Disability.

Now that I only have more or less three weeks left, it's about time I write something on disability & mobility.
The reason why I didn't write about the subject is because I can't seem to grasp reality here. You hear from organisations that there are a lot of (physically) disabled persons in Angola; you see them everywhere and I even visited areas where they all live together. But what I don't SEE is how they get help: who is giving them help, with what money, what kind of help, does this actually help the disabled persons? I mean I see it, but, since I'm only here for several weeks, I don't SEE what change it brings to their lives.

A lot of things I don't understand and I will never understand in these 7 weeks. But I have to go home with some kind of an idea. So I try to find some pieces of the puzzle and see what the puzzle CAN tell me and not that much what I WANT to see in it.

Statistics are almost impossible, because they don't know exactly how many people are living in Luanda, not even in Angola. So it's difficult to give an exact percentage of disabled people in Angola. This doesn't mean that we can't know if disability is a big problem or not in Angola. If we interview people from international organisations for disabled people, like HI, for example, and we ask them to compare their experience in Angola with other countries, maybe they can give us some clues.

What we DO can proof is that Angola has a very high BNP and that development is VERY (s)low. This means that a lot of money is not going where it should go and that corruption is (still) part of the Angolan reality. Secondly, from what I have seen, heard and felt here in Luanda (unfortunately I didn’t get outside the capital yet) is that the civil war of 27 years has catastrophic consequences. But all this is no surprise, of course.

Another piece of the puzzle that I don’t seem to understand where it belongs are the local organisations for disabled people. I can’t get a picture of what they actually do., how they actually change the lives of disabled persons. As I understood it, they will only gain their full power once the constitution for disabled persons is there and once it is being implemented. Like that they can (in theory, because corruption and repercussion have to be considered) actually start claiming their rights.

One piece of the puzzle I didn’t find until now is the private sector…

So far about disability; let’s have a quick look at mobility now. Until now, I have especially studied public transport in Luanda. A first big problem is that public transport, as transport subsidized by the government, isn’t what it should be. This for several reasons I’m not going to summarize here, but a consequence is that the private sector has taken over that task of the government. This has of course consequences for the prices, for the service (who’s the actual beneficiary? The customer?).

(Just some vague & general reflections. To be continued.)

Working... NOT as usual

A lot of people ask me: “So how is the research going, Daisy?” That’s a fucking difficult question and my answer is always: “E pa, é complicado!”
I will try to give you some idea of what I do here every day. I live from day to day, because planning something here is hard and can be very frustrating. You can’t put your mind too much on one thing, because then it doesn’t happen or plans change. Plans change a lot here and you just try to grab to any information or people really. You call, you meet, you talk, you ask something, you arrange something, you get more phone numbers & names, you laugh, you thank each other, you say goodbye and… you realize that it wasn’t really what you had expected or what you wanted. So you try again to call those new numbers, you meet, you talk, you ask something, you arrange something and suddenly someone comes up with some new information, with a new point of view or idea (WAW!!! GREAT!!! INTERESTING!!!). You try to hold on to it, write it down somewhere, try to ask more questions, etc. etc. So there’s a lot of talking involved. Whenever it comes to facts, numbers, dates, documents, schedules, … things get hard, the conversation gets stuck and they just tell you to come back another day or to ask someone else.

That’s one part of what I do here every day. Secondly, I travel: I walk, I take candongueiros (small vans = taxi), I get a ride from someone at work or from a friend in a car or at the back of a motor. I wait. You wait for a taxi, you wait for a phone call to get a ride or for someone to explain you how to get somewhere. Or you wait for the rain to stop, for electricity to work, for someone that went to get some combustivel for the generator. You wait, but at the same time you keep your ears, eyes and mind open for other opportunities, because they have passed before you know it.

All kinds of little things fill the days here and at the same time you try to enjoy. Like this weekend when I ended up at a party and learned how to dance kizomba & tarrachinha (local dances). When I arrived home around 21 (the other party started Sunday afternoon) the party at the neighbours was only starting. I could immediately join them, have a beer, dance, laugh. It was great! Here they still dance TOGETHER & if you don’t know how to dance with a girl, you’re fucked. So all you Belgian men should start learning their steps so they can ask a lady to dance!

Alergia de Gillette

Dear all,

For those who don't know the disease, it can happen to any woman, at any time, at any place. After three hours of waiting at the hospital and seeing people walking in after me and leaving before me, I finally made the decision that something was wrong and that, if it wasn't for me, no one would ever call my name to go and see the doctor: "Desculpa senhora, estou aqui já três horas, já são as 8 horas da tarde e ainda não chamaram o meu nome. Quero saber onde está o meu documento agora." And yes, they lost my paper so I had to fill it in again. After that I could immediatly see the doctor. She checked my arm and said: "Dona Daisy, isto é uma alergia de Gillette." I didn't know what she was talking about until she showed me the movement of shaving your armpits... Well, no malaria, no cancer, no whatever, just an Alergia de Gillette. I could go home.

As it's eastern, my collegues at work convinced me of going to church. "Vais ver, vai ser muito bom para ti. Vais sentir-te melhor." Eventually they couldn't make it and I ended up going alone to church. But I surely wasn't alone, the churches here are still full with young and old. I sang, I prayed, I almost cried, yes, I almost did. Strange feeling it gives you when people get on their knees on gravel and sing about God that will secure our families and path. In this environment of Angola, the words of the songs suddenly get a meaning. But don't worry, I didn't get baptized, I didn't see the light and I surely didn't feel like something was missing in my life. I guess it were the beautiful songs and the fact that people weren't staring at me or didn't stop their talks when I pass by; in stead they offered me a seat next to them on the bench. It was just a nice Friday afternoon, nothing more, nothing less.

Yesterday, though, I had my first 'difficult' moment. Talking to Nástio & Tchiloia about my 'friends' who live on the street made me realise (again) that I can't help everybody here. Without noticing it, I started to get attached to some amputees. And I still am, because they give me a good feeling. But it's a fact that I will be leaving soon and it's even more a fact that I can't change their lives. As I will be spending my next days at orthopedic centres, I'm happy that I got this 'difficult' moment now.

You see things here without even realizing what you're actually seeing until you get home and think about the day or until you get to know someone a bit more personnaly.

Some entertainment is always more than welcome. So a night out in Luanda felt great until we wanted to go home and saw that the battery of our car was empty (we left the lights on). So we had to stop another car to use his battery to get our car running again. (We couldn't push because it's an all-automatic car)

Right, well, just enjoy the pictures. I'm going to enjoy my Sunday afternoon.

Let's get things started

In the meanwhile a lot of things have happened… or… actually, as I said to Inge: Here it is possible for a lot and nothing to happen at the same time.
I am here for two weeks now and I am starting to see where my research is going. That’s a good start, I would say, but maybe you guys have another opinion (feel free to leave a comment!).
Today was ‘dia feriado’, but for me it wasn’t that much of a party. My computer crashed again yesterday (Luckily my beloved Biru is always there for me, so I managed to make some back-ups). Right after my computer crashed the whole neighbourhood fell without energy…. It wasn’t me! Until two hours ago, we didn’t have any water or electricity. So yes, it was a VERY QUIET day, indeed. Besides my raindance earlier in the day (didn’t have anything better to do), it was the first time in my life I did a little dance and a song to celebrate the return of electric power.
While preparing my next interview (this time with the Ministry of Social Reintegration) I was looking out of my window and what did I see? The same guy in his wheelchair that I crossed some days ago. Maybe he lives in the neighbourhood!! I grabbed my notebook & pen, ran downstairs and asked everyone where he had gone. He was willing to help me with my research and we have a meeting (hopefully) tomorrow evening.
Next week I will be spending my days at the orthopaedic centres in Luanda. I prepared a survey (aiai!?); so let’s hope this time things will go easier.

Here are some more pictures:

Some views out of the living room. After some heavy rain again... Cooking by candle light...

And a meal with two of my housemates (Manuel from Angola and Juanito from the Philipines). With finally some electricity running again.

First days 'da daisy'

Bom dia a tudos.

Finally I found some time to let you all know how things are going here in Angola.
The flight and the arrival went easy, a bit too easy, because it gave me a wrong impression. Things are not easy here, not for me, not for anyone.
In the centre of Luanda nothing is really far, from a bird’s eye view. But from the perspective of a human being wanting to move in a car or taxi, the centre of Luanda seems HUGE. Traffic jams everywhere. Everything depends here on the time of the day and the weather. To give you all an idea of the difference: going from A to B might take 30 min. on foot, by car really early in the morning or at night, you will take 15 min., otherwise you need at least 1 hour. And if there have been heavy rain the night before it will take you ages to overcome the obstacles. But, hey, difficult doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.

The first days I have been living at Piet’s house in Bairro Azul. This was a nice start to get used to the hard times. Every night electricity is cut (specially when there is a storm) and you spend the night by an oil lamp. Water is scarce, so whenever there is, you use it! Sound insulation is not their first concern here; so at night you can bounce with two or three different songs at the same time from different ‘festas’. Night falls around 19 o’clock. And when I say night falls, I mean nights falls: it gets dark really quickly.

(This photo is taken at night during my first storm. The light comes from a lightning.)

But people are friendly and I am starting to feel more comfortable walking around town and talking to people. Except for that one time when I almost got hit by a crazy taxi driver (taxi = small van) who shouted: “Vai morrer!” (You’re gonna die!).
Except for the fresh (?) fish from the ocean at the beach I didn’t dare to try any local food yet. One step at a time. I survived my first storm, overcame my first big fears and anxiety, did my first interviews with disabled people (A DISASTER), started my first motilium cure, managed to get me a steady place for a little while (thanks Nástio!) AND had my first productive day (walking around town without being scared all the time, arriving somewhere without having to call someone for directions, the first two meetings with ‘important’ people from international and local NGOs).

That’s all folks.

Ps: sorry for the people who were expecting more (exotic) pictures, but being a white, blond & tiny girl, I already feel like a moving target. So taking time to pull my camera and take a nice shot hasn’t really crossed my mind yet. I'll do my best.