Saturday morning at work. This one is particularly difficult due to yesterday night party that finished ... well .... not so long ago. I am having a terrible time trying to pick up my calculations where I left them yesterday evening. Oh well! I am already well behind schedule on that due to ever changing requests. But this is work. Surely uninteresting!

I might have to wait later in the office though because I need to meet with a collegue that is set on a drive from Luanda (the capital city) to Lobito. This is a 650 km ride. A beautiful journey southbound along the coast, across breathtaking sceneries of a wild continent. Beautiful but slow and very dangerous. I will probably take some time describing this fantastic journey later. The drive usually takes between 9 and 12 hours depending on the season. He could have taken the plane instead of driving. But the air company refused to let his dog board the small B-200.

Dog might be man best friend, its status reaches the bottom in Angola. Interestingly, across the whole country all dogs look exactely the same. Just their greassy fur changes color and shade. But as odd as it might be they seem to descend from the same exact pair.

I remember reading sometime ago that african dogs genetic investigation revealed that they are actually the closest to the prehistoric ancestors of dogs. Well History is not in really good shape then. Broken ears, skin and bones, they slowy walk around keeping their heads low as if trying to escape the pounding sun.

Most of these dogs are desperately trying to feed off the garbage thrown into the streets. Whatever might have been left rotening for them has already been eaten by the hords of homeless - most of which are just war-dislocated farmers from the innerland who used to feed their all familly off the fields and are now hanging around the cities in search for found and shelter - or 'gangs' of 8-year old war-orphans - whose fate is among the darkest on Earth. The unbeleivable damage that the 27-year civil war has done to human is so deep that it even affected the animals. Angola is a beautiful country, but one must not forget it is also a bleeding gunshot on the African continent. One more.

I can't imagine how the Angolan crew and the fellow passengers must have felt when they saw this European desperately trying to get his dog on the plane. Then refusing to board without it and prefering to set on a 9-hour drive than leaving without it. A dog! And a fat one on top of that. Westerners surely are dog best friend !!