Word: luanda
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...When the Portuguese left in 1975," sighed a resident of the capital of Luanda, "they didn't go gracefully." Indeed, the exodus of some 350,000 Portuguese after independence stripped the country of its only trained personnel and plunged it deeply into civil war. Today the signs of that hasty evacuation are written into Luanda's decay...
With its pastel-colored stucco buildings, palm-lined harbor and sandy beaches, this city nestled in gentle foothills on the Atlantic Coast used to be known as the Rio de Janeiro of Africa. Now, in most respects, Luanda is a ghost of its former self. In the once thriving downtown, at least two-thirds of the stores have closed. Merchants, unable to purchase supplies, have boarded their doors. The few shops that remain open display almost their entire stock in the front window. Prices are inflated: in one showcase, a pair of secondhand children's trousers was marked...
After independence, the population of Luanda more than doubled to 1 million as tribesmen flooded the capital in search of work. In the squalid shantytowns of wooden clapboard, sheet metal and clay adobe that ring the capital, barefoot children share the streets with squealing piglets, chickens and goats. Conditions in the bleak ten-story apartment houses in town are not much better: in front of one building, women and children draw runoff water from an enormous pothole in the street...
Less conspicuous than the many vestiges of Portuguese colonialism are Cuba's forces, which Western officials estimate include between 21,000 and 22,000 troops and 5,000 civilians. Some are stationed on the outskirts of Luanda, where their presence is unmistakable. Oversize portraits of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara decorate the perimeter of their barracks near the airport on the eastern edge of Luanda. In addition to troops, the Cubans provide hundreds of doctors, teachers and administrators who help train civilian Angolans...
...failure of Marxist ideology to solve Angola's economic ills has led the pragmatic Dos Santos to quietly encourage Western investment. Luanda's port is one of the few efficiently run enterprises, and the government is now seeking $40 million to $50 million from Western banks to finance an expansion project. Relations with U.S.-based Gulf Oil Corp., which operates three offshore rigs and plans to open a fourth, are also surprisingly cordial. "The government here is hardly ideological," says an American oil-industry representative. "After all, they turn to [U.S. consulting firm] Arthur D. Little when they...