Hippies on the road again

On our way to the airport, not far from our school, the road was closed off. The guy directing traffic was young and had a ponytail. He motioned for us to pull up and he asked us “You must be the actors”…apparently they were filming a movie. We looked at one another..."Umm no?" He replied “Oh, well, we still need some more hippie extras if you want?”

So apparently the three of us must have looked like we were dressed to be hippies in a movie…but actually we were just dressed as ourselves…I’ve driven down that road dozens of times and have never been asked to be an extra hippie in a movie, nor do I think that will ever happen again. We were finally on our way to Angola and were so upset we couldn’t take up the opportunity! Unreal…we couldn’t stop laughing about it on our drive to the airport.

And so it began…our journey to Benguela. We stopped in Lisbon for an entire day, toured the city as zombies, fell asleep sitting on benches a couple of times, and then headed for Luanda. We were nervous about arriving into the Luanda airport because of stories we’ve heard about going through immigration…but everything went smoothly and someone was there to pick us up. When we arrived at the project close by, flamengos were lined up along the beach to greet us and so was an old friend of ours from our school, it was good to see a familiar face.

Two days later three of us took an 8 hour bus ride to Benguela, our home for the next 6 months. We were able to see the landscape…lots of it. Dirt. A lot of dirt. Everything is dusty. We arrived safely in Benguela and have settled in. Everyone is friendly and we are excited to get to work...it seems we will be very busy here.