charleighfred's review against another edition
4.0
“When fear comes, sleep seldom can.” p? “I haven’t got enough time left to be bothered by anything.” p4 “The city was dying the way an oasis dies when the well runs dry” p10 “Why them?” p11 “the city was closed and sentenced to death.” p13 “paper is heavy.” p20 “After the exodus of dogs, the city fell into rigor mortis. So I decided to go to the front.” p26 “He is not hurting the enemy, he is killing his own terror.” p30 “if he’s white with a beard he must be somebody” p35 “Children know how to read more often than adults” p43 “In other words, they expressed a desire to live.” p48 “But can we change anything now, call it off, run the day backward?” p54 “it’s wrong to write about people without living through at least a little of what they are living through.” p56 “He greeted me with joy, as if I were a guest he had been expecting all along - and sent me at once to a near-certain death.” p57 “death’s account is always open.” p.70 “drove a herd of cockroaches out of the bed, and lay down to sleep.” p80 “dense tropical exhalation.” p82 “If Alberto were killed… Luanda would have to surrender” p98 “history teaches that crucial events cannot occur without bloodshed.” p100 “Nobody asks an armed man what he is doing.” p103 “we will return” p124
cjimemor's review against another edition
4.0
Creo que uno de los momentos que más me gustan son cuando Kapuściński comienza a comunicarse con Varsovia y cuenta todo lo que pasa al frente.
catarina_duarte's review against another edition
4.0
Um testemunho pungente e impressionante, com tanto de assustador como de caricato, que nos faz reflectir e entender melhor um pedaço "marginalizado" da nossa história recente!
chalicotherex's review
3.0
Highlights:
Great epigraph:
Despite a great many prayers to You we are continually losing our wars. Tomorrow we shall again be fighting a battle that is truly great. With all our might we need Your help and that is why I must tell You something: This battle tomorrow is going to be a serious affair. There will be no place for children. Therefore I must ask You not to send Your Son to help us. Come Yourself.
—the prayer of Koq, leader of the Griquas tribe, before a battle with the Afrikaners in 1876
The dogs of war:
They were pets, abandoned by owners fleeing in panic. You could see dogs of all the most expensive breeds, without masters—boxers, bulldogs, greyhounds, Dobermans, dachshunds, Airedales, spaniels, even Scotch terriers and Great Danes, pugs and poodles. Deserted, stray, they roamed in a great pack looking for food. As long as the Portuguese army was there, the dogs gathered every morning on the square in front of the general headquarters and the sentries fed them canned NATO rations. It was like watching an international pedigreed dog show. Afterward the fed, satisfied pack moved to the soft, juicy mowed grass on the lawn of the Government Palace. An unlikely mass sex orgy began, excited and indefatigable madness, chasing and tumbling to the point of utter abandon. It gave the bored sentries a lot of ribald amusement.
When the army left, the dogs began to go hungry and slim down. For a while they drifted around the city in a desultory mob, looking for a handout. One day they disappeared. I think they followed the human example and left Luanda, since I never came across a dead dog afterward, though hundreds of them had been loitering in front of the general headquarters and frolicking in front of the palace. One could suppose that an energetic leader emerged from the ranks to take the pack out of the dying city. If the dogs went north, they ran into the FNLA. If they went south, they ran into UNITA. On the other hand, if they went east, in the direction of Ndalatando and Saurimo, they might have made it into Zambia, then to Mozambique or even Tanzania.
Perhaps they’re still roaming, but I don’t know in what direction or in what country.
After the exodus of the dogs, the city fell into rigor mortis. So I decided to go to the front.
Angolan warfare:
Women at the front:
The Angolans mostly don't seize the property abandoned by the Portugese:
For the MPLA (The Soviet and Cuban backed faction), the war comes down to two people:
One of them is Ruiz, a congenial and lively Portuguese, the pilot of an old two-engine DC-3, the only plane that the MPLA has in Luanda. The machine was built in 1943; the motors spit gobs of soot, the wings are patched, the tires are bald, the fuselage is full of holes. Only Ruiz knows how to close the door, and it’s not easy for him. He flies this plane day and night; he is in the air around the clock. Ruiz flies to Brazzaville for ammunition, and then to a besieged city in the Angolan borderlands to drop off cartridge boxes and bags of flour and take the serious casualties back to Luanda. If Ruiz doesn’t arrive on time the cities will have to surrender and the wounded will die. In a sense, the fate of the war rests on his shoulders. Ruiz flies around Angola by memory because there are no air controllers; I don’t even know if his plane’s radio works. Often he himself doesn’t know who holds the airport where he is supposed to land. Yesterday it was still in our hands, but today it could belong to the enemy.
That’s why he first flies over the airport without landing. Sometimes he recognizes the silhouettes of his acquaintances, so he descends and lands peacefully. Sometimes, however, they start firing on the plane, in which case he turns back and delivers the bad news to Luanda. In this country without transport or communication, Ruiz knows what’s happening on the fronts and which cities belong to whom. He takes off at dawn, makes several trips a day, and returns at midnight. Starved soldiers in Luso, the dying garrison in Novo Redondo, and the cut-off defenders of Quibala are waiting for his plane. Now Luanda, which can’t hold out without ammunition, is waiting. The best place to find him is at the airport, when he is inspecting the motors early in the morning. Trouble with one of the motors could ground the plane and change the course of the war. There are no spare parts, no mechanics. And the plane is needed constantly. In a moment, Ruiz disappears into the cockpit. The propellers rotate, the plane is lost in thick, impenetrable clouds of black smoke and, thumping, rattling, grinding, the decrepit pile of scrap heaves toward takeoff.
The second person on whom everything depends now is Alberto Ribeiro, a short, heavyset thirty-year-old engineer. The northern front stretches near Luanda, along the Bengo River. On the banks of this river stands the pumping station that supplies water to Luanda. If the station is out of action, there is no water in the city. The enemy knows this and constantly bombards it. Sometimes they hit the pumps and they stop working. Luanda can take five days without water, no more. In the tropics people can stand the thirst no longer, and epidemics break out besides. The only person who can repair the pumps is Alberto. Thanks to him, the city has water from time to time; it can exist and defend itself. If Alberto were killed in an automobile accident on the way to the station or hit by a shell, The second person on whom everything depends now is Alberto Ribeiro, a short, heavyset thirty-year-old engineer. The northern front stretches near Luanda, along the Bengo River. On the banks of this river stands the pumping station that supplies water to Luanda. If the station is out of action, there is no water in the city. The enemy knows this and constantly bombards it. Sometimes they hit the pumps and they stop working. Luanda can take five days without water, no more. In the tropics people can stand the thirst no longer, and epidemics break out besides. The only person who can repair the pumps is Alberto. Thanks to him, the city has water from time to time; it can exist and defend itself. If Alberto were killed in an automobile accident on the way to the station or hit by a shell, Luanda would have to surrender after a few days.
Great epigraph:
Spoiler
O Lord!Despite a great many prayers to You we are continually losing our wars. Tomorrow we shall again be fighting a battle that is truly great. With all our might we need Your help and that is why I must tell You something: This battle tomorrow is going to be a serious affair. There will be no place for children. Therefore I must ask You not to send Your Son to help us. Come Yourself.
—the prayer of Koq, leader of the Griquas tribe, before a battle with the Afrikaners in 1876
The dogs of war:
Spoiler
The dogs were still alive.They were pets, abandoned by owners fleeing in panic. You could see dogs of all the most expensive breeds, without masters—boxers, bulldogs, greyhounds, Dobermans, dachshunds, Airedales, spaniels, even Scotch terriers and Great Danes, pugs and poodles. Deserted, stray, they roamed in a great pack looking for food. As long as the Portuguese army was there, the dogs gathered every morning on the square in front of the general headquarters and the sentries fed them canned NATO rations. It was like watching an international pedigreed dog show. Afterward the fed, satisfied pack moved to the soft, juicy mowed grass on the lawn of the Government Palace. An unlikely mass sex orgy began, excited and indefatigable madness, chasing and tumbling to the point of utter abandon. It gave the bored sentries a lot of ribald amusement.
When the army left, the dogs began to go hungry and slim down. For a while they drifted around the city in a desultory mob, looking for a handout. One day they disappeared. I think they followed the human example and left Luanda, since I never came across a dead dog afterward, though hundreds of them had been loitering in front of the general headquarters and frolicking in front of the palace. One could suppose that an energetic leader emerged from the ranks to take the pack out of the dying city. If the dogs went north, they ran into the FNLA. If they went south, they ran into UNITA. On the other hand, if they went east, in the direction of Ndalatando and Saurimo, they might have made it into Zambia, then to Mozambique or even Tanzania.
Perhaps they’re still roaming, but I don’t know in what direction or in what country.
After the exodus of the dogs, the city fell into rigor mortis. So I decided to go to the front.
Angolan warfare:
Spoiler
“In Europe,” he said, “they taught me that a front is trenches and barbed wire, which form a distinct and visible line. A front on a river, along a road, or from village to village. You can trace it on a map with a pencil or point to it on the terrain. But here the front is everywhere and nowhere. There is too much land and too few people for a front line to exist. This is a wild, unorganized world and it’s hard to come to terms with it. There is no water, because there is a lot of desert here. You can’t hold out for long where there are no springs, and it’s a long way between springs. Here where we’re standing, there is water, but the next water is a hundred kilometers away. Every unit holds on to its water, because otherwise it dies. If there are a hundred kilometers between water, that space is nobody’s and there’s nobody there. So the front doesn’t consist of a line here, but of points, and moving points at that. There are hundreds of fronts because there are hundreds of units. Every unit is a front, a potential front. If our unit runs into an enemy unit, those two potential fronts turn into real fronts. A battle occurs. We are a three-man potential front now, traveling northward. If we are ambushed, we become a real front. This is a war of ambushes. On any road, at any place, there can be a front. You can travel the whole country and come back alive, or you can die a meter from where you’re standing. There are no principles, no methods. Everything comes down to luck and happenstance. This war is a real mess. Nobody knows just where they stand.”Women at the front:
Spoiler
Carlotta came with an automatic on her shoulder. Even though she was wearing a commando uniform that was too big for her, you could tell she was attractive. We all started paying court to her immediately. In fact, it was Carlotta’s presence that persuaded the crew to forget about their houses outside Lisbon and travel to the front. Only twenty years old, Carlotta was already a legend. Two months earlier, during the uprising in Huambo, she had led a small MPLA detachment that was surrounded by a thousand-strong UNITA force. She managed to break the encirclement and lead her people out. Girls generally make excellent soldiers—better than boys, who sometimes behave hysterically and irresponsibly at the front. Our girl was a mulatto with an elusive charm and, as it seemed to us then, great beauty. Later, when I developed the pictures of her, the only pictures of Carlotta that remained, I saw that she wasn’t so beautiful. Yet nobody said as much out loud, so as not to destroy our myth, our image of Carlotta from that October afternoon in Benguela. I simply looked up Alberto, Carvalho, Fernandez, and Barbosa and showed them the pictures of Carlotta taken on the way to the front. They looked at them in silence and I think we all chose silence so we wouldn’t have to comment on the subject of good looks. Did it mean anything in the end? Carlotta was gone by then. She had received an order to report to the front staff, so she put on her uniform, combed out her Afro, slung the automatic over her shoulder, and left. When Comandante Monti, four Portuguese, and a Pole saw her in front of staff headquarters, she seemed beautiful. Why? Because that was the kind of mood we were in, because we needed it, because we wanted it that way. We always create the beauty of women, and that day we created Carlotta’s beauty. I can’t explain it any other way.The Angolans mostly don't seize the property abandoned by the Portugese:
Spoiler
Benguela: a sleepy, almost depopulated city slumbering in the shade of acacias, palms, and kipersols. The villa neighborhoods are empty, the houses locked up and drowned in flowers. Indescribable residential luxury, a dizzying excess of floor space and, in the streets before the gates, orphaned cars—Chevrolets and Alfa Romeos and Jaguars, probably in running order although nobody tries to drive them. And nearby, a hundred meters away, the desert—white and glimmering like a salt spill, without a blade of grass, without a single tree, beyond redemption. In this desert lie African settlements stuck together lackadaisically with clay and dung, hammered out of plywood and tin, swarming, stuffy, and miserable. Although the two worlds—comfort and poverty—stand only steps apart and no one is guarding the rich European neighborhood, the blacks from the clay huts haven’t tried to move in. The idea hasn’t crossed their minds. This might be the best explanation of their passive attitude. Because moral scruples don’t come into play here, nor a fear that the whites will return and avenge themselves. These considerations might have been weighed, had they been tempted to take over the white quarters. But in these people’s lives, the degree of consciousness that drives one to demand justice or do something about obtaining it hasn’t yet been reached. Only those Africans who have acquired a university education, who have learned to read, got out into the world, and seen films—only they understand that decolonization has created a chance for rapid material advancement, for accumulating wealth and privileges. And taking advantage of the chance has come easily to them precisely because their less enlightened brothers—who are a dime a dozen—demand nothing for themselves, accepting their clay hut and bowl of manioc as the only world they will ever know or desire.For the MPLA (The Soviet and Cuban backed faction), the war comes down to two people:
Spoiler
Overseas they don’t know that it all comes down to two people here.One of them is Ruiz, a congenial and lively Portuguese, the pilot of an old two-engine DC-3, the only plane that the MPLA has in Luanda. The machine was built in 1943; the motors spit gobs of soot, the wings are patched, the tires are bald, the fuselage is full of holes. Only Ruiz knows how to close the door, and it’s not easy for him. He flies this plane day and night; he is in the air around the clock. Ruiz flies to Brazzaville for ammunition, and then to a besieged city in the Angolan borderlands to drop off cartridge boxes and bags of flour and take the serious casualties back to Luanda. If Ruiz doesn’t arrive on time the cities will have to surrender and the wounded will die. In a sense, the fate of the war rests on his shoulders. Ruiz flies around Angola by memory because there are no air controllers; I don’t even know if his plane’s radio works. Often he himself doesn’t know who holds the airport where he is supposed to land. Yesterday it was still in our hands, but today it could belong to the enemy.
That’s why he first flies over the airport without landing. Sometimes he recognizes the silhouettes of his acquaintances, so he descends and lands peacefully. Sometimes, however, they start firing on the plane, in which case he turns back and delivers the bad news to Luanda. In this country without transport or communication, Ruiz knows what’s happening on the fronts and which cities belong to whom. He takes off at dawn, makes several trips a day, and returns at midnight. Starved soldiers in Luso, the dying garrison in Novo Redondo, and the cut-off defenders of Quibala are waiting for his plane. Now Luanda, which can’t hold out without ammunition, is waiting. The best place to find him is at the airport, when he is inspecting the motors early in the morning. Trouble with one of the motors could ground the plane and change the course of the war. There are no spare parts, no mechanics. And the plane is needed constantly. In a moment, Ruiz disappears into the cockpit. The propellers rotate, the plane is lost in thick, impenetrable clouds of black smoke and, thumping, rattling, grinding, the decrepit pile of scrap heaves toward takeoff.
The second person on whom everything depends now is Alberto Ribeiro, a short, heavyset thirty-year-old engineer. The northern front stretches near Luanda, along the Bengo River. On the banks of this river stands the pumping station that supplies water to Luanda. If the station is out of action, there is no water in the city. The enemy knows this and constantly bombards it. Sometimes they hit the pumps and they stop working. Luanda can take five days without water, no more. In the tropics people can stand the thirst no longer, and epidemics break out besides. The only person who can repair the pumps is Alberto. Thanks to him, the city has water from time to time; it can exist and defend itself. If Alberto were killed in an automobile accident on the way to the station or hit by a shell, The second person on whom everything depends now is Alberto Ribeiro, a short, heavyset thirty-year-old engineer. The northern front stretches near Luanda, along the Bengo River. On the banks of this river stands the pumping station that supplies water to Luanda. If the station is out of action, there is no water in the city. The enemy knows this and constantly bombards it. Sometimes they hit the pumps and they stop working. Luanda can take five days without water, no more. In the tropics people can stand the thirst no longer, and epidemics break out besides. The only person who can repair the pumps is Alberto. Thanks to him, the city has water from time to time; it can exist and defend itself. If Alberto were killed in an automobile accident on the way to the station or hit by a shell, Luanda would have to surrender after a few days.
Spoiler
All our enemies feed on the backwardness of the people, he says, and pay handsomely to keep the tribal wars going without end. They bought Holden Roberto so he’d create the FNLA from the Bakonga. They bought Savimbi to create UNITA from the Ovimbundi. We have a hundred tribes and must build one nation out of them. How long will it take? Nobody knows. We have to wean the people from hatred. We have to introduce the custom of shaking hands.
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