Angola: On the Road to Pedras Negras
Pedras Negras aka Black Rocks is a geological formation deep in the heart of Angola. Few tourists get here and the potholed road makes it often impassable. But the slow going makes it for great people watching. This is hundreds of kilometers away from the capital of Luanda and life here is very simple and primitive, wrecked by years and years of brutal civil war. No electricity, no sanitation, no jobs – people survive at subsistence level of growing produce and making and selling charcoal, taking occasional baths in rivers,catching rain water, and living on a mostly grain diet. No TV or internet and consequently there are a lot of children, often over 10, in each family. Huts are simple square mudbrick constructions with thatched roof. But everybody has a cellphone!
