Despite the stress of war, the Cuban community in Angola has maintained some traditions from home. In October, near the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, ''cooperantes,'' as the Cuban civilians are called, participated in Red Sunday, a day of voluntary labor for the state. Earlier in the month, children from the Cuban kindergarten in Luanda had journeyed to the sea to throw flowers on the water, part of an annual Cuban ritual recalling the memory of an early revolutionary, Camilo Cienfuegos.

Day-to-day relations between Angolans and Cubans are not always strife-free. Few Cubans bother to learn Portuguese, speaking instead in ''portunhol'' a salad of both languages. Many Angolans are resentful that their country has become dependent on a new group of foreigners so soon after throwing off 500 years of Portuguese colonialism. But despite the fact that the country's road, sewer, water and telephone systems have decayed sharply since 1975, many Angolans say that the Cubans have improved the quality of life in Angola. ''The Cubans sent us doctors and teachers after independence,'' said one Angolan woman who works for Sonangol, the state oil company. ''The Americans didn't send us anything.''

In contrast to the Cubans, the Russians in Angola are poor mixers. On the Ilha de Luanda, a stretch of sand fills up each weekend with a group of Russians. Toting an AK-47, one swimsuit-clad Russian patrols the beach, ostensibly to guard against thieves. As a result, Angolan bathers steer clear of the ''Russian beach.'' One recent morning, as an Antonov-26 droned overhead, a Russian military adviser, his slavic face ruddy and creased from the tropical sun, talked guardedly in Russian about his assignment to Angola. A native of Moscow, he came here two years ago with his wife. No, he had not learned Portuguese - there were always translators wherever he went. Meetings with Cuban, Angolan and East German comrades were usually conducted in Russian because the East Germans had not learned Portuguese, either.

When asked if Angola was Russia's Vietnam, he laughed and replied: ''No, the Russians aren't doing the fighting here.''

Despite the Angolan commitment to pure Marxist ideology, the oft-drawn caricature of the Angolans as puppets of their Cuban and Soviet masterminds does not entirely square with the facts. Aid has won the Cubans considerable influence in Angola, but not control. When Angolan authorities detained a group of American reporters who had photographed bomb damage at Cabinda airport, thought to be the work of Unita guerrillas, the Cuban officer chaperoning the group was unable to win its release. Relief came four hours later when the provincial commissar, an Angolan, was found; he ruled in the group's favor.

In another incident, a representative of the Cuban Embassy tried to introduce me to two Cuban doctors working at Luanda's Americo Boavida Hospital. The Angolan hospital director had been contacted in advance, but when the Cuban Embassy official arrived, the director dismissed him with a brusque wave of the hand. The two Cuban doctors were found in a corridor, but they said they could not give interviews without permission from the Angolan director. As he left the hospital, the Cuban official complained about the ''bad manners'' of the Angolans.

Despite these day-to-day frictions, the Cubans and the Russians can find little fault with the Angolans' political orientation. A red machete and wheel - the Angolan version of the hammer and sickle - is emblazoned at the top of Jornal de Angola, Luanda's only daily paper. Front-page headlines in one recent issue included ''Comrade President Hails M. Gorbachev and D. Ortega,'' ''Party Delegation to Anniversary of Sandinista Front,'' and ''Bulgaria Offers Donation to Angola.''