Okuiya Kuwa!

Okuiya Kuwa, or "Welcome" in Umbundu! Umbundu is the native language of the people of the highlands of Angola. Huambo is the capital of the province by the same name, like New York, New York.

I am here on assignment with CNFA, Citizens' Network for Foreign Affairs, a USAID funded NGO. I was recruited to work with Angolan componezes or peasants. My job is to help them convert to organic agriculture because these poor peasants cannot afford to cost of chemically based fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Even though Angola is the largest exporter of oil in all Africa, the economics of bringing the refined product back to Angola is not working for small farmers at all. In the meantime, Angola, where 85% of the population engages in subsistence farming, has gone from being the breadbasket of Southern Africa to a net importer of food in yet one more fine example of the efficaciousness of globalization.

Huambo is a place somewhat remote. Despite being Angola's second largest city, it took three days of travel to get here from my home back in Rutherfordton NC. This is my second time here. In April, 2009 I was sent here by CNFA to assist in a value chain assessment of native dried beans. It was at that time that I came to love the Angolanos. Just two years ago, they were still struggling to overcome the vestiges of a devastating 30 year civil war. The town literally hummed to the sound of Honda generators because there was no centralized electrical service. The water system was still broken and many buildings exhibited the pockmarked scars of intense firefights. Huambo was the headquarters of one of the factions fighting for political supremacy in a land that until 1976 has been part of a 500 year old Portuguese colonial empire. Huambo, the breadbasket, was so strategic that all three sides of the sometimes triangular civil conflict laced the fertile fields with land mines. It was during my legume assessment and my conversations with small farmers that I came to realize that one of the consequences of a 30 year civil war in a country where the average life span is 38 years equated to a multi-generational lapse in the transmission of small farm know-how and wisdom. And that's why I was asked to come back: to teach.

Day 1 In Huambo February 22

There are just a few flights per week from Luanda, the capital of the country and the site of its international airport. I caught the 12:00 flight to Huanmbo and was met by the CNFA Country Director, Chipi, Chipilica Barbosa. The 10-minute drive the headquarters, my new home, was a real eye opening experience. In just 24 months, Huambo had been transformed. There was electricity power in the lines, the water system was improving, there was internet connectivity and there was food; there was even a supermarket. The number of cars on the road had increased dramatically. Angola was coming back. The people looked less haggard, there were more children. CNFA Angola had changed also. The headquarters had been moved some 200 miles from the coast. There was a totally new staff and I was given a professional staff briefing. Instead of a hotel, there is now a discrete bedroom off the hall of what was once a colonial mansion. There is also a kitchen and running water if you run outside and turn on the pump and pump the rainwater out of the 3000 liter plastic cistern that catches the rain water off the roof. What a difference from 2009.

I went straight to the office assigned to me and set up my connectivity to Rutherfordton. My email accounts worked perfectly. I could even Skype the office from Angola!! The only issue is that we are 7 hours East of WNC. So high noon here is 6:00 am in Rutherford County.







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