M'banza Kongo

Which is where el V is currently.  And happy as a clam in whatever clams are happy in!  Its air is clean, it's in the mountains, he's working with a great scholar at the Kongo Kingdom Museum there -- it's everything he dreamed it would be, but better.

It is also bare bones, i.e. not easy.  He's only the second scholar to ever go there, second after BM, who has been coming for years, who has walked all of Angola starting with the war when South Africa attempted to annex Angola for its own apartheid exploitation. Fortunately, this is an area where there are few if any land mines. BM really knows this country. So much is being lost, and will be gone forever within 3 or 4 years, when these seniors who are still playing instruments that people elsewhere have no idea exist.

These google images give a sense of where it is and what it is like.

Here's some history of the region.

I cannot post photos as he's currently sans a computer and connection.  We are still able to skype daily, at the very least.