in Luanda.
Luanda was built to accommodate 500,000 people and today 7m live here. Congestion abounds, litter is everywhere and it appears extremely run down. Plenty of military and we are not far from the Presidential palace.
Luanda, according to my sources, is the most expensive city in the world to live in. Yesterday I spent $15 on a small bottle of hair conditioner. Lone tells me one peach costs $5 at the local supermarket and that she periodically sends her shopping receipts home to Denmark because no one would believe what you pay for basics here. I told her about stuffbackhome.com-
Got to see the rerun of the final and Rafa's win last night, there was not much contest there.
Off on Monday adventures now. Ciao
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