The last two days I have been stressing over my passport situation. My plane leave tomorrow and if I do not have my passport with the visa that I used to come into Angola, then I am not allowed to leave!! It all started the day that I got here when my boss sent my 10 year passport up to immigration in Soyo, Angola (it had to be flown up there) for extension. I heard from everyone that this process takes 4 days, so I was not worried. On Tuesday of the following week, I submitted my 2 year (second limited passport) passport to immigration in Luanda, Angola for my 1 year work permit. Since this process could take months, we wanted to get it started ASAP. I told the girl that handles my companies visa's many times that the two year passport did not have the entry stamp into Angola, but she assured me repeatedly that there wouldn't be a problem. I was supposed to fly out that Friday so I was asking about where my 10 year passport was... After searching for 2 hours, we found out that it is still in immigration and no one knows when it will be released or if it will be released in time for me to make my flight. Long story short, yesterday afternoon my passport/visa was released from immigration and today someone is flying with it back to Luanda. I will feel soo much better when I get home tonight and have my passport.
The last two days we took really sketchy routes home from the office. We got to see the way the majority of Angola lives in all of its glory. Vast fields of "slums" were sticks hold up tin roofs. Children playing with tires. Women waiting with garbage cans waiting for water. Trash fires everywhere. It was a reality check. I managed to snap off a few pictures shown below. I couldn't get better ones because if the locals see your camera, phone, etc than they will break your window and rob you at gunpoint. This actually happened to my boss while he was working on the computer driving to work.
The tin roofs on the other side of the wall, didn't get a chance to take a picture while we were inside
The "slums"
Another Picture
Nice houses
Dump and wasteland, Slums in background
More crazy drivers!
Work has been incredibly boring with nothing to do. My friend Matt advised me on some things I could be doing, but since much of our equipment is not here, and there is no other engineer to ask questions it is difficult to even self motivate yourself to find things to do. My boss has been gone for the last week in Dubai visiting his family and arrives back in Luanda today. I hope to see him and speak to him one last time about my fate and where I could expect to end up. I desperately hope that he says that I will have to move another location and Norway would be awesome!!! Time will tell. Until then, I guess I will have to lug back all the supplies that I brought with me intending for this to be my new home.
One of my friends Tim is currently in South Africa at the Angolan consulate waiting for his work visa. Then in about a week he should arrive in Angola. Bummer that its just in time to miss each other. Tim (and not my alter ego) is in a different situation than me because Chevron did accept his resume, and he is going to work on their rigs. The camp at Chevron is huge and has about 6-10 four person crews rotating through. So its nice because you can rely commuting engineers to show you the ropes, not to mention the comradery. In Luanda I am the only commuting engineer...
Fun Fact: In my boredom I figured out that, while in Angola, I am 10,030 nautical miles away from home and the furthest any two people could be apart is 12,000 miles. So I am almost "around the world" from home. =(
I'm starting to psych myself up about going to the airport tomorrow. The law states that you are not allowed to leave the country with Kwanza's - their local currency. From what I have heard, you get shaken down for money and kwanza's several times. before getting on the plane. People will come up to you and ask, "Do you have Kwanza's?" If you say yes, they confiscate it. If you say no, the say "Dollars?" They make you empty your pockets and if you have dollars and they want them, you have to give it to them or they hold you until you miss your flight... Its a lose lose. I have a plan to store my money in my backpack in the middle of a bunch of documents and pray they dont get picked up on the X-ray machine. (I heard a while back you can see dollar bills on x-ray machines)
Im almost done with my last day of work and I guess that I should start saying goodbye to everyone that I met here. I hope to see you all soon!
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