Essential Portuguese phrases

Umbundu is the language; Ovimbundu are the people who speak it. It is the largest African language in Angola — the 2014 census put it at 23% of the population against Portuguese's 71% — and Benguela sits at the coastal edge of its country. Getting the two words the right way round is a small thing that is noticed.

The seat of an Ovimbundu traditional authority — the court of a kingdom rather than a village. The Ovimbundu polities of the central highlands were the trading powers this coast was built to serve, and the word still carries that weight inland.

The Angolan dance and music that crossed the Atlantic and became samba, and the ancestor of kizomba at home. On this coast it is played at weddings and funerals alike, which tells you what it is for.

The cool, grey, misty dry season that runs roughly May to September on this coast — fog rolling off a cold sea rather than the tropical picture people arrive expecting. Angolans use it as a season name the way Europeans use 'winter', and on the Benguela coast it is the pleasant half of the year.

To work, with an edge of grind. 'Vou bumbar' is closer to 'off to graft' than to 'off to the office'.

House, home, place. You will hear it constantly in any conversation about renting.

Money. 'Não tenho kumbu' — I'm broke. Far commoner than 'dinheiro'.

The traditional authority of a village or a quarter, recognised alongside the formal administration. In rural Benguela the soba is a real interlocutor for anything involving land, and outside the city his agreement can matter as much as a municipal one.

An elder, or anyone senior enough to be owed deference, used as a title before a name. Age order structures who speaks first, here as everywhere in Angola.

A kid — and an adult behaving like one. The counterpart to kota.

A problem, an argument, trouble. 'Há maka' flags that something has gone wrong without naming it.

'We're together.' The Angolan sign-off, ending a call, a meeting or a message, and carrying an obligation rather than just warmth.

The coastal Sunday plate: grilled fish with beans in red palm oil, cassava, sweet potato and plantain, all arriving at once. Order it on the beach at Baía Azul and you have understood Benguela.

The staple porridge, eaten by hand and dipped. Cassava on the coast, maize on the highlands behind it — you are on the line where the two meet.

Chilli, and the sauce made from it that sits on the table. The heat is added by you, at the plate.