{"id":2871,"date":"2016-11-22T15:14:52","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T15:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/?p=2871"},"modified":"2016-11-30T19:43:29","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T19:43:29","slug":"africa-again-why-angola-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/2016\/11\/22\/africa-again-why-angola-day-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa Again? Why? &#8211; Angola Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/11\/entrance.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2872\" src=\"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/11\/entrance.jpg\" alt=\"entrance\" width=\"530\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/11\/entrance.jpg 530w, https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/11\/entrance-300x218.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why do you keep going back to Angola? The visa is almost unobtainable, the journey brutal and expensive, and working conditions backwards at best. What&#8217;s more, they don&#8217;t pay you. In fact, you pay for the privilege of sweating it out!&#8221; After two year living in Angola and thirteen annual visits, such questions and protests are regular.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In response I could cite facts: Angola is among the world&#8217;s ten poorest nations. Life expectancy is only about 44, making grandparent-grandchild relations the exception. Angola is also just emerging from a full 42 years of war. But such facts rarely impress.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What <em>does<\/em> both motive my soul and convince my detractors is the accounts of my relationships with Angolan people: the military officer&#8217;s reassurance that his men were protecting me; the patient who lost his leg and was nevertheless grateful for his life; the blind woman who&#8217;s cataract surgery failed but who&#8217;s spirit remained buoyant. These are the most compelling reasons I&#8217;m in Africa again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &#8220;Why do you keep going back to Angola? The visa is almost unobtainable, the journey brutal and expensive, and working conditions backwards at best. What&#8217;s more, they don&#8217;t pay you. In fact, you pay for the privilege of sweating it out!&#8221; After two year living in Angola and thirteen annual visits, such questions and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-angola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}