Thoughts about Angola
There are trips and destinations that leave a trace in our soul, and this trace goes beyond a nice souvenir or a nice picture to hang on the living room wall. Angola is one of these places. The emotions and the thoughts that start to crowd your mind while traveling through Angola are the counterpoint to the harshness of the landscape that passes in front of your eyes through the car window. Fascination, fear, sadness, joy, indifference, hope and disillusion: all kinds of emotions come to the surface here to claim their place in the conscious brain. There’s nothing you can do to prevent this. The mere fact of being here physically, to be immersed in this cultural and natural context, gives space to this whirlwind of emotions. Angola is not an easy country to explore. Here everything is hard. Hostile.
First, the country is virtually closed to the outside world: you’ll need a visa to enter the country and if you want to get that you will need someone from Angola to formally invite you and to provide the government a valid reason why you should be admitted. From all this it follows that Angola is not the most tourist-friendly country in the world. In fact, there is no such thing as tourism in Angola. And then, the people. Despite its very rich culture and the long tradition of trade with other African countries and with Europe, Angolans are in most cases very suspicious and closed to the outside. Probably thirty years of civil war have left a mark on these people in a way that we cannot even understand! People seem to be generally wary at first, especially when it comes to foreigners. In fact, in Angola to say foreigner, especially European, means bringing back to mind the times of the immense tragedy of the slave trade. It is estimated that between 1650 and 1860, 10 to 15 million slaves were deported from West Africa (mainly from Angola) to the Americas. What made me particularly reflect here is the fact that 1860 is not so far back in time: it is so obvious then that this wound between Angola and the outside world is still open. Indeed, one thing that amazed me was the indifference that surrounds this topic among the local population, almost as if they tried to exorcise it – or as if they had forgotten the lessons of history?
Anyway my experience of Angola was very different from the ones I had in other African countries; for the extreme rawness of its land and the massive wealth inequality in its society. Sure it’s a common trait of many developing societies but here in Angola it seems that the chasm between those who have nothing and those who are overly wealthy is wide open, and perhaps incurable.
As I reflect on all of these things in the comfort of my hotel room at a constant temperature of 17 degrees Celsius, I wonder what I’m doing here. What I am really doing here in the middle of these streets full of garbage and expensive SUVs? Maybe I am here to learn a thing or two about life – and to revise certain stereotypes about the world around us. That must be the reason.
