I used to think Nigerians packed the world’s largest suitcases but Angolans beat them hands down. I had to wait nearly one hour for my luggage. The wheel kept spitting out huge cotton wrapped suitcases for women who happily lugged them on trolleys. Finally, my modest suitcase popped out. As l pull it, Carmo and Ana Maria look surprised at how little l was travelling with.
Carmo Neto , the Executive Secretary of the Angolan Union of Writers and his lovely wife, Ana Maria de Campos has come to meet me at the airport. Carmo looks like some one l know from my undergraduate days at Ife. He speaks a little English. Ana Maria acts as our translator. I say to her, “your husband looks familiar, he looks like a Nigerian. She tells him this. Carmo smiles and says in Portuguese, “Many people say l look Senegalese” Much later, when l visit the slave house in Benguela, l will suddenly understand why the Angolan African faces look familiar, our genes were calling to each other, across the Atlantic ocean and the slave trade that separated us for centuries.
The Luanda that confronts me reminds me of pre-Fashola Lagos. The thick traffic jam, the hawkers selling every conceivable thing. Bananas, Shower heads, yams, tomatoes, onions, goat heads lie in front of houses on table shops. Everything is on offer. I settle in the back seat of Carmo’s vehicle, gazing at the tall, several storied buildings in dire need of paint, thinking of the crowds who live in them. The families washing flapping in the wind are strung up so high, on iron tethers in front of balconies, out of reach. I wonder why the washing is strung up so high, is it a lack of backyard space or a precaution against stealing…? The buildings open right onto the roads. There are hardly walls, you can walk right in and lean close for an embrace.
The houses in this part of town are so compacted, built wall to wall. Some are pockmarked with bullet holes from the Angolan civil war. We arrive at the Hotel Continental. It’s a pillar of silence in the bustling city center. Clay swans perch on large stones and stretch their long necks to fish in the water pond of the little fountain. Pink ‘Groupa’ fish flit around in the water. I am surprised that the fish hasn’t ended up roasted or in someone’s pepper soup pot.
My suite on the 4th floor of the hotel presents me with a contradiction. From my balcony, l look down on the roof of the brothel next door with its broken roof tiles, held in place with torn linoleum strips and heavy bricks. To my left, are old residential story buildings with the signature washing flapping in the wind. Right ahead of me is a public square , just behind the white sands of the beach.
The next day, on the way to my lecture at the headquarters of the Angolan Union of writers, l see that street children are just the same everywhere, pestering you to wash your car windshield, polishing your shoes and trying to sell you pens you don’t need, dubious air freshers and easily available pirated music.`
I am welcomed like a princess, affectionately, a kiss on each cheek, warm hugs, solicitousness to the point of pampering. The Union House is beautiful, bequeathed to them by the great Agostinho Neto. I tell Carmo l am envious of their Writers’ House, l wish l could just uproot it and take it back to Abuja for the Association of Nigerian Authors’. Neto replies: “We are lucky that the founding fathers of our country were intellectuals”. The Union building contains a well appointed furnished mini conference hall, a library with several computers and internet facilities, where kids in the surrounding streets come to connect the world for a small fee. There is an administrative wing with offices for the administrative secretary, accountant and other support staff. There is a VIP room complete with a huge television, a split unit air conditioner and flood lights that can be used for interviews. Carmo’s waiting room as Executive Secretary has huge, soft leather seats that feels like an embrace when you sink into it. The building has manicured gardens with redolent flowers and adequate space for receptions, open air poetry or theatre performances.
My reading is well attended. Writers, artists, students, lecturers and former ministers of culture are in attendance. Isabel Velez, my Portuguese translator does a wonderful job of giving me a voice in Portuguese and manages to translate my poem, Explorer of Aromas on the spot to applause from the audience. I do three television and one radio interview. My books go quickly and I am presented with a large bouquet of roses and a replica of the giant black antelope,(Hippotragus Niger Variani) the national symbol of Angola.
Our night began on the Muritala Mohammed Avenue, the restaurant and entertainment filled island, named after Nigeria’s General Muritala Mohammed, in memory of his support for Angola’s struggle for independence. The island is replete with luxury four wheel vehicles packed thickly. Getting a parking space here is an almost miracle, but there are street urchins to guard your vehicle for 10USD. The first restaurant we go is booked solid. There are no seats for us. However, we run into a former colleague of Ana Maria with his Nigerian wife and 18 year old daughter, who, when l was introduced as a Nigerian, proceeded to tell me how he came to the Institute of Tropical Agriculture(IITA), Ibadan, to work and “saw this beautiful Nigerian, woman, who is still as beautiful as the day when l first saw her” and married her. His wife laughed as he hugged her close, while we all smiled at their public display of affection.
In my time in Angola, l note the romantic aromas wafting around Angolan men and their wives. Like wine, the love of Angolan men seem to ferment better with time. Carmo is a different person when Ana Maria is around, he’s happier, bubbly and calls her My Love, in a way that reminds me of Mexican soap operas, though l tell him, he has to pay her for the huge amount of translating she does between him and l. She is his English voice. Ana Maria and I put heads together and agree on a fee that Carmo must pay her. A former President of the Union of Angolan Writers lovingly calls himself his wife’s ‘victim’. The wife who l later met at a dinner hosted in my honour by the Nigerian Ambassador to Angola is an accomplished woman. A biochemist and a doctor of internal medicine, she’s happy to leave the cooking to her husband who tells me, “l love to cook. I cook willingly”, … we move on to another restaurant. There are couples all around, black and black, black young girls and older white men. Their skirts are shorter than short. The stilettos are miles high and the cleavages are bare, leaving nothing to be imagined. I ask Ana Maria: what is the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in Angola?. I eat a delicious fish dish whose name l can’t remember and gulp two glasses of an Avocado milkshake that reminds me of the avocado pears behind my father’s house in Akure…
The next day, Ana Maria arrives to take me to see the other Luanda, on the way to the rich side of town, l see the ancient Portuguese fort, perched high on the hill, glittering white in the sun, within the ramparts of its restoration. You cannot miss the Agostino Neto mausoleum, shaped like a rocket head, standing watch over Luanda, a sentry on the coast line. Are we drive on, the scene changes from rough brick houses and busy , dirty, noisy sidewalks to smooth roads, terraced villas, new clean side walks and a huge shopping mall. There are no attendants at the gates of the mall. You press a button, a ticket pops out and the bars are lifted up for you to drive through. Angola is rich in oil, gold and diamonds. Ana Maria takes me to a shop that sells Angolan diamonds. The starting price is from 1,000USD. I tell the shop attendant that we shall come back when our husbands become rich. We buy a memory card for my camera, some clothes for my children and a small suitcase. On the way back, l notice four brides and grooms taking pictures with their guests at about 7pm in the evening, in one of the squares in town. Ana Maria says most weddings and parties in Luanda are held at night after the day’s work is done.
My next stop is Benguela, a city of the coast where the pace is easy going and laid back, unlike frenetic Luanda. Carmo, Parche, a member of the Executive of the Union of Angolan Writers and I are received at the airport by the Rector and Arts faculty staff members of the Universidade Katyaval Bwila. My friend, Dr. Francesco Soares is also there. Benguela’s air is fresh, and crisp and the ocean beckons, just steps away in several directions. Everybody knows everybody. Greetings are called out as people drive through the streets and even here, motorcycles are the primary taxis, ferrying people round town, at a Lagos-like breakneck speed. After checking into the hotel, l am whisked to the lovely pink headquarters of Radio Benguela for a live radio interview. Later in the evening , l settle down to a dinner with the Rector, staff members of the Arts faculty and their family members. The air is convivial as we talk through the night, spiced by the playful banters of two lovely little girls who stay up long past their bed time to keep me company. One of the girls is bejeweled with gold bracelets. I learn that Angolan mothers deck their daughters in gold to ward off the evil eye. Angolan women also appear to be more liberated. They can keep their own names when they marry and a man may choose to take his wife’s name. Children take both parents’ names as their surnames, their mother’s first, followed by their father’s, after all, as one woman sensibly told me: the man and the woman make the babies together.
The following morning, we travel to Lobito, a small town , 30 minutes away . The coast line is like a tourist post card, clean, quiet beaches with transparent aquamarine waters. There’s an old bakery that is over 50 years old and given pride of place, on the beach front is the boat that ferried some of Angola’s leaders into exile in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the war for independence. I tell Carmo: “this place is perfect for a writers’ residency, the Union should set one up in Lobito.” Carmo loves the idea and immediately begins to make phone calls to set up a meeting with the Governor of Benguela province.
On the drive back to Benguela, l sense more of the arbitrary borders set up around Africa by slavery and the history of colonization. Nigerians and Angolans have several affinities. The roadside market is just like any roadside market in Nigeria with the same makeshift sheds, the same chicken coops. Angolans eat cassava meal “Gari,” but it’s texture is starchier than ours. They love yams, and roasted plantains with peanuts. They eat the Yoruba beans and corn porridge, the Urhobo small edible caterpillars, which l enjoyed with popo gari when l did my youth service in the Niger Delta. There is the Lagos Brazilian snack, Gurundi. They love goat heads and Luanda streets like Lagos streets have its ‘bend down’ boutiques where the girls pick out second hand short skirts and skimpy tops. However, the street nail manicurists are mostly male refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
My reading at the University is attended by a large student contingent who ask very intelligent questions in English and actually buy books to read. I sign autographs until my hands ache… After my paper presentation, Carmo informs me that we have a meeting the next morning with the Deputy Governor of Benguela province. I cannot believe the ease with which he manages to set up the meeting at extremely short notice, knowing in Nigeria, such meetings can take months to set up or may never happen, if you have nobody to ease your way. We eat at a restaurant where they serve huge grilled lobsters and Carmo keeps ordering several plates of red prawns which l happily help him to eat up…
The next morning sees us along with Paula, the Union’s representative in Benguela, at the office of the Deputy Governor of Benguela, province. Aside from a few police men at the gate, the place is devoid of heavy security. There are no walls, a few hawkers perch their trays on the road just across the road. Some children play football near the buildings, nobody chases them way. It is truly a people’s place. It’s a public holiday but the Deputy Governor is at work. We climb up the wide steps looking for someone to direct us to his office. A door opens and a man wearing a polo T shirt and cream trousers steps out, shaking hands. I say a casual ‘good morning’ and he answers me. He ushers our team to another office. l ask Ana Maria, Where is the Deputy Governor. “He is the Deputy Governor”, she replies, nodding in the direction of the man who l greeted a minute earlier. I am totally surprised at his easy accessibility and the lack of protocol that would accompany even a local government chairman in Nigeria.
Our meeting goes very well, His Excellency, Agostinho Estevao Felizardo, commits the Government of Benguela province to giving the Union of Angolan Writers land to build the writers residency and promises financial support as well. He welcomes me warmly and shows me across the window from his office, the largest House of Slaves in Africa, dating back to the 16th century. We take pictures and depart to visit the House of Slaves, as huge, as a warehouse. Now a museum but unopen due to the holiday, all l could see were the massive gates, the crumbling iron work, the remnants of the thick wall built to prevent the slaves from escaping and the relics of the foot bridge that took them straight to the waiting ships. l learn that the slave house in Benguela lie in a perpendicular line to El Savador in Brazil. The ships filled with slaves simply travelled in a straight line from warehouse to warehouse.
We return to Luanda to meet the Nigerian Ambassador to Angola, His Excellency, Layiwola Laseinde who is hosting a dinner in my honour with my Angolan friends and members of the Nigerian Community in Angola. We are treated to a feast of pounded yam with efo riro, complete with snails, ‘ponmo’, ‘shaki’ and dried fish. There is ‘Amala’ as well, and ‘Jollof rice’ for those who wanted ‘oyinbo’ food. My Angolan friends love the pounded yam and ask for the recipe. Carmo says he likes the Ambassador’s ‘Buba and Soro’ and would like to make one as well. The Ambassador is a genial, easy going host and makes everyone feels welcome. He commits to supporting cultural exchanges between Nigeria and Angola in line with the vision of the Federal Government of Nigeria to build stronger ties between Nigeria and Angola. He promises to be at my second lecture the next day at the Union’s house.
Carmo, Isabel and l are stuck in traffic and Ambassador Laseinde arrives at the venue before we do. It feels good to see the Nigerian flag fluttering in the wind on the bonnet of his car. He doesn’t leave until after my presentation, despite his hectic schedule. His support made me extra proud to be a Nigerian. Now on the eve of my return to Nigeria, my reading is attended by more women writers and prominent women activists. One of them says to me : “The women are talking about you in the market place, they say there is one woman writer from Nigeria who has encouraging words for women”.
I sign more autographs, I do more interviews and depart to park my bags, including the bouquet of roses which l have purposely dried to take home with me. Carmo, ever the solicitous host arrives the following morning to drive me to the airport with two young men in tow. They drive ahead of us to handle all my check in formalities. Now my Angolan brother, Carmo kisses me on both cheeks at the airport as we say our goodbyes. As l walk through customs and immigrations, l am ushered into a room and asked if l have anything to declare, all l have to say is : I love Angola!
Bio: Toyin Adewale-Gabriel’s books include: Naked Testimonies, (1995,2006) ,Die Aromaforscherin,(1998), Flackernde Kerzen, (1999),25 New Nigerian Poets (ed), (2000), 16 Nigerian Women Short Stories, (ed), (2005). A Fellow of the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, she has been a Writer in Residence at the Villa Waldberta in Munich. She lives in Abuja, Nigeria.
Photo captions:
Benguela 1. L-R, Carmo Neto, Toyin Adewale-Gabriel, His Excellency Agostinho Estevao Felizardo, Deputy Governor of Benguela and Paula.
Luanda 1: L-R: Isabel velez, a journalist, Toyin Adewale-Gabriel and Carmo Neto at the House of Writers in Luanda. Behind is a painting depicting Agostinho Neto, Poet and first President of Angola.
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I had a sleep-eluding night where I was more awake than asleep and when I did sleep, I need not tell you what I dreamt of, or do I?! But then morning came and I got the call that literally changed my life. I got accepted and was expected to be in Abuja two days from that day. A series of events followed: walking around with a wide smile and telling whoever cared to listen that I was about to meet a woman whose pen on paper had turned my life around, getting my things set, traveling 8 hours from Awka to Abuja barely aware of the distance and spending lots of time going through the materials given to us.
The long awaited day came and I went with my brother and his wife to the Cyprian Ekwensi Arts and Cultural Centre. It had a large expanse of space on the outside with steps leading up, which made the entrance look grand. It was followed by an open rectangular space with entrances to different halls. The one we used was directly opposite the main entrance and had a table just in front where we signed in, and a large carved piece of artwork hanging by the right, beside the door. We walked in and looked around. It was an average sized hall painted white, with chairs arranged on three sides and a chair in the middle, in front of which was a table which held a file, pieces of paper and a pen. My brother looked around and asked where the Resource Person was, then commented, “This woman is a late-comer!” The moment he said it, as though I needed a little prompting to open my eyes, I spotted her…
The word “radiance” may be common, but it is the only one I can use to describe her. Chimamanda Adichie is a beautiful woman. She looks just like her pictures show, but there is this life, this elegance, this freshness and this attractiveness that the camera can capture only in bits, which are quite far from reality. Clad in a red turtle-necked dress with a belt attached to it at the waist, she moved around the hall, smiling and talking to the people around her. On her head she wore braids, plaited in cornrows into what we call “shuku” with a brown fat woolen braid, wound round her head in the middle, covering the ends of the tiny braids. She wore very little jewelry which comprised of a silver wedding band and small earrings.
She took her seat and began to speak in a voice that was clear and sharp, devoid of the adopted accent most Africans speak with once they travel outside the continent. She asked us to introduce ourselves, where we came from and our expectations from the workshop. We took turns and began the workshop shortly after. We were 25 in number. Chimamanda had a way of smiling at everyone she spoke to, which put us all at complete ease, and paid full attention to anyone who was speaking, which showed that she listened to everything we said. It was a very interesting moment for me. The only problem I had with the workshop was the time frame which was very limited and we were thus compelled to squeeze in most of what we had to do. There was a short tea break, after which we returned to the workshop. We discussed the materials we had been given and our facilitator asked questions as we spoke, and we learnt from our varying opinions. She told us of certain experiences she had had as a writer and common mistakes we were to avoid while writing. Several other topics came to view and we were given two assignments which we completed and most of us read out the first for all to listen. Time then popped its ugly head and we had to end the workshop and take a break before the public reading in the evening.
Apart from presenting me with an opportunity to meet my favourite Nigerian writer, the workshop was one of the best experiences I have had in my life because it awakened in me the love I have for Literature. It was really fascinating to watch young people like me engage in intelligent brain-storming and discussions. It made me appreciate the power of the pen more than before and aspire to take writing more seriously. I felt honoured to be presented with such a chance and enjoyed every single moment of it.
However, I am of the opinion that next time a workshop like this comes up, the participants would benefit better if the timing goes beyond just one day. I must give kudos to the Abuja Writers Forum for making efforts to stimulate creativity among youths. This is surely a stepping stone for a greater literary tomorrow and a better Nigeria, where excellent writing will be associated with the country and reading culture will be fully developed.
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