I spent an afternoon with Angola's high water officers. Surprise one: They all speak perfect Spanish. Apparently theruling party members had intimate contact with Cubans, were trained by them or studied in Cuba. It gave them pleasure to remember old times in Spanish. Surprise two: They look Argentines. They have the same faces and bodies of my childhood friends in the barrio. I understand that most of the Africans that reached Argentina during the colonial times were Angolans, and they left their features on the working classes of Buenos Aires. The visitors were ink Black, but I felt like meeting friends from old times. Third surprise: They love and admire the Che Guevara, and by extension, all Argentines. Angola is enormous and rich in rivers, so in my honest opinion, they have no need for water recycling nor high tech Israeli agricultural knowledge. They need canal and drainage design, and water management knowledge. They have much money, they have come to the right place to buy the water technology suited to their needs. And I am from the Che's country.
11 comments:
I hope this will be a good opportunity for you.
Remember, much of the country is heavily mined. I mean land-mines.
Anon.
Thanks. It feels as a new country, everything waits to be done. The place has the potential to become a new Brazil. One of the fellows I met is involved in building a new city. The Governor selected the place: it is a swamp. We can help.
I also have relatives who have gone there to consult.
Anon.
They survived, I presume?
They did.
The Angolans, however, ...
Anon.
They also enjoyed the advice of Cuban consultants who transferred the best of the technologies they had at home in Cuba proper.
In agriculture, they introduced the latest 17th Century advances like the "yunta de bueyes" (pair of trained bullocks) and "la carreta", the cart. They also had courses to teach village smiths.
So its not just the World Bank that believes in appropriate technology.
One would presume that Communist Cuba would establish large, mechanized, industrial farms like in Russia. Actually it is trying to develope organic, urban, low-tech plots to solve its alimentation problem. Some say that Cuban advisors ruined Angola's agriculture. I think the emigration of Portuguese farmers also helped to ruin it. Now many are coming back.
During the Peak Oil craze a few years ago I read an article on how Cuba coped with the fall of the Soviet Union. According to the article Cuba was receiving discounted oil from the Soviet Union, a supply which dried up after 1990. Cuba has had to turn to organic ag because the Cuban state cannot afford pesticides, tractors, fuel, or any other modern farm equipment.
But then you were probably referring to Cuba's loss of foreign aid when you mentioned alimentation.
South African farmers will also go there en masse when the SA Govt starts to expropriate their land in a big way, to re-distribute to "the people", copying the highly successful model in Zimbabwe.
Anon.
They should go now, when good undeveloped land is very cheap. The Angolans are a hardworking people, easy to get on with.
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