Holiday Party in Luanda

Christmas comes at summer time in Luanda like all other places in the southern hemisphere. We had our company’s first ever Christmas Party in Luanda Saturday night. It was at the Avalade Hotel. Several buildings in the area were illuminated with Christmas lights. Some streets had Christmas lights hanging from the lamp posts. Everything was set up at Avalade hotel for our party like at any other big hotel. There was even an upright piano in where the dinner tables were set up. Around eighty people showed up. The Angolan employees trickled in with their spouse, fiancé, boy friend, girl friend following usual Angolan practice i.e. not on time. They were dressed beautifully. People talked, hugged and kissed, cameras flashed, wine was served, and I think everyone had a good time. Food was good. Then a few people, as recommended by me, were recognized by our Company President who had arrived Saturday morning from Houston. It made everyone happy to see when Quintas (with his Sister in the picture) was recognized for the “Most significant contribution to multi-cultural understanding”. Quintas does everything for everyone with a smile and we probably won’t function very well without him. It was not a very good day for Quintas as his wife’s uncle died yesterday morning at 42. Quintas still came to fulfil his duty and he was pleasantly surprised by this recognition. I am sure his wife would have been proud to see him receive the certificate.

Jamie Bulger Story

Living in a so called civilized but violent world I thought I had heard or seen enough of horror stories. Most of the villains in these stories were adults with twisted minds. However, I never knew of a case until this morning where a child was brutally murdered by young boys who were fairly aware of their wrong doing. This morning through an email from an expat colleague I came to know of the horrible ending of a two-year old boy named Jamie Bulger in the UK. Two 10-year old boys, Jon Venables and his friend Robert Thompson, had abducted Jamie Bulger on February 12, 1993 from a mall (who momentarily got away from his mother) and made Jamie walk for over 2 and a half miles, along the way stopping every now and again to torture the poor little boy. Finally they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes, cut his fingers off with scissors and did other horrendous things to him. They then left his beaten small body on railway tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created. These two boys understood what they did was wrong, hence trying to make it look like an accident.

This week apparently Lady Justice Butler-Sloss has awarded the two boys (now men), anonymity for the rest of their lives when they leave custody with new identities. They will also leave custody early only serving just over half of their sentence. They are being relocated to Australia to live out the rest of their lives. They disgustingly and violently took Jamie's life away and in return they each get a new life! People in the UK are, I suppose justifiably, upset with the decision.