Swimming for the children of Angola

My so-called geography project has two goals: One, to help me (and via this blog, all you wonderful readers) learn, month by month and country by country, about the many peoples of this world. Two, as I learn of a country and its peoples, it will become no longer just a word on a map, a geographic stranger, but rather, a friend.

So when I read this blip about an Illinois pastor swimming the English Channel on behalf of a school in Angola, it meant a little something to me, because Angola means a little something to me,now.

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September 20, 2009
Illinois Pastor Swims English Channel for Charity
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:28 p.m. ET

ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) -- Twenty-one miles and nearly 14 hours later, a northern Illinois pastor has fulfilled his goal of swimming the English Channel to raise money for a school in Africa.

It took the Rev. Mike Solberg 13 hours and 31 minutes to swim from Samphire Hoe, England, to Wissant, France, on Saturday.

Solberg is senior pastor of Second Congregational Church in Rockford.

His goal is to raise $50,000 to build a school in Waku Kungo, Angola. So far, he's raised more than $30,000.

Solberg wrote on his blog after his swim that the first five hours were good, followed by four hours that were not.

Overall, he says, ''it was a great experience.''

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On the Net:

www.swimmikeswim.com

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Information from: Rockford Register Star, http://www.rrstar.com


Copyright 2009 The Associated Press

Angola, continued

Angolans love seafood and they love their food spicy. I like that!

From wikicookbook: After decades of civil war, Angola is picking up the pieces and rebuilding the country. Because few years have passed from the end of the civil war, there isn’t yet any important food festival celebrated here. Because of the famine that is still haunting most of the country, food traditions are rarely celebrated. One of the most loved festivals is Island Party which is celebrated for two days in November. The purpose of this celebration is to protect the Isle of Luanda from sinking and people from drowning. People throw fruits or even cooked dishes in the water and offer prayers.

One of the best known Angolan desserts, cocada amarela shows the extent to which the Angolan chefs have taken the art of cooking in their quest for a flavour that combines the traditional African ingredients with the European taste. The main ingredients of this dish are cloves, Sugar, coconut, egg yolks and cinnamon.

Unfortunately, due to the conflicts and wars that Angola has gone through, there are not many Angolan chefs. However, other chefs around the world got inspired by the Angolan cuisine and began expanding it and familiarizing the public with the wonderful flavoured Angolan dishes.

The typical Angolan meal consists of a starchy food such as rice, yams or flour cooked into porridge. When a meal consists of meat, the tradition requires that the men and the elderly receive the biggest portions. The men in the Angolan families make beer from honey and from such grains as maize or millet. They also make wine from the sap of certain kinds of palm trees. Usually, in most ethnic groups in the Angolan society, it is considered very impolite to refuse the food that is offered to you. This is considered a sign of disrespect. The tradition requires that the women are the ones who cook all the food and the men in charge with providing the beverages for the meal.

Cocada amerela recipe (from www.celtnet.org):

Cocada Amarela
(Yellow Coconut Pudding)
Origin: Angola Period: Traditional

180g sugar
700ml water
2 whole cloves
1/2 coconut
6 egg yolks
ground cinnamon

Method:
Cut the coconut into easily manageable pieces and finely grate half of them. Combine this with the sugar, water and cloves and place in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Once it boils continue to cook until the mixture reaches 230°C as measured on a confectioner's thermometer then remove from the heat.

Beat the egg yolks until they thicken then add 120ml of the coconut syrup and stir together. Pour this mixture into the saucepan and stir to combine. Return to the heat and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the pudding thickens enough to pull away from the sides and base of the pan. Allow the custard to cool, spoon into serving dishes then sprinkle with ground cinnamon and serve.

New month, new nation, Angola

I spent the evening tying up the asparagus stalks outside. The neighbor's little black Scottie dog came over to keep me company.

May has arrived. It's time for me to learn about a new country. Angola is my subject for this month -- an African nation on the west coast of that continent. At 481,350 square miles, it's no speck like Andorra -- it's twice the size of Texas.

The name derives from an African word for king, ngola.

This vast country is mostly a great plateau, with a healthful and refreshing climate. The nation is also blessed -- or perhaps cursed -- with huge oil reserves, only recently tapped, and predictably not being shared with most of the population.

The people are Bantu, linguistically. Most are Christian. And Portugal was the nation's colonial ruler until the 1970s.

So that's the place in a nutshell. It will be a challenge to dig deeper, to learn about this country which is not only very different culturally from my own experience, but which is also largely off the world's radar screen. Who are their heroes? What are their special dishes, their authors, their cherished holidays?