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Living in Angola (Luanda)

Hi guys, my husband was just offered a senior management position in Luanda for a French oil and gas company. We are almost in our 6th year in Paris (also expats with the same company) and although I knew our time here was coming to an end, I was not expecting Angola to be one of our future destinations. We are originally from Argentina, I have a senior position in marketing working for an american fast food company (with no presence in Africa) and we both speak fluent English, French, Portuguese and obviously Spanish. We are one of this "unusual" families of 2 guys who have 2 seven months old daughters, so I would like to shoot you some questions which are a bit away of the typical "how dangerous is to walk in the city at night?" or "how bad is the traffic?", I did my homework and I know those answers already...so here I go:

1- on a scale from 1 to 10 how difficult do you think it would be for me to find a job in Luanda (provided that the company will take care of my work permit)? If impossible, is there any room to do any independent consulting?

2- on the same scale, how open would the country's mentality be to our family? (we are very low profile but after not too long it will be obvious to everyone that there are two guys living in the same place with two babies who call them both "Dad" and two golden retrievers running around...).
3- how safe would be to take 2 babies to live there?
4- would you recommend to send our furniture and personal things back to Argentina and accept the company's ready to live in house or is it safe to move with our things straight from France with a minimal danger of having the container opened and have everything stolen in the port?
5- Besides Ilha, what other week-end get aways do you have in Luanda/Angola?

We've been offered a relocation service with a multicultural training session before we make a final decision on the position, but to have your invaluable point of view, feedback and experiences (if at all possible) would also help a lot in the process

Thanks in advance!
Chris

Luanda Forum

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