Goods are purchased from a passing vendor or by visiting an outdoor market. The streets are lined with people selling soda and beer, bread by the loaf, water in old bottles, gum and radios and whatever has recently come off a boat in the harbor. Electricity is available to buildings in the city center, but is not reliable. Neighborhood Schools Also in the dusty neighborhoods are churches, most of them United Methodist, or Roman Catholic, or independent. Part of our task in Angola was to visit a number of the United Methodist churches in the Luanda neighborhoods.
Most neighborhoods have no electricity, no water, and no sanitation.
Each church location is a small compound, serving as an oasis of space and cleanliness in a desert of meager housing and trash. It also contains a cement block school building with three to six classrooms, and a smaller room that serves as the medical clinic. The clinic cares for the children s health needs day to day, educates families in health care, and provides annual vaccinations. The school provides lunch each day to students from the neighborhood, and also includes breakfast for street children who attend. The church provides the schools, but the government helps pay for teachers and textbooks.