arriving in Luanda

So, here we are in Luanda... after a good and quick flight, the pilot announces our landing in Luanda. Needless to say that my heart was beating as fast as it had ever done. After all I was landing in a city that could become my home sweet home for a while. I was prepared for serious roughness, I was aware the Country was just out of a 30 year civil war, so I knew not to expect much at all, which has been of enourmous help, I must add!

Anyway, going back to our landing.... the plane landed on the tarmac, where there are no fingers. It's all done my smiling bus drivers, who take you to the main building of the airport. As you enter this building, you find quite a few people gathered around a counter and some queues. I then understood what was going on. We needed to fill in a form to show the immigration officer. In order to receive this form, you need to show your yellow fever vaccine certificate. So, after we got our 2 forms, we queued up for immigration. Actually, quite stupid of us, not to know that as Brazilians, we belong to a special class of travelers in these formers Portuguese colonies, the native Portuguese speaking people have a special line but instead, we lined up with many more people and therefore took much longer.

Anyway, as we both approached the immigration officer, we handed him both our passports and the 2 forms. He then looks at Joel and asks: "is she your wife?" Joel quickly replies "yes". He then looks at me and says: "you may go". I, of course din't quite understand why I could go, if he hadn't even checked anything in my passport, so I asked: "do you mean I can go through and enter the Country?" And he says, "yes, sure, you may go".

Well, one of the things my mother taught me was never to discuss or get into a serious argument with an immigration officer, because they hold all the power of our happiness in that Country, so, I quickly passed... looked back and blinked at Joel and kind of tried to wait for him, to make sure it was all ok, but didn't quite succeed because it was a no waiting zone. A few minutes later, Joel comes in, all smiley, as if nothing had happened. Glad to see him again.

However, what most made feel so comfy, were Joel's words, as he told me what the officer had told him as soon as I left the counter: "we have to honour the women, they are like our mothers, after all, we are in this world because they gave birth to us, right?" Really cool this Country is, I am already liking it!!

So, we then head to the 1 carousel they have, but much to our concern, there were no trolleys available. The very few ones had already been taken. I asked for more and the lady tells me there were no more... but honestly, why should I care whether or not they have trolleys available... after all, women are so highly honoured here, hey?