Memories of Luanda, Angola - 1998-2000

Memories of Luanda

Intro. When I meet people and hold chit-chat small talk, they invariably want to know what I did for a living, especially in this town. I tell them, I was a foreign service officer. The next question is always, “where did you serve?” I tell them in staccato succession, Bissau, London, Luanda, Accra, Cairo, Baghdad and a short stint in Damascus, with domestic assignments after every two or three overseas tours. And their final question, what was your favorite posting? I begin by explaining that one always has a sentimental attachment to one’s first overseas assignment, and for me that would be Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. But sentimentality aside, I have very fond memories of the time I spent in Angola. It was a tough and challenging assignment, being triple-stretched into a department head position. But it was a rewarding one in ways that I continue to uncover.

It began in November 1998. Approaching Luanda by air, you see this beautiful city on the coast with tall buildings and winding avenues. Only as you get closer do you realize the tall buildings are empty shells of construction halted when the Portuguese left suddenly in 1975. And when you get real close, you can see bullet holes from Savimbi’s last stand in 1992. Luanda! No place like it on earth.

The Embassy Luanda I found was a trailer park, plain and simple. As a newly-minted administrative officer coming off junior officer assignments and a year at the Operations Center, I was the only American in the admin section, not counting the IT guys. All my senior staff were local Angolans and third country nationals who had been there forever.

I mention the members of the Country Team below in journal entries. As admin officer, my first big task was to find off-site housing for people living in the trailers and any new officers arriving. One by one, we found rental properties, negotiated leases, and moved all remaining staffers out of trailers on the compound and into newly rented houses and apartments as quickly as our guys could complete the make-ready preps. Of course, it was never quick enough, nor the make-ready good enough for the prospective tenant. We did our best. Then we started the arduous task of securing the permits and permissions from various government offices to begin the New Office Building (NOB) construction project.

Not at all incidentally, the prevailing practice in Angola real estate was that the finder was paid a fee of 14% of the annual rent payment. For example, on a single residence with $6000 per month rent, the finder’s fee balloons to an annual additional payment of $10,080. That’s on one residence only. I had no inclination to take that fee because, while it was prevailing local practice, it was most definitely a violation of US contracting and leasing law. I can’t say what my predecessors did, nor can I speak for my successors. Of course, our Angolan landlords thought I was crazy. So I negotiated with them to delete the finder’s fee, i.e., subtract it from the total rent payment, resulting in an under market negotiated price. They didn’t care, $10K was actually $10K, and so they agreed to the proposal. We must have negotiated close to ten rent contracts over two years, saving the Office of Building Operations (OBO) and the State Department over $100K on my watch.

After several meetings with several different ministries and regional and local government departments, we arrived at a stalemate regarding a “showstopper” for the prospective New Office Building (NOB), closing off the back street to enhance, not to secure setback requirements. In a final meeting I attended with the Provisional Governor (who was on our side) and representatives from the Interior Ministry (who were not on our side), the Interior Ministry folks drew a line in the sand. Their position was that to grant us permission to close off the back street “for security reasons” somehow suggested that they were not doing their job to provide adequate security for a foreign mission (which of course, in their estimation, they were. The Interior Ministry guys studied under the Russians, the East Germans, and the Cubans back during the good old days. They were the best at what they did in the world.) It was all in the wording. 

One of the city traffic planners offered the following olive branch proposal: Close off the back street, not for security purposes, as stated, but to provide for temporary construction, knowing full well that once the traffic patterns were changed to close the road for the three years of the construction period, no one would bother to change them again back afterwards. I phoned the Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) to get the go ahead. We cut the deal and shook on it. It was done. Ground was broken, and a few years later, after my departure, the New Office Building became a reality — the trailer park, a distant memory.

Here is a bit of local flavor. I had an internal security guy assigned to me exclusively. When I went to meetings at the Governor’s Office or at the Foreign Ministry, he was there. When Filomena and I went shopping, he was there. When we went to church, he was there. He was even at the public tennis court and the barber shop. I learned to feel great comfort in his presence.

I had lots of interactions with the host government in my position as management counselor for the embassy. It was a bipolar relationship, at best. The Angolans loved us and they hated us, but mostly, they didn't trust us. And they had solid historical reasons for their lack of trust, let’s just say. Part of being a diplomat, should the bilateral relationship fail, is that you have already built personal relationships with your counterparts to fall back on to keep the work moving forward. You learn that on the road, in the field, and sometimes on the fly. They don't teach it in political tradecraft at the Foreign Service Institute. Success in those instances can be quite fulfilling.

We made a couple of important budgetary discoveries. One, in the late 90’s, FAS, a cost-sharing device for spreading the costs of maintaining the physical platform across all the various agencies at post, had been supplanted and replaced by ICASS, International Cooperative Administrative Support Services. When I analyzed the spreadsheets and did the arithmetic, I discovered that one agency at post was supposed to have been making the cash transfer for their share of the costs agency-to-agency in Washington. I checked with the budget office in AF/EX and, lo and behold, discovered that no payment had been transferred since the embassy began operations in 1993. In effect, the State Department was subsidizing that particular agency. AF/EX budget office got us a windfall payment covering the seven years and corrected the mis-allocation going into the future.

Similarly, the mission had experienced tremendous growth, new agencies had been added, and what was previously USIS had been absorbed. But there had been no corresponding increase in our representation funding as should have happened. All it required was a written request by the administrative officer. That was my job. We scored yet another windfall of back payments to the representation account. I was flying high and my bosses were loving me! 

A bit of history here. During colonial times, roughly from the Estado Novo (Salazar dictatorship) of 1933 to independence in 1974, Luanda operated as a Portuguese consulate with limited and perhaps sporadic operations. With the 1974 departure of the Portuguese, the United States did not immediately recognize the newly independent state, aligned as it was to the then Soviet Union. It was unusual, since the U.S. rushed to recognize other former Portuguese colonies in Africa, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and Mozambique at independence in the mid 70’s. It was only following the 1993 multiparty elections that the U.S. fully recognized Angola and established an embassy. When the trailer park embassy was erected in 1993, it was considered a temporary, short-term structure. But it ended up lasting until after our departure in 2000.

The FSN’s (foreign service nationals, i.e., Angolan employees) invited us to their lunch outings on Fridays from time to time. Once or twice we went to restaurants that were outside the 17km boundary and we had to get Regional Security Officer (RSO) approval. Such field trips always ended in good eating and dancing!  One of our favorite “picnic” areas was across the road from this ancient structure (below) in Cacuaco.

We made one group visit accompanied by the Regional Security Officer to the infamous Roque Santeiro, said to be the the largest open air market in Africa, where allegedly everything possible was for sale. A much smaller market was Sao Paulo, known for fresh fruit and produce at reasonable prices. There were expat shops, smaller by orders of magnitude, that sold high-priced imported goods, mainly from the Dutch and the Portuguese. And there were a couple of local “supermercados,” frequently understocked because of supply-chain issues from the war just outside the confines of Luanda.

For recreation, the “pol-mil” section had a fishing boat we’d take out on the weekends. We never caught much fish, but it was fun getting outside the city.

There were several hidden shopping gems nearby. A small mom-and-pop restaurant had reasonably priced grilled chicken and homemade potato chips we would buy on the way home from work. There was a nearby bakery that baked fresh bread and pastries. A shop up the street from our house in Bairro Azul always had freshly roasted coffee. And there were high-priced burgers and fast food all up and down the Ilha. The local fish and shellfish were to die for and one visitor got deathly ill from eating shellfish we bought on the street that was likely past its due date!

From time to time we’d venture out to the bairros in the city looking for good shopping opportunities, whether produce, artifacts of various types, or local music. One Saturday we were out and we spotted a procession of men in derby hats, playing trombones and trumpets. It was a funeral march that seemed it should be more in place in New Orleans than Luanda. Well, folks in New Orleans obviously got it from somewhere. Sampling discos on Saturday night and evangelical churches on Sunday morning clued us that both religion and recreation survived the middle passage.

Angola was a country at war. Savimbi’s folks were out in the countryside, always wrecking havoc when they weren’t raising crops to secure their hold on the territory. Their periodic attacks on generating stations outside Luanda meant constant outages of electricity and running water. I learned to tolerate doxycycline and chloroquine better but still had a couple of bouts with malaria and a local malaria-related malady. Gas was dirt cheap and food was reasonable if you steered clear of the expat stores, and I acquired an appreciation for Angolan robusta that still rules my coffee buying habits. We got a monthly shipment of meat from South Africa - the best steaks and delicious ostrich meat! Angola became my favorite and my least favorite posting at the same time.

Unlike my Bissau experience, I knew what to do with the local coffee beans from the market. Even though Angola had a once-thriving coffee industry and one could find the local roast in stores (Bela Negra was my favorite brand, a dark French roast robusta), I enjoyed roasting the green beans at home in the oven, or stir-fried in a cast iron pan sauteed with butter and whiskey, a trick I learned from one of our Cape Verdean connections. Until, that is, I left a batch too long in the oven. Filomena put her foot down - no more coffee roasting at home.

Here is an almost lost memory. Angolan officials at the airport developed a curious habit of closely “inspecting” items arriving through the diplomatic pouch, delaying their delivery to the various missions. No doubt, countries were abusing pouch restrictions, but in general, and by international law, the diplomatic pouch is supposed to be inviolate. The topic came up in our monthly all embassies administration officer meetings and we decided to jointly “demarche” the Foreign Ministry about the delays and obvious intrusion. I don’t remember how or why, but I became the leader and spokesperson of the demarche effort, perhaps because we were hosting the lunch.

I explained, in my best, rehearsed Portuguese, to the representatives from the Foreign Ministry and Internal Security, that we had observed the delay and the actual opening of packages arriving via the diplomatic pouch. The Angolans at least acknowledged what was happening. Of course they attributed it to internal security requirements, that they were a country at war with insurrectionist elements (an understatement since Savimbi and UNITA controlled so much of the rural countryside that they were actually exporting foodstuffs to neighboring African countries) and needed to make sure no country aligned with the Savimbi crowd was using the pouch to provide the rebels needed supplies. It was all hogwash as we knew exactly who was supplying Savimbi and it had nothing to do with the diplomatic pouch. At this point, a few of the country reps got a little bit antsy but I was on a roll. I closed with a gentle warning about reciprocity, that we might be inclined to inform our ministries at home to reciprocate and delay pouch deliveries for the Angolan embassies in our countries. That got the attention of the Angolan foreign ministry officials. The pouch delays decreased in frequency. Diplomacy works! 

One more curiosity and I will pause. Part of my job was negotiating with providers for internet services for the embassy. There were three internet providers at the time. We’d begin at the front and work our way to the back office where the real deciders sat. The front was filled with Angolans, but in the back office there was always a Cuban guy. Cuba and Angola went way back, you see, and there was still a hammer and sickle in Angola’s flag, or rather, a gear and a machete that looked from a distance like a hammer and sickle. There’s a lot more to be said on Angola’s independence struggle. A Luta Continua!

In retrospect, while I didn’t fully recognize it at the time, I would certainly come to miss the support the DCM and Ambassador always extended to us. Telephones didn’t work half the time. There was no e-mail to the Admin annex where I worked, Casa Inglesa. But I could count on the support of upper management to do the work I had to do. I could take it to the bank. The support I enjoyed and took for granted in Luanda, the collegiality we shared, I would later learn, was rare in this outfit. I remain grateful for having experienced it there.

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Addendum: Farewell to Luanda (10/2000)

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are packing out and already I am missing this sad, strange place. Luanda. No place like it. No place like it on Earth.

Coming down with malaria is a pain that I won’t miss. Nor will I miss that illness we get from time to time that fakes out the malaria test. The locals call it catolotolo, while I call it total physical misery. But I will miss the peaceful sunsets and late dinners out on the ilha, the hypnotizing popular music, dancing (more like watching them dance) the kizomba and the high-fives shared when one hits that out-of-sync step with rhythmic perfection.

I’ll miss the taste of zindungo (a spicy sauce made from peppers, garlic and whiskey), the smooth harshness of Angolan robusta coffee, the sweetness of overripe pineapple sold at inflated prices by the women on the street who swear it will last until tomorrow, and the bitter-sweetness of gimboa (a type of local greens) fried with onions and olive oil. More than anything else, though, I’ll miss the effusive, infectious enthusiasm of our local Foreign Service National (FSN) employees, their willingness to learn, their professional dedication and loyalty.

The war, which resumed in earnest two years ago, continues in earnest. The rebels continue to wreck havoc and random mayhem in the distant and not-so-distant provinces. The government continues to blame the rebels and, by extension, the war for all the ills of the kleptocratic society it leads. Luanda’s majority continues its struggle to survive and overcome desperate, oppressive poverty. Luanda’s privileged elite continues to revel in opulent, ostentatious wealth. International oil companies continue to discover and suck out black gold, Texas tea, like there’s no tomorrow. And then there are diamonds. Diamonds are forever. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Diamonds. Y’all know the rest of that story. The American Embassy continues its bifurcated operation in the Miramar trailer park and on top of the downtown garage known as Casa Inglesa. Continuity, for better or for worse, is Luanda’s most obvious constant. The strong get stronger, the weak go further off track. Or, if corruption empowers, then absolute corruption empowers absolutely.

Angola diz basta, Angola quer paz. Angola vai vencer. Or so says the steady flow of local media propaganda. Angola says enough. Angola wants peace. Angola shall win. An associate with party connections gave me the red, black and gold t-shirt that repeats the mantra. That makes it so.

The NOB didn’t start on time and may or may not start in the foreseeable future. While I am buoyed by our accomplishments of the past two years, I am a little disappointed over the NOB delays and the failed prospect of being personally involved in yet another building project in yet another former Portuguese colony. Never mind. A luta continua e vitoria é certa (translation: the struggle continues and victory is certain).

First meeting of the newly formed FSN Association, 2000. I pushed for this and was very proud when they pulled it off.

Combined State/USAID gathering at our house in Bairro Azul, 2000. 

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Some lost diary entries

Saturday, November 14, 1998

First weekend in Luanda.  I haven’t done any shopping, but Filomena says everything is available and the prices of many items, food, cleaning supplies, etc., are comparable to prices at Safeway or Giant.  

I gave my first “speech” to the combined Admin/GSO section yesterday.  The GSO told me the FSN's received it well and no American had ever addressed the section like that before. A driver voiced similar comments to Filomena.  It was a simple 10-minute talk:  I introduced myself, gave a short work bio, and shared my general expectations.  I told them, as I was told in MM “A” School, that every job in the Embassy was important and necessary.  But I stressed that their role in the Admin/GSO section was vital to the maintenance and operation of the diplomatic mission platform.  Finally, I told them what my father told me:  Don’t take no wooden nickels, and if you can’t be good, be careful.  Of course, something was lost in the translation, but I think they got the idea.

The city of Luanda: Awesome sprawl view from the plane as we approached the airstrip.  A million baracos, shacks all connected in neat little rows - very little urban development in terms of housing.  The central city was not much better: unfinished high-rises from the seventies, tenement slums and ghettoes, vacant buildings occupied by squatters, children and mutiladoes (orphans who lost their parents and people who lost limbs because of the zillions of landmines we gave UNITA and Russia/Cuba gave MPLA during the twenty years of civil war) on every corner, open streams and puddles everywhere, breeding mosquitoes who carry parasites resistant to anything we can throw at them (the rainy season is “atingindo,” but the “river” in the street in front of our house comes from a leaking water main (I traced it, using those ancient naval engineering skills, ha! ha!, and if water can leak out, God alone knows what filth can leak in!!!!), not from the rains).  

My boss, the DCM, is going to be a great guy to work for. Haven’t done much at work: certified some routine vouchers, read through some old files. Next week, I’ll make my way to USAID, the PolMIL section, and MONUA to meet with the Admin folks there.  

Sunday, November 15, 1998

The folks have been very hospitable here since our arrival.  Wednesday night we attended a cookout at Miramar held by the departing TDY Army guys.

Thursday we went to Anna and Mike’s house, where we dined with three military guys from MONUA (can’t remember names, but they were from India, Hungary and Portugal (Fulgencio)), Carol from POLMIL, and Cindy from “the Pentagon.”  

Friday we were hosted by the DCM, where we met most of the country team: Pat (Econ-Comm), Paul (RSO), Alfreda (Acting AID director), her XO, Cleveland (I think), Carol, Mike, Anna, Phil Ives (USIS), and, of course, the DCM.  Saturday night Alex invited us to his suite on the Marginal (what a view of the bay!!!).  There we met Doug (Equator Bank), and Corinne and Mateus (she, French, with UNHCR, he, Swiss, with (I’m not sure what he does).  We had a great after-dinner conversation, which gave me some good ideas for my dissertation: how the army controls the economy by repatriating dollars to manipulate the unofficial exchange rate and the interest rate and how the black economy drives the official one; how oil is not the curse of Angola, greed and avarice are (the seven deadly sins); contending forces in Angola as a struggle that predates the Cold War and is thus not caused by it (guerra fria); the influence of the Protestant missionary movement in Angola, as a source of the liberation movement against the Portuguese, played out as a protestant/catholic luta (catholic/communist Luanda against the Methodist/Baptist/Congregationalist adherents taught by missionaries in the provinces (including Jonas Savimbi, whose father was a Methodist missionary and whose grandfather was a Bailundo revolutionary. Alex has lots of books and admits to being a part of State’s Greek Mafia.

Today we finish cleaning the Ambassador’s house in preps for his arrival tomorrow.  There is another cookout at Miramar this afternoon.  We meet the new Ambassador tomorrow morning at the airport.   

Thursday, November 19, 1998

New Ambassador arrived Monday AM. Had a small dinner do at his house that evening. Monday Ricardo and I went to see Cine Miramar, where the owner gave us the good news that they want to offer us a long-term lease with option to buy, 20K per month, an idea which FBO also likes. We still need to figure out what to do about the erosion going down the hill. Also visited the bottom floor of the house next door to Miramar. The offer is $4500 per month on a ten-year lease, plus amortized discount for the cost of renovations.  

Tuesday I wrote the cable, completed my travel voucher, did some routine work, attended the Country team meeting, and made far too many trips to Miramar.  Tuesday night we ate at home, finally. Filomena made chicken soup (calde de galinha) and it was good!

Wednesday I toured the warehouse. The most important thing that happened was a meeting with Phillip Ives, PAO, about the STATE/USIS “crosswalk.” We determined that three of his employees would likely come over to the Admin section, retaining some specific USIS responsibilities: the Systems guy; the Admin woman; and his driver/expediter. I shared with the DCM my long-term vision for property acquisition and for personnel. Will detail in the journal later.

I hope today to look at the top floor of the house next to Miramar.  We also need to prepare a cable of yesterday’s meeting with USIS. Finally, today Ricardo and I are going to schedule our meetings, which we’ll start next week.  

Meeting with the DCM today on the MPP.

Friday, November 20, 1998

Emergency Action Committee is meeting today.  RSO tried to gloss over the issue of “tripwires.”  I raised a few points, then Bob Evans chorused in.  The Ambassador acknowledged, but the RSO was visibly disturbed at the interruption.  Afterwards the DCM and Alex whispered to me that they understood exactly what I was saying about the tripwire thing.  

Returned to LightHouse, caught up with Adu, an interesting Nigerian-American who owns a real estate appraising firm in Dallas. Went out to the Ilha, hit all the spots in the cidade. 

Sunday, November 29, 1998

Went fishing yesterday with Tony and Lusiana, Richard and Steve, and Mike.  The POL/MIL bunch.  We had a pretty good time, but only caught three fish.  Did a little swimming off Mussulo - great exercise.

More thoughts about work, i.e., real estate acquisitions. Luanda’s is a dynamic, almost fluid real estate market. It is market driven. It is chaotic and sometimes appears anarchic. However, the anarchy and chaos is only a mirage, a façade: beneath all the appearances of disorder, there exists a cool, sinister, and invidious system of horse-trading, price fixing, and gouging. I’m trying to figure out what is going on inside the heads of FBO. Why do they move so slowly?  We are dealing here with market forces that behave, metaphorically, consistent with the properties of steam.  Nevertheless, with the right valves, the right piping arrangement and the correct auxiliaries, we can harness the power of this steam and make it work for us, not against us.  First, however, we have to recognize that we are dealing with steam, not toothpaste, and certainly not peanut butter. In this equation, FBO is the King of Ice, or worse yet, rigid steel. Ice tools aren’t useful in a steam environment!     

I am reading the files. Countless are the times that post management has had suitable properties in their grasp, only to lose out to competing interests, often American companies, other US Government agencies, banks and oil. Why are we even here? To protect American interests?  What American interests? Commercial interests? Oil companies. Fucking oil companies. The same oil companies that beat us at the real estate table each time we go to play. It is early in my tenure, but I already have an inkling of the frustrations my predecessors must have endured.

Finally, a few words about this house in Bairro Azul.  When the power switches from city power to generators (more often that one might imagine), only the air conditioners work. No lights, no appliances, no receptacles. Only air conditioners.  Either there is a short circuit in the wiring system, or there is a weak circuit breaker or transfer switch somewhere. Either way, one day the wires are gonna fry and this house is going to burn down. Moreover, because of the design of the house and its distance from the center of the city, everything in it is going to burn with it.  Forewarned is forearmed!!!!   

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postscript. Note I sent to the Luanda FSN group recently on the retirement of one of their colleagues:

I have fond memories of all the local employees at the US Embassy in Luanda. In all our overseas assignments, we never knew a group of employees more dedicated, more enthusiastic, and more resourceful. It was tough working with the Americans when the Embassy was opened in the early 1990's. The government didn't exactly trust Americans because of our previous support for UNITA, and there were reports that the government was not trustful of our local employees either. It probably made their lives a bit difficult, but they hung in there with us. They have their own stories to tell.

It is also worth noting that the US maintained a consulate in Luanda during the era of Portuguese colonialism, when Angola was considered an overseas province, dating back to the 1950's. It is an interesting part of history that at one point, Portugal actually considered locating the capital of the Portuguese Empire to Angola, in a town it appropriately named Nova Lisboa, which was later changed after independence, to its original name, Huambo. But it goes back much further. In the 1850's the US Navy maintained a fueling and supplies depot in Luanda for navy ships taking part in the Africa Slave Trade Patrol, an effort by the British and US navies to enforce laws prohibiting the shipment of slaves. That depot no doubt had local employees on the payroll.

I am saying all this to make the point that the relationship between Angolans and the US Government has a deep, rich and interesting history. When Angolans join the US Embassy as employees, they are entering a noble and honorable tradition of bilateral cooperation between our two nations going back more than 170 years. It is a history that is often overlooked. But it is not insignificant.