Angola's new housing development

We spent a month this summer in Angola (which for those of you who are geographically semi-literate is a country in southwest Africa; for those of you who are geographically illiterate, it's not in America). It was incredible on numerous levels. I thought I might share a few pics that illustrate the state the country is in. We'll start with Angola's new housing development - which isn't quite what you'd expect:



The big concrete thing isn't a new development. It's been there a while, and like many other buildings in the city of Kuito it got bombed out during the 18 month siege of the city several years ago. The caving in roof doesn't seem to bother the market sellers out front - it hasn't yet fallen all the way down, so why should it today? What's more amazing is the housing inside the ruins. That's right. Look carefully and you'll see mud block walls inside the concrete building. Those are people's houses. They moved in, built houses, and stuck around. They live there. They sleep there. Every day. Like this family:



I took that picture inside the collapsing building. This is just one of perhaps 30 families that laugh in the face of impending burial under tons of concrete. There is even a store inside this little development. It's quite a burgeoning community. They were all quite surprised to see two white guys inside it, though. Who knows, we may have been some of the first white people to enter the premises since its half-destruction. If you live in a place like this, you don't have to worry too much about unwanted visitors.