Monday morning. The only truck going east to Huambo is huge and will only leave when full. This turns out to happen around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The road follows the Benguela railway, build in the beginning of the 20th century to transport copper from the Belgian Congo and Northern Rodesia to the Atlantic port of Lobito. In Ganda, Chinese construction workers are redevelopping the railroad, which for now only runs every two days between Lobito and Cubal. For the first timethere are traces of heavy fighting, whole stretches of the soft shoulder are marked as minefields, wrecked train carriages and abandoned tanks can be seen in the distance. The power line following the road, nothing more than a dusty piste, is destroyed, a ready explanation for the evening noise of the diesel generators back in Cubal. When the truck arrives around 5 o’clock in Ukuma, most of the passengers have left, only two people want to make their way to Huambo, not enough to continue the trip.