Tales of a Transfer

So I stayed at Tia Sao's house that first week, and on Sunday night I moved accross the city to the other side, close to the port. This is how it happened: by this point I had been in Luanda for 5 days and hadn't gotten my clothes... I had bought a pair of panties in South Africa during my 24 layover, because they had checked in my carry on bag in Dallas. Apparently the laptop and the violin counted as a carry-on each :S so I found myself washing the same two pairs over and over and alternating between those two pairs all those days, lol. (Sorry if this is TMI for you sensible ones, lol). But anyhow. Finally my bags got to the airport, I showered and changed, and I happily went to visit the Tadeus Sunday evening. I took along my clothes for the next day, because it was gonna be my first day of work, and I figured I might as well spend the night there and go straight to work.
The next morning, when Tio Tadeu (Oh snaps, another shoutout!) took me to work, I realized just how close they live to the base where I work... So I asked them if I could stay for a month while I was in training before I get sent offshore. And they said sure, why not. And so I went back to Tia Sao's that same night, and lugged all my luggage (pun intended) back to the Tadeus'. And so I lived there happily ever after...
So the thing is, I work on what's called the SONILS base, which is basically a bunch of petroleum companies right next to each other in a limited access compound. and it sits right on the port... so I can watch the big ships coming and going right from my window... it's cool. Anyhow, I forgot where I was going in this paragraph... hmm. Ay quien sabe... anyways so I went to work, started working on Sept. 15. I immediately fell in love with my job. It was challenging, interesting, and it was an ongoing fountain of knowledge. I was given a textbook to study. I had to take online courses, and I got to do hands-on experiments with all the nifty tools we use to examine the well properties.
I got into a nice little routine for the next couple of weeks. I would catch a ride to work with Tio Tadeu, and then I'd catch a ride back from a guy who happens to work at my company who is also an SDA and he recognized me from my first Sabbath at church. I was learning a lot, and it was gonna be time to go offshore soon. I was SOOO looking forward to that. I was gonna have to do some helicopter evacuation training that involved being submerged in water inside the helicopter and getting out safely, because that's how we would get transported to the offshore platform. On the weekends, I would go meet a new family member and hang out with them and hear stories of days gone by.
So one beautiful day, my boss' boss calls me to his office and tells me that I'd have to get ready to go offshore the next week, so I needed to get the saftety training out of the way. And then he asked me about working 7 days a week for 4 weeks. And I told him (as I thought we had already established) that I wouldn't work on Sabbaths. Well he insisted that it was a must and that it was part of the training program, and that I signed a contract, and blah blah blah. Well, to make the long story short, I refused, and (although he had initially threatened to let me go) he said he'd see what he could do and would get back to me. Well the next couple of weeks went by, and nary a word from him. I ran out of stuff to do around the workshop, because the next part of my training was supposed to happen offshore. Finally, I get called back to the boss' boss' office. And he tells me after looking for other positions for which I would qualify within the company, he had been able to find me one within the contract writing department and gotten me an interview. So I had the interview that afternoon, and it went well... although this boss seemed stern and no-nonsense, but it was cool. So that was a Thursday. He told me he would let me know the next week. So I asked my then boss to let me have Friday off so I could deal with some stuff, since I was about to transfer departments and had nothing else to do in the first one... So I took Friday off and went to try to get my national ID, which was a long drawn out process. At about 1 p.m. one of my uncles decided to fly me to Huambo, my mom's hometown, so I could meet some more family. So I spent a wonderful weekend touring the city (which is beautiful, it's my favorite place I've visited thus far) and going to see the old college where my parents studied, which is now nothing but ruins leftover from the war :( Man I heard so many stories of their college days. So cool. I took a bunch of pictures, but at the moment they're still in my uncles camera. I know, no me apedreen! I'm trying to get them. Anyway... so I'm getting tired of typing. But in a nutshell, I missed the plane for Sunday evening so I didn't catch the plane until Monday morning (oh I forgot to mention Huambo is in a whole other state, lol) and then I got caught in traffic on the way to work... so I was super late to my first day of work in the new department, and I hadn't been able to contact my new boss so he was pretty mad. Oops.
So the tales of my new job shall continue another time :)
Good night. Boa noite. Buenas noches. (well, for ya'll it's good afternoon :D)

I left my heart in Texas

So I finally get to post a blog!!! Hopefully I'll be dedicated enough to write at least a couple each week... There's a lot of stuff I could write about, and have been wanting to write about. I don't even know where to start.
I guess I'll start at the beginning and work my way up to the here and now :)
I got to Angola on Sept 10 around 10 a.m. and immediately realized how ineffecient certain things are outside of the U.S. For example, baggage claim was an absolute mess, to put it kindly. Basically I stood around waiting for my bags to make it from the plane to the "Baggage claim" area for about 3 hours. No lie. And they never got there. I had to fill out a missing baggage report and wait 4 days (driving back and forth to the airport all the while) before I finally got them... Fortunately everything got here eventually. Tia Sao picked me up from the airport (shout-out! lol) and my dad's brother, who happened to work at the airport, met me there as well. It was so cool to meet him, but I chose to stay at Tia Sao's house at the time. So off we went.
The day was a blurr: Seeing Luanda for the first time, running around doing errands with Tia, observing the people and the customs. So interesting, so much to take in. If I were to describe my first impression of Luanda, I'd use two words: Chaos and Contrast. It's so chaotic! The traffic is always jammed. And I mean ALWAYS. From morning til night. I don't know what kinda rules of the road there are, but there didn't seem to be any. People do anything they want to do in order to get from point A to point B. The fact that the same one-lane road is used by 18-wheelers, cars, motorcycles, scooters, bycicles, pedestrians, and dogs does NOT help the situation. Oh, and when I say one-lane, that's just depending on who's on the road at the time. Many ppl decide to make it a two or three lane road if it so pleases them. To top it all off, everyone honks and yells at everyone, as if to blame everyone else for the chaos they so readily contribute in creating.
The contrast was also surprising. There are mansions next to huts and Beemers next to beat up old Corollas at any given main road. There are some beautifully paved roads that connect to the most dusty, pot-hole-ridden roads, all in the same neighborhood. Oh, and dust is everywhere. That's just a fact of life here. And I don't mean that light little layer of indoor dust you see on your furniture if you go two weeks without dusting it. I mean the kind that gives you a raspy throat by the end of a long day of driving around. It's crazy.
So since then, I've grown accostumed to those things that shocked me so much that first week. I don't even notice how dusty my shoes get anymore. I don't even notice when we come thisclose to getting in a car crash (it happens at least once a day, but we never actually crash. Somehow, this chaotic system works). I've also gotten used to other random sights that used to puzzle or shock me (people peeing out on the street, disabled people walking with their hands for lack of a wheelchair, little naked children playing in a puddle, emaciated dogs struggling to stay awake while prancing around, etc...)
But there were some good shocks too. For example, I live super close to the beach. So anytime I wanna go, I just grab my towel, my flip flops, and go. I love that! Also, it's summer here. It's so weird to see Christmas lights and decorations lighting up downtown while it's 106 degrees... lol. Yeah, that was the temperature today, and summer is barely starting :S
And the fruits. Oh, I could go on and on about the fruits. They have so many fruits here I had never seen before. And of course, I'm on a quest to try all of them! The ones that I've tried so far, have been absolute bliss :) The mangoes are SOOOO good! The strawberries are super sweet. And of course, juice at the grocery store comes in like 10000 flavors, all natural and organic. Made with locally-grown fruits. Yummy!
Anyway, I think that's enough for one blog... this pretty much covers my first impression of Luanda. Pictures coming soon. Thanks for reading!