What a week of contrasts I have experienced!
Last weekend I was in Vidago, as I tell in the previous post, sharing time and ideas with great Spanish and Portuguese economic and opinion leaders.
On early Sunday morning I flew to Luandacapital of Angolawhere I have been working all week. I arrived yesterday back in Madrid, first thing in the morning. Angola is one of the countries where you can see the Pocoyo on TV. In fact, several of the people I was with, from very different levels, knew Pocoyo perfectly well and their children were or had been great lovers of him, of Elly or Duck.
I come back completely impressed by the energy, strength and growth that can be felt in every corner of the city and in the conversations held with each of the people I had the opportunity to meet and talk to: government ministers, politicians, diplomats and businessmen, both local and foreign.
Undoubtedly, it is a country with a more than promising future, which is emerging from a war situation that lasted many years. And it is doing so with a strength and enthusiasm that is really exciting and contagious.
This week the country's schools were closed for vacations. The streets of Luanda were a hive of young people and children. The sidewalks and the land that could be seen with a little free space, were centers of games and many of them of soccer, with the children wearing in many cases Real Madrid and Barsa jerseys. The tours around the city that we have taken have allowed me to understand what the population pyramid in Angola is like. Completely opposite to the one we have in Spain, which is a very clear and evident indication of where the future of Spain is going and where the future of Angola is going.
In Europe we will have to worry about who will take care of and pay for all those who are reaching retirement. In Angola the strength and the number is in its young people. And from what I have been able to talk about, the Government of the country is concerned about its young people, it seeks to give them outlets and opportunities. Many of which they themselves could not have had. And it is concerned that the future is better and better for the next generations.
Undoubtedly, there is still a great deal to be done in Angola and conditions are different from those in Europe, but the enthusiasm of the government, entrepreneurs and young people for the country's growth is enormously attractive.
I have not had the opportunity to know more than Luanda, but I have been talking to people who live and work outside Luanda, in different cities and in the interior of the country. All of them have told me about the difficulties and inconveniences they have to face every day, which are many, but all of them have also told me and transmitted the same illusion that can be felt in the streets.
I was looking at some pictures of Luanda on the internet, with the idea of being able to post some pictures of what you see from the car when you come back at night from what they call The Island, an arm of land that closes the bay of Luanda with beaches on one side facing the ocean and on the other side facing the bay. When you look at it, you might think you are in Miami or Hong Kong. But all the photos I have seen are missing at least five or six towers that are already built and not shown. From the Hotel we were in, I counted seven more towers under construction. It is certainly worth a visit and to consider developing some professional activity in the country. The future in Angola seems to be turning into the present with great speed.
It is a market full of opportunities and with many entrepreneurs and businessmen working. With a market that is developing fast, with more than 20 million people and with important natural resources that are helping progress to become a reality. There are also very good websites that give information about Angola and teach photos that give an idea of what I am saying.
Well, you arrive with this strength and with this illusion insufflated back to Spain, you start to read a little Spanish press and your soul falls again at your feet. Our society is really in a deep decadence.
On the one hand, the Government's mistake in raising taxes and the failure to achieve the objective of raising more money: they have managed to paralyze the economy even more and, on top of that, they raise less money. On the other hand, an interesting interview with Saskia Sassen, Prince of Asturias Award, in which she talks about how it has been an abuse The different governments, saving banks and autonomous communities while citizens are increasingly being asked for more and given less and less. Philip Coggan, editor-in-chief at The Economistthat tells us that it will be completely impossible to pay the debt. And it makes your hair stand on end to read the interview in El País to Gary Kasparov, in which he talks about how he believes that in two or three years the situation in the country will be better. Russia will be blown upIf this happens, it will undoubtedly infect Europe. The Germans, in their determination to criticize the rest of the European partners, saying that austerity should be even greater. Y El Mundo talking about the 1,600 cases of corruption open in the Courts and how each time the world is more suspicious of Spain than of any other country..
I am in love with Spain, but every day they make it more difficult for us to work. May God help us.