I watched Brother Liang embroider his cross stitch by stitch, he was really able to calm down, and then I found that people who can stay in Angola for a long time are quite homely, don't need any social interaction, and can find something for themselves to do.
At 5 p.m., Manager Wang came to the door of our dormitory and said to me: Chao'er, go out with me.
I got up and asked, "Why are we going?" Do I want to bring my passport?
Manager Wang said: In the nearby village, let's buy a sheep and pick up the wind for you.
I quickly said: No, no, they are all their own people, no need to break the fee.
Brother Liang said: Go buy it, the tradition of our project department is that new colleagues come to the scene, buy a sheep to eat, and celebrate.
Manager Wang and I drove to buy sheep, and Brother Shi stayed alone in the camp to watch over the house.
Banana trees in the camp
In a nearby village, it would take 10 kilometers to drive, and Manager Wang said that he had built the camp in its current location in order to keep a distance from the locals, so that the locals could not just hang around and come over. Otherwise, after the project really starts, there will be many people with miscellaneous hands, how many things will be lost, and there will be many locals to harass.
What happened afterwards proved that Manager Wang was prescient in choosing the camp location. The camp is far from the locals and avoids many things.
The locals in the nearby village saw our car and a group of children came around and asked me to take pictures of them.
The people of the outer provinces of Angola live in lower conditions than those in the capital, Luanda.
More than a dozen children, can afford to wear shoes are a minority.
The children surrounded me and shouted "Amigo, Amigo" (Chinese: friend), and when the child shouted loudly, I turned my head to look at him, and the child saw that I reacted because of him, and he was even more excited and louder and called "Amigo, me chama", he meant, let me also call him "friend".
Manager Wang looked at me and smiled, and he said: The children on Malange's side are very interesting, so let's take one back to China.
I said: Haha, forget it, the explanation is not clear, it is easy to cause misunderstanding. But the provinces are indeed safer than the capital.
Manager Wang said: Yes, let's hang out in this village, it's okay, if it's in Luanda, we don't even dare to get off the car.
I said: Yeah, it's good here, there's a sense of security.
I said to the older children around me: I want to buy a sheep, please call the owner of the sheep, can you?
The older kid said: No problem.
After a while, an Angolan drove a flock of sheep and dressed them in front of us.
The sheep in Angola are not very large, and they are basically goats.
I asked the sheep lord: Hello, how much is this sheep?
The sheep lord said: 6000 kuanza.
Manager Wang said: 5000 kuanza will be bought.
The sheep lord nodded in agreement, handing over the money in one hand and the sheep in the other.
As a result, we bought a goat for 5,000 kwanzas, about 20 pounds, and bought this fresh animal in Angola, on the basis of only buying, never according to weight.
At that time, 5,000 kuanza was equivalent to 200 yuan, which was much cheaper than domestic sheep.
Back at the camp, while the Angora worker in the yard was not yet off work, let him kill the sheep, the skin, the head, the hooves, the internal organs, all left to the small workers, we just need to clean the meat and lamb chops.
Manager Wang began to cook the lamb, you can see that he is very skilled in dividing the lamb, he cut the lamb into mahjong card-sized squares, the lamb chops slightly cut everything, they went down together, put some ginger slices, put nothing else, covered the pot.
Brother Liang, a native of Shanghai, stewed rice, then cut a piece of leg of lamb and fried it with onions.
The lamb was stewed for about half an hour, and Manager Wang asked me to set the table and prepare for dinner, and he used a sharp knife to fork a piece of thumb-sized lamb in the pot, put it in his own bowl, dipped the lamb in salt, and put the lamb in his mouth in one bite.
While chewing the lamb, he said: The lamb in this place is very tender, you try, we don't have leek flowers, we can only eat it with salt, in fact, dipping leek flowers to eat is great.
As he spoke, he took up the wine glass, one or two cups, 50 degrees of liquor full, Manager Wang leaned back on his neck and dried.
I also ate a piece of lamb, dried a glass of wine, and said: Manager Wang, let's drink slowly.
Manager Wang said: Ok, the first cup has to be dry, and then it will be casual.
Brother Liang was still frying his shallots and fried lamb, and I told him to hurry up and eat it. He joined us with great interest, holding the sautéed lamb in one hand, the bowl of rice in the other hand, and his chopsticks in his mouth.
I tasted his fried lamb and it was delicious.
Brother Liang said: In fact, Shanghainese rarely eat mutton, let alone eat onions, I have been mixing with you northerners for many years, and I also love to eat mutton now.
I asked: So what do you eat when you're at home?
Brother Liang said: Fish eat more, burn fish, cook some small dishes, rice is a must.
I asked Manager Wang: Where are you from?
Manager Wang said: My hometown in Inner Mongolia, later became a soldier, retired from the army, stayed in Beijing to work, and my family fell in Beijing, which was all in the 1980s.
I said, "No wonder your lamb stew is so delicious." The Inner Mongolian people's understanding of mutton is much deeper than that of people in other provinces.
Manager Wang said: You remember, the best lamb, is fresh lamb, thrown in a pot of boiling water for 15 minutes to eat, that is the most delicious lamb. Put the peppercorns with soy sauce and vinegar, that is not the original taste of the meat. The heavy seasoning of red braised lamb is because of the lamb, and the seasoning is used to cover the taste of the lamb.
He said it for 10 years, and I still remember it.
I now stew the lamb at home, blanch the water to skim off the blood foam, I blanch for an extra 10 minutes, I put a few pieces of lamb without seasonings in the bowl to eat by myself, the rest of the lamb in the pot, I then put the pepper onion ginger garlic to continue to stew for the family to eat.
No way, the family can't accept the idea that lamb can be eaten after 15 minutes of cooking.
In fact, Manager Wang's method of stewing lamb in that year was equivalent to lamb chop hot pot, but there was no hot pot base and clear soup pot bottom.
After eating and drinking, it was not yet 8 p.m., and I couldn't go out of the yard, so I just walked in the yard.
Since there was no municipal electricity, we opened a small generator and it was not too noisy.
Manager Wang took a walk and went back to his dormitory, and Brother Liang also returned to the dormitory, and sat down on the bed and began to embroider his cross stitch.
I asked him: Do we have anything else to do at night?
Brother Liang said: During the day is fine, at night it is even more fine, you watch THE TV series, you will take a bath and sleep, and turn off the generator at 10 o'clock.
I said: Do you want to get up at night, walk around the camp twice with a flashlight, and make a tour.
Brother Liang said: No, after a while the generator will be turned off, there is a silence around, that is, the African wilderness in the animal world, not to mention people, ghosts do not come to one.
I said, "Well, should we find a security company and send a few security guards to guard the camp?"
Liang Shige said: This matter is on the agenda, but the project manager did not show up, Lao Wang himself made the decision, he was worried that the project manager came back, not satisfied with the security company he found, and blamed him.
I said, "Yes, then I'll go out on the street tomorrow and buy a few machetes and put them in our house, in case someone robs the camp?" We have to have a scared guy in our hands."
Brother Liang looked at me and said, "Okay, let's go, tomorrow I'll take you into the city for a walk, and let Lao Wang stay at home and look at the yard." Besides, you really came to rob the camp, what do you have? What are you afraid of losing?
I said, "I don't have anything, I just have a cell phone and a laptop."
Brother Liang said: Yes, what he wants you to give, don't you get it, the TV in the camp, the gas stove, the seat bench, are all public, love to rob anything, robbed just let's change it, how good.
While we were chatting, the generator was turned off by Manager Wang, the room was pitch black, and after a minute or two, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I looked out the window, and the night sky outside the window seemed to be brighter than in the house.
In such a quiet atmosphere, I also heard all kinds of unknown insects chirping in the grass outside the window.
I was lying on the bed thinking about whether there were curtains by the dormitory window, and if so, whether to close the curtains or not, Brother Liang's purr had already sounded.