Yesterday we learned about Angola, our second country in Africa. The country's name is dirived from the Kimbundu word N'gola, meaning king.
Our Angola info sheet tells us the Capital is Luanda, they speak Portuguese, and the primary religion is Christianity (about 60% of the population). There's no travel warnings for Angola, and while it isn't the safest place in the world, if you travel with someone who knows what they are doing, and use common sense, and keep an eye out for marked landmines, you should be alright. It's a country known for blood diamonds, civil war (which ended in 2002), and those landmines. But they also have beautiful beaches, and some awesome rock formations, like Miradouro de Lua, which drops right off into the Atlantic.
The people of Angola are friendly, and resilient. Luanda , an oil-rich city is the most expensive city in Africa as far as cost of living. Rent is high, and imported goods are expensive. But, most people in Angola still live in poverty. As a result, Angola is home to Africa's first 'ghost town', a state of the art city that the Chinese constructed for over 500,000 Angolans. But, nobody can afford to live there, and the entire city is basically empty. They also have their very own skipwreck beach, where there are more than 20 rusting and abandoned ships.
Goods in Luanda are expensive. In the country, a box of 100 mangoes goes for $10, but in the city, one of them can go for $5. (Thus resulted in Calib's get rich scheme to buy a car in Angola and make a fortune off of mangoes). Anyway, we had mangoes for dinner, along with Angolan cabbage salad (we used kale instead, because we have a ton of it), and some Angolan potatoes. We used this recipe, and took out the cod.
Our main dish was Muamba de Galinah, a chicken stew of sorts using red palm oil.
Ok, so the salad was hit or miss, some of us liked it, some of us didn't. The potatoes were thumbs up all around, although some of us (me!) thought the egg was a little weird. And everyone but Calib was fine with the mangoes, but we've had those before, of course.
The Maumba de Galinah was weird. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't really good. It was just plain, and unexciting. I ate it all, but I wouldn't be clamoring to have it again, and neither would the rest of the family. We had a discussion of what to give a 'spoon' to, and decided the mark should be 'do we want to have this meal again?'
And it earned zero spoons up, as a whole. Everyone would have the potatoes again though.
The boys made their postcards, we colored in our country, and scratched off the flag.
Five down, 188 to go!
Next Up: Antigua & Barbuda
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