The road up the coast through Sumbe and Porto Amboim to Luanda was blissfully easy, and we only got stopped at 4 road blocks out of 8.
We definitely overreacted last time: the vast majority of police have been very friendly and amenable, they love having a look round the truck and reading the explanation oficial in Portuguese thanks for advising us to do that, Kingsley.
There was just one young officer who was determined to nail us. He broke open the rather spiky furry casing to reveal bizarre powdery dry chunks of pale pink with the consistency of polystyrene and the taste of sherbet around a black seed. Ruby has devised a method of shaking them up in a pill pot to make them more sweet-like. There was a real buzz about Benguela, but when it was magnified 10 times in Luanda, the buzz became a headache. The lorries thundering along were now joined by hundreds of blue and white combi taxis, and a host of Landcruisers with tinted windows.
As we drove into the city, we gasped as a 2 year old rolled an old tyre into 3 lanes of traffic. Sampson was already struggling with a cough from the thick dust en route; he started feeling quite ill now with a sore throat from the added pollution. The sky is permanently fogged. The SA Embassy was an oasis of calm and consideration in the midst of the clamour.
We were honoured to be granted an audience with Counsellor Mokwena, who gave the children badges and graciously shared his interview slot with Quequexi, Joao and Filomeno from the English Program of Radio Nacional de Angola.
