Angola, The Forbidden Country

April 11, 2025
Luanda, Angola

“By all accounts the Angolan people, the great majority of them poor, illiterate and living in isolated villages or urban slums, carry out their civic responsibilities with great dignity and patience. The two voting days in Angola are another confirmation that anyone who mouths the cliché that Africans are not ready for democracy is simply ignorant of the facts. African politicians, however, are a different matter.” ― Karl Maier, Angola: Promises and Lies

Before we left the US, we planned for Angola. Specifically, we planned not to go ashore, but we still had to have CDC Yellow Fever waivers, at quite an expense, that explained why we couldn't take the live virus vaccine. Of course, my FOMO syndrome kicked in, but I promised my doc I wouldn't risk the area. Yellow fever is endemic here and they're experiencing a flare up right now. All it would take is one mosquito bite, and evidently, I am delicious.  

Once we reached Luanda, we realized there were other reasons why it was just fine for us to stay onboard the Sky. First there was the armed guard stationed at the end of the gangway. 

That was new.

All the ship's excursions had police escorts. That wasn't such a surprise. We had police escorts in Semarang to get us through the insane traffic in time to visit distant Borobudur. But in Luanda, our friends who went ashore had armed police escorts to visit the beach. Or the mall. Or any of the other excursions. 

Evidently kidnapping foreigners for ransom is a popular business model here.

We learned later that it happens in South Africa, too. Josh Sullivan, a pastor from Tennessee, was abducted at gunpoint on April 10th near Port Elizabeth, one of our previous stops. So far, we haven’t heard whether a ransom request has been made. Pastor Sullivan had finished his schooling in the Xhosa language and was getting ready to plant a church among that people group. Please pray for him and his family.

But even though the sole of my foot didn’t touch Angola, I still wanted to learn more about the country. The history sounds familiar. Inter-tribal warfare followed by slave trading, colonialism, a fight for political freedom from the European power followed by decades of civil war while various factions duked it out for supremacy, and finally political corruption and poor governance.

Enter the discovery of oil.

When the Norwegians struck oil in the North Sea on Christmas Eve 1961, there was great rejoicing. The government set to work putting all those oil dollars to work for its people, creating excellent infrastructure, education, health care and a cradle to grave safety net. The median income is $4166 per month.

Oil has made Luanda one of the most expensive cities on earth. A small condo in a good area costs the equivalent of $6800 a month. The gap between the have’s and have not’s make the US gap seem like a rounding error. The median income in Angola is $27 a month. A woman's life expectancy is 65 years. Men can only look forward to 52 trips around the sun. 

As we sailed away, I once more felt equal parts gratitude and guilt. The accident of my birth in the US has made my life so much easier, safer and more predictable than many around the globe. I did nothing to deserve it.  It was gifted to me by God's grace and by virtue of the geography surrounding my family.

I heard one speaker say it was a mistake to believe the people of Africa are unhappy in their poverty. Having lots of things doesn't guarantee happiness. Relationships and family mean more.     

Jesus said something similar.  In Luke 12:15, he told his disciples, to “Watch out and guard yourself from all types of greed, because one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

I agree with that. I also think $27  a month can't help but lead to despair.