Angola, Aprile 2023
I am lucky guy.
My CV on the road includes an assortment of near-misses, sketchy stories featuring close encounters with lions and lionesses, snakes and shipwrecks, riots and bombings, car crashes, curfews and cartoneros. Plus a handful of arrests. Several times I thought 'This is it', but somehow I was fortunate enough to be able to get out of troubles and even laugh out loud at them. Later on.
.
Issues became so inherently part of travelling that if I don't face any, it feels like a different experience. Not just to me, as the most common question I ear is: 'Was your life ever at stake?' The answer is positive, but thus far saving my life never implied fighting for it.
.
Which was odd, considering how often I found myself in a vulnerable position. So much so that I always questioned the fine line between chance and coincidence, between the ability to sniff the danger and stay away from it and a pure, simple, stroke of luck. Knowing it couldn't last, I had accepted something worse was going to happen. It had to happen. I didn't know where, how, when, what the consequence would be and how I was gonna react. Until a month ago, on April 6 2023, when I had some exhausting answers to those questions.
I was assaulted.
.
This time I was a bit unlucky, because a series of coincidences made me carry a significant amount of money and both passports, plus a series of items I didn't needed while walking around Benguela, the second largest city in Angola. But I was also lucky, because if I hadn't had those valuable on me, the perpetrators would have had to get away with something, whether my phone, my wallet, my kidneys or all the above.
.
I was unlucky, because for a series of circumstances (including Google Maps being probably drunk) I found myself in the wrong place. But again I was also lucky, as O Cabeça and Pai Diesel aren't men of their words. So they didn't actually kill me, even though they stated twice 'Te vou matar'. Which gave me probably the deepest ever 'This is it' feeling.
.
I was lucky because I managed to protect the most important items - my card, my phone and my life, not in this particular order - and the bruises were minor stuff. I am also lucky I because all I could treat the wounds with for 2 weeks was hand sanitiser, apparently the only available disinfectant in Angola. If I was a tennis player I would have probably skipped more than a few tournaments, but I am lucky because I am not, so Instead in a couple of days time I will be able to work at the Rome Master as reporter. Or however you can call what I do.
..
Issues became so inherently part of travelling that if I don't face any, it feels like a different experience. Not just to me, as the most common question I ear is: 'Was your life ever at stake?' The answer is positive, but thus far saving my life never implied fighting for it.
.
Which was odd, considering how often I found myself in a vulnerable position. So much so that I always questioned the fine line between chance and coincidence, between the ability to sniff the danger and stay away from it and a pure, simple, stroke of luck. Knowing it couldn't last, I had accepted something worse was going to happen. It had to happen. I didn't know where, how, when, what the consequence would be and how I was gonna react. Until a month ago, on April 6 2023, when I had some exhausting answers to those questions.
I was assaulted.
.
This time I was a bit unlucky, because a series of coincidences made me carry a significant amount of money and both passports, plus a series of items I didn't needed while walking around Benguela, the second largest city in Angola. But I was also lucky, because if I hadn't had those valuable on me, the perpetrators would have had to get away with something, whether my phone, my wallet, my kidneys or all the above.
.
I was unlucky, because for a series of circumstances (including Google Maps being probably drunk) I found myself in the wrong place. But again I was also lucky, as O Cabeça and Pai Diesel aren't men of their words. So they didn't actually kill me, even though they stated twice 'Te vou matar'. Which gave me probably the deepest ever 'This is it' feeling.
.
I was lucky because I managed to protect the most important items - my card, my phone and my life, not in this particular order - and the bruises were minor stuff. I am also lucky I because all I could treat the wounds with for 2 weeks was hand sanitiser, apparently the only available disinfectant in Angola. If I was a tennis player I would have probably skipped more than a few tournaments, but I am lucky because I am not, so Instead in a couple of days time I will be able to work at the Rome Master as reporter. Or however you can call what I do.
I was also extremely lucky because some of the absolutely generous and welcoming people I met in Angola helped me in every possible way in the following days offering food and shelter, rides, company and empathy. And I was lucky because both the Italian Embassy in Luanda and the Italian Consulate in Melbourne provided a great support and efficient service, so a brand new passport was delivered in a timely manner. The Australian Embassy in Rome instead will need a month to release a new document, but once again I am again a lucky gal, because this time I have time.
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