Weird. Weird to see how quickly 2 years have passed and weird to imagine our lives moving on without the people whom we have come to love. It's also weird knowing that we get to "escape back" to our wonderful 1st world country but Angolans don't. They don't get to leave the 3rd worldness of their lives--water, sanitation, power, disease, and food shortage issues. This is it whether they like it or not. That's really hard for me. :(
Reflecting on our time in Angola, Briant and I can see how our perspectives on life and certain aspects of it, will forever be changed. I came across a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes a few days ago on some shopping website, that says it perfectly: "A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." I think it would be hard to walk out of a 3rd world country unchanged. We have seen and heard a lot in the past two years that has softened us, yet toughened us and our hearts at the same time I think. In good ways. Ways we needed. And we appreciate all of the wonderful people of Angola that contributed not only to our feeling welcome there, but also contributed to our learning and growth.
Hilario, a member of our church branch, taught us a lot. Every time we saw him, whether it was during his divorce or long period of unemployment, you could ask him how he was doing and his calm reply was always, "Well, with the gospel, life is always good." Never a complaint! He is a man of great humility, faith, and service. The branch is lucky to have him as he goes above and beyond in his church callings! As a newer convert in the gospel, we were blown away by his spiritual energy and ability to serve. There are so many wonderful things I could say about this man. We hope for the best for him. Here we are with him for the last time--we truly hope to see him again!
We said goodbye to the other branch members a few months ago as we sold our car and didn't have a way to get to church since it was out of the approved embassy motorpool area. With the approval of the mission President, we finished our time in Angola doing "home church." Here we are with the branch president Pres. Enoch, his counselor Bro. Da Silva, and Vincent, a new member, on the far left.
Vincent (a new member) and President and Sister Merrill who were leaving their 3 year mission as mission presidents.
Joseph, or Jose who replaced Briant as the branch mission leader.
One of our favorite nursery kids. :)
Sister Bea (branch primary president and then the district primary president, Da Silva (current primary president), and a counselor in the primary presidency.
Fernando, 78 years old. Sweetest man, and convert to the church. Attended every week with a smile! And bless his heart, he kept attending the English classes we taught for a few months, even though he couldn't remember simple things like "hello" and "goodbye." He always still had a smile on. :)
Pres. Paulo, our first branch president before they split the branch. Amazing new convert to the church, leading the branch. Wonderful man.
We took almond poppyseed muffins to church to share for the kids' last Sunday in Primary. The adults loved them but the Angolan kids were unsure of the almond flavor. It was sad to say goodbye to these wonderful primary leaders who tried to include our kids as much as they could despite the language barrier.
The last few weeks we were there, the primary started meeting in this room. It was much better than the dark small room with the baptismal font that attracted mosquitoes! If only they had made the change earlier...
The Elders attended when they could and when we had English speaking Elders, they would sometimes help translate for our kids.
President Paulo, his wife and 1 year old daughter.
Sister Braga, Sister Paulo and her sister-in-law.
Hanging out after church in the outdoor hall.
President Enoch
Looking out the front fence of the church property.
The large green doors that helped us identify the church every week. You can see our car parked on the other side of the road. We will not miss taking our lives in our hands every time we crossed two crazy streets without crosswalks or lights to get to church. ;)
We also said goodbye to our final set of four missionaries. We had them over for one more dinner and then sent them home with pans, tupperware, food, etc. They had an interesting time figuring out how to carry all of it home discreetly without being mugged. I'm happy to report, all went well. :) We loved having the Elders in our home every week and will always remember the spirit they brought with them! We were fortunate to mingle with I think 24 or so Elders over the two years we were there. We hope to keep in touch with them to follow up on their weddings, kids, etc.!
Then of course we had to say goodbye to people at work. Saying goodbye to my English students at the embassy was especially hard for me! There is something special about the relationship between a teacher and their students. At first I felt like they were my "kids" in so many ways as I mentored them along in English, but as we spent time talking and laughing and sometimes crying because of lost loved ones, they felt much more like siblings to me. Either way, it's a cherished relationship because of course there was learning to be had by all which only strengthened the bonds. The students learned English from me, but I believe I learned more important things from them like humility in learning, not feeling like a victim of life despite its challenges and struggles, what it means to truly count blessings while living a life that is far below a level you want and know is possible in other parts of the world, and never complaining about the inequities of life. I never once heard an Angolan express any frustration about the injustices in life. Only faith and belief and love of God. Truly amazing. I woke up every morning wondering why I was blessed to be born in the U.S. and the Angolans weren't, yet I don't think they woke with those same thoughts. At least they never talked or acted in a way that would suggest they did. Living among these wonderful people, I began to see how little we had and have to complain about. Truly, nothing is really worth the energy of complaining when you look around and see adults and kids digging through the trash on the side of the road for food, limbless people sitting on the road median with their hand held out, and kids leading a blind adult from car by car to beg for money. These images are seared into the memories of my brain, and I hope I never forget them.
I tried to take pics during the last few days I held class. Not everyone was there, but I got to capture at least some of them because a lot of the drivers were out on assignment as well as the facilities staff working on some of our residences.
Left to right: Mike (facilities supervisor), Wete, Mario, Armando, Avelino, Domingos.
Inca (carpenter), Armando (plumber), Wete (plumber), Avelino (electrician), Antonio (electrician), and Mario (a/c technician).
When teaching superlatives, Omar stood up to demonstrate the he had the biggEST stomach in the class. He had a good sense of humor as all the guys teased him about his girth. All of my students loved teasing each other and being teased about being old, fat, etc. We had many laughs!
Left to right: Mario (marines' driver), Ginga (gardener), Makiesse (everything), Mateus (a/c technician), Demario (procurement), Jose (USAID), Coxe (marines' driver), Edilson (a/c technician), Front: Gabriel (GSO warehouse staff), Omar (everything).
Kelly (facilities supervisor), Joao (supplies), Demario, Jose, and Teles (supplies).
Left: Bruno (pouch) dressed up every day for work. Many times I thought he was dressed to go to a wedding. He received an award I nominated him for--"most fashionable" at the embassy. Below Bruno: Catarina, my Portuguese tutor/teacher, (middle) Caiombo and Anna from the med unit that tried to come as often as they could, and Claudia, the management secretary that worked right by my desk.
Coxe and Mario, marine drivers. I only had them the last few months I taught, but I'm so glad I got to have them as students before I left! They were so excited and grateful for the chance to learn! We had a lot of fun.
Beginner I students: Nsango (plumber), Maria & Dina (custodians), Geraldo (gardener), Goncalves (gardener), and Fernanda (custodian).
Chuma (supervisor), Avelino, Omar, Danny, Antonio, Joao and the other Joao on the right.
Carlos and Teles at work (Carlos wasn't one of my students, but he always said he wanted to be but was too busy ;) ):
Chuma (supervisor), Val (marines' driver), Claudia (management secretary), Flavio (facilities supervisor).
Here's Bemba in the motorpool room waking up. I would usually find Bemba sleeping when I went to motorpool twice a week because he had a baby that was keeping him up at night. He and his wife had their first daughter after 4 boys. He called her his "princess" and he loved having her sleep on his chest at night for the first 6 months of life. Unfortunately that was starting to backfire because she wouldn't sleep in her own bed after that. He was so good and kind to our kids as he helped drive them to school. The kids loved him!
Eliudes and Spark. Eliudes was one of the kids' favorite drivers! He had 8 kids of his own, so he was very patient with driving the kids to school. Thank goodness for Eliudes!
Eliseo (driver for USAID).
Back row: Visitor, Caiombo, Teto, Falcon. Front: Spark, Paulino, Ernesto, Bemba, Eliudes.
This is one of the many videos I took over my last few days of teaching so I could preserve their voices and a piece of their personalities and our relationship. This video gives you a little idea of how loving and warm my students were to me and why I will miss them!!!My commerce section class, advanced level. Manuel, Tandeo, Clemencia, Mauro, and Ricardo. We had fun talking about the impending U.S. election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and predicting the future! Again, many laughs!
So, saying goodbye wasn't easy! The embassy CLO organized a "Hail and Farewell" to welcome newcomers to post and to say goodbye to those leaving. The ambassador spoke and expressed her appreciation for Briant and me and the work we did there. Briant deserved that recognition for carrying the consular section through a tough time when his supervisor was no longer available and he was on his own to figure things out for about 8 months before the supervisor was replaced. Being his first post, it was truly amazing how he kept things afloat and made some positive changes to his section as well as improved the relationships within the section. He also had a good relationship with his fellow offices Oliver and Sam as well as their support staff.
Bri with Ambassador Helen La Lime (left) and Connie, the Deputy Chief of Mission.
Bri's consular section support staff, or the "girls" as we referred to them. Alice, Hayde, and the sweet, lifesaving Riquita. Oliver, his wonderful co-consular officer with Riquita in the bottom right corner. The ambassador was kind enough to recognize me as well and actually got surprisingly emotional as she talked about the work I did for the mission in lifting the morale of the embassy, specifically with the local staff. It meant a lot to hear her speak so kindly because I didn't know if she or the other mission leadership really knew of my work or efforts. Most importantly though, my students knew how much I loved them and loved teaching them. The beginner class presented a few gifts as well that I will cherish forever because they are from them! At the farewell, Briant and I were given a minute to talk as well and I told my students that they were wonderful students and I could honestly say that I never had a "bad day" at work. It was a joy every day to go to work to see my students! I will forever cherish my time as their teacher! Not all of my students were able to be there at the farewell, but here are a lot of them:
Nelson, Spark, and Caporteiro, Paulo, and Danny. |
Mateus was such a fun student, always bringing the words of English songs he knew into our lessons. He cracked me up!
 I definitely had more male than female students, so these women were special to me. So mild mannered and sweet. Such hard workers too cleaning the embassy and preparing residences for new comers, always with a smile. Sadly, not all of them were there for pictures. :( Left: Candida, Maria, Dina, and Luisa. |
Other Goodbyes
I went to the kids' school one last time to do the official withdrawal procedure, so I got a few pics of them there, as well as a poor quality pic of the school bus they took everyday (poor quality phone camera!).
We're sad to say goodbye to such great teachers and the wonderful campus they had to run around on at LIS with friends from all over the world. It was a safe place that allowed them the freedom to run and play freely every school day while enjoying the learning they did there.
On campus was the infamous, iconic Imbodeiro tree, or Baobab tree as other countries call it. We will miss it!
Thomas with his best friend Oliver in their homeroom class before school started:
Savannah with her teacher Ms. Amelia and her friends.
Rhea and her teacher Ms. Arishana.
Other goodbyes:
Goodbye to our home, the 14th floor of Torres do Carmo. It was pretty good to us despite the fire alarms not working inside the apartments and only having one fire escape. Our prayers were answered and we were preserved from any incident. :)
Daytime views from our deck.
Amazing and varying skies that gave us a reason to look up. The sky on this day caught our attention since an overcast sky seemed to be the norm being a coastal city. Amazing, vibrantly white, puffy clouds against a bright blue sky.
And we will miss the sunrises and sunsets in the background of the city buildings.
Along with our apartment, we will miss Zita, who has been our housecleaner for almost the entire two years we were there. I appreciated her attention to detail and really caring for our things and helping our home feel clean and organized, especially on days that I was exhausted coming home from work! The kids would get home about an hour after I did, and would always express their excitement for how Zita had arranged their stuffed animals so creatively on their bed. :) We hope Zita will be able to get another job quickly!
From the 14th floor, in the last few minutes that we spent in Torres do Carmo, the kids threw paper airplanes from the small deck overlooking the busy street below. It was awesome--they flew on the wind turning this way and that until they finally settled on the ground (we didn't think that a few paper airplanes would do too much damage considering the piles and piles of trash that constantly decorate the city). The kids wrote "I love Angola!" and the name of our favorite airline company, "Lufthansa" on their planes.
Just an hour before leaving, Eliudes, the kids' favorite driver, stopped by our apartment for last minute pics and hugs. His smile is amazing--one of his many qualities!
Good-bye black box. We had a love-hate relationship with the black box. It fried a few of our can openers, an iron, and some music speakers. However, it did allow us to function on a day to day basis with our American appliances without worse damage. We had to put tape over the Angolan outlets so the kids wouldn't accidentally plug our U.S. appliances in them. We nearly lost our electric piano that way, but luckily it only fried the power supply cord that we were able to replace and not the piano itself!
Another love-hate relationship--our anti-malarials, Mefloquin. They kept us from getting malaria, but we're not going to miss the weekly, nasty after taste, headaches, or indigestion!
Goodbye to Amazon prime pantry (until our next post at least). It was our lifeline to U.S. food products. I don't know that we would have survived without it, especially the kids and their school lunches! It was literally like Christmas every time it arrived (as you can see from Rhea's response to seeing the box when she got home from school!).
As we were getting ready for our packout, Bri found his name tag that was given to him during his Consular General training soon after we got our assignment. It's amazing how fast the time has flown by and that we are now preparing for Riga. We have been blessed and have once again seen the hand of the Lord in our lives over the past two years in Angola. We were sustained and strengthened and blessed with opportunities for personal growth. It is all very hard to express in words what we are feeling, but suffice it to say, it was yet another "painful blessing" that we didn't know we needed. We're grateful for a Heavenly Father that knows us and loves us and doesn't necessarily give us what we want, but does give us what we need. Now, back to Virginia...
We landed on a Thursday night, woke up Friday and went car shopping for 2 solid days (after we registered them for school so they could start that Monday!), before finding a minivan. Not a fun way to start our U.S. experience, but it had to be done. Saturday night we were able to drive our own car to the ward trunk or treat which the kids were very happy about. The costumes didn't vary from last year's Halloween because I decided that with the move and landing just a few days before Halloween, that I needed to simplify my life. ;) There's nothing like being back in your own country that celebrates all of the American holidays with you. :) The kids were also able to attend a Halloween party at the Oakwood apts., and go trick-or-treating to some 50 or so apartments. They scored on the candy! We had to use an old phone camera to catch these pics since I sold my good camera to one of my English students in Angola that needed it. It's good to be back!
