Malawi - Part 3

There was a knock at the door, opening it, I found a nervous looking Liam. Though he’d just walked out of the house, I pretended to be surprised.

He cleared his throat, “Um, I, um, am here to pick you up for our date...if that’s ok.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m ready now, so ok, so we can go.” I told him while looking bashfully at the ground. I stepped outside and he grabbed me and dipped me low for a silly, overacted kiss. Laughing, we walked to a French restaurant that happened to be right across the street from where we were staying. At 7pm, we were seated by a waiter who told us outright that we ought to order as quickly as possible so he could go home sooner. Ah, African customer service. Much to our waiter's dismay, the restaurant soon filled up, and he would be obliged to actually do work.

(this pic is from the website because we were too busy eating to bother with a camera)

The meal was indeed the long awaited feast we were after. Fresh bread, a delicious salad, goose liver pate, tasty soup, stuffed chicken a la Blou, and Malawi’s famous ‘pommes frites’ (French fries). It is always amazing while travelling how quickly a person can recover from being a total mess. Though I pined for a slinky, black cocktail dress and a pair of sexy red stilettos, a simple hot shower, shaved legs, a new coat of polish on the toes, a dusting of makeup, and luscious French food fixed me up as good as I ever am while on the road.

Since the meal was officially a date, Liam wanted to pay, and since I am notoriously frugal and stress out easily about prices, Liam didn’t want me to even look at the menu and ordered in secret. As our romantic night drew to a close, the check was brought out and Liam placed a wad of kwacha beneath it. Despite explaining to the waiter several times earlier in the evening as to why he was being so secretive, the waiter loudly and meticulously counted the payment from his hands onto the table. One bill at a time. Initially, Liam tried to shush him and get him to go away to do the counting, but this distraction only increased the volume of his voice and his determination to get the job done. Nothing this Muzungu was blabbing about was going to get him to break his concentration! Besides, for heaven’s sake, he was trying to do this right so he could get home!

Defeated, the man across from me placed his elbows on the table and rested a bearded chin on his fists. Our eyes locked and I stifled giggles. A century after the counting began, it ended. Liam gave me his jacket as we walked across the street, tipped invisible hats to the guard, and slowly meandered up the drive. I thanked my handsome suitor for the date, jokingly repeating the cost of the meal several times as I praised the food and the service. With affected ostentation, he boasted of the vast wealth he must obviously possess in order to pay for a dinner of that caliber until we both dissolved into laughs and kisses beneath a cloudy night sky.

At home (as always, I use that term loosely), Liam and I stood in the bathroom as he gently washed and re-bandaged my wounded eyebrow. Since the skin had already closed, I deemed it too late for stitches and decided that Liam’s expert care had been, and was, good enough.

That night, we squeezed onto a soft, twin bed in a warm, cozy room down the hallway of an upper-class home that lay in the well guarded suburbs of Malawi’s southern, and second largest, city. Beyond the borders of the city, a crazy, colorful, immense continent stretched out, teaming with countless peoples, languages, cultures, religions, landscapes and wild animals. Of course there were more dangers to be escaped, thrills to be found, and adventures to be survived, but a soft rain began pitter-pattering onto the roof, and I fell asleep with my face nestled into Liam’s side and nothing but the strange feeling of complete comfort and safety.

Malawi - Part 2

Despite a good deal of early morning running around, Liam, Gavin and I were out of our room at a sluggish 7:40am, ten full minutes after the hotel’s 7:30am (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) checkout time. The receptionist kindly didn’t mention our tardiness and instead pointed us toward the restaurant for our free breakfast.

Shortly after sitting down in the dingy dining room, an overly, awkwardly, submissive waitress brought us our fare. Kneeling on the floor and bowing her head, she clasped my hand and asked if I needed anything else. Tempted as I was to ask for a normal breakfast, I held my tongue and dismissed the woman. Hot water, a tea bag, sugar, a piece of toast, and a big plate of French fries. Disgusting! After drinking my tea plain and eating the toast with my sugar sprinkled on it, I picked at the deep fried potato strips, trying to will the greasy mess into a fruit salad smothered in vanilla yogurt. French fries, we would learn, are the staple Malawian breakfast food…gross!

The dissatisfying meal ingested (and quickly beginning to block our arteries), we jumped in the back seat of the Presbyterian pickup truck we’d travelled with the evening before. The city of Blantyre finally seemed to be within our sights.

On the way there, we learned that Malawi was less than a week away from its controversial presidential elections. Election time can be tense anywhere, but when a nation has only had 2 previous elections, peaceful democracy has the potential to break down into chaotic violence, so it’s not necessarily the most auspicious time to visit a place.

Before we could say ‘scandal and political infighting’, it was time for a quick lunch. Our ride pulled over and 50 kids ran to the windows hawking bananas and fried, shish-kebabed parakeets. Well, maybe not parakeets, but tiny birds that you were in theory supposed to pop into your mouth whole, bones and all, but in reality, I had to take in 2 crunchy parts, each speedily chased down by an entire mini-banana. Gavin had just found out in Beira that his childhood pet parakeet had died of (very) old age and I think he felt as sad about lunch as I had felt about breakfast.

Seventy-five hours after deciding I wanted to get there, our group managed to the cover the implausibly long 150 miles and finally (FINALLY!!!) arrive in the city of Blantyre. It was everything I’d wished for and envisioned it would be. The crumbling dilapidation and neglect so afflicting both Mozambique and Zimbabwe was behind us. Ahead, lay spotless avenues lined with flowering trees and streetlights, crisscrossing through a city of dazzling, modern buildings. Internet cafes, supermarkets, bakeries, banks, and restaurants bustled and beckoned. We had at last reached civilization.

Saying goodbye to our Godsent lift, we set off looking for accommodation. Wanting to recover from the accident and journey, Liam and I were eager to splash out a little more than usual at the Henderson Street Guest House, but after walking through its idyllic gardens, we discovered at reception that we weren’t the only ones with that idea; the beautiful place was completely booked. Unsure where else to go, we popped into a café advertizing itself only as “PIZZA AND ICECREAM!” for an early dinner.

“Hello! We were wondering what kind of pizzas you guys had here.” Liam said to the waitress.

A blank look was followed by, “We don’t…serve pizzas here…But this menu.”

Liam took it and chuckled, “Well, do you have any ice cream?”

“Umm…I have to check first…” replied the slow (to the point of handicapped) woman, “But I don’t…think we do.” I have found on this trip and my previous one, that Africans, in general, are intelligent and often witty, if not particularly entrepreneurial, but despite the huge percentages of English speakers in most countries, waiters and waitresses are possibly the most useless, unintelligent people on the continent. All street children speak far better English and are usually a good deal sharper.

We ordered scrumptious and, surprisingly inexpensive, chicken and rice dishes. While the three of us ate, the manager, an energetic, (intelligent) racially mixed girl named Taz came over to chat. After recalling our luckless hotel search, we asked if she had any recommendations. Running off first to call her roommates, she offered to let us stay in the guest bedroom of her home. Without more ado, we accepted the proposal, lady luck smiling on us once again. (Taz, we found out later, was not shockingly, Zimbabwean. She probably moved to Malawi just to help tourists out with free accommodation.)

After successfully making our way by minibus to her home in the suburbs, Liam told the guard at the gate that, “The madam sent us.” He let us in and we walked above 5 impeccably manicured acres to Taz’s 4-bedroom home and met our new housemates. First there was Chris, a white, very laid back, out of work, pot smoking Zimbabwean who was either playing X-Box or watching movies during the entire duration of our stay, then there was Thomas, an immense, Schwarzenegger-esque German guy who loved travelling and hiking and was stuck working in Malawi, frequently doing the latter until he’d saved enough money to do more of the former (in light of where and how he lived, he wasn’t trying too awfully hard to save his paychecks), and, the most recent addition, besides us, was Jules, a pretty German girl, and Thomas’ girlfriend of slightly less than 2 whole weeks (there was a surprisingly, and weirdly, high number of lovey-dovey couple collages taped around the house for the two of them having been together such a short time).

One by one, we abandoned conversation with our new friends for the blessedly running water of the in-house HOT SHOWER! Whether it was exhaustion, the glorious feeling of being clean, or the marijuana fumes emanating from the living room, Liam, Gavin and I all slept like the dead.

Day 11 Budget

$0.12 Bananas

$0.42 souvenirs for girls I nannied for

$5.12 lift to Blantyre

$2.73 dinner

$0.46 minibus to Taz’s house

$6.36 oatmeal and powdered milk

Total: $15.21

Malawi - Part 1

Up very early, out the door by 7:00am, and at the chappa stop by 7:30am, I began an extensive set of negotiations which, if went as planned, would transport Liam, Gavin, and I to the Malawian border crossing. A group of enterprising men gathered around me, and though we’d been solemnly cautioned by our concerned hoteliers not to fork over more than $2.86 for the 20 mile ride, prices ranged between $10.72 and $17.86. Eventually, a man offered a better deal, “Blah blah, ok, this truck here is going to blah blah you can go later for $3.57 each.”

Deal. I grabbed my rucksack and as the guys followed my lead, Liam asked me if we were leaving right then. I nearly spat out a surprised “Weren’t you listening?” but a split second later, I realized he hadn’t understood a word of my broken Spaniortuguese, and I explained. Generally, travelling with other people ensures that you will only be doing a fraction of the interminable organization required to do anything or get anywhere, but in Mozambique, my (mediocre) Spanish speaking ability had elected me as permanent Situation-Figurer-Outer. I’d certainly be happy to turn in my title in Malawi...if I could just make it there...

We sadly killed our morning hanging around and doing nothing with a few dozen locals who appeared to be doing even less. All of us occasionally bought snacks and soft drinks from 5 little children who were the only really productive humans in a half mile radius. Hard working children and do-nothing adults seemed to characterize Mozambique. It’s ‘easy street’ after you have kids here I guess. Besides, who says a two-year-old and his 5-year-old sister can’t look after their baby brother while manning a muffin bucket for 8 hours every single day?

After waiting for an hour, I began to inquire further and found out Liam wasn’t the only one who could be accused of not listening. Our ride would not be leaving until noon. Sigh… I just wanted to get to Blantyre…

At 11:55 we climbed into the back of a pickup that had been there all along, with all the other people who had also been there all along, and … drum roll please… with the driver who’d been there all along. Not a single soul had arrived or departed from the spot in 4 ½ hours. No one had anything to do but sit all day and wait for a truck that left at noon.

The ridiculous, slothful, inefficiency of it all made me want to scream, so as 15 people, 3 backpacks, several colossal sacks of Maize flour, a few chickens, and numerous small children bulged out from the truck bed, I clenched my jaw. Soon, a light rain began to fall and a few more people jumped on. The 4-year-old girl sitting next to me was set on my lap by her infant toting mother and though I’d smiled at the youngster earlier, she was having none of it. With a grave anger, she stared down the woman who had given her life. That woman betrayed her, handed her over to a monstrous freak. She didn't squirm or even move a muscle, but several silent tears rolled down her terrified, resentful cheeks. Several other passengers chuckled as they watched the drama, explaining to me it was the first time the girl had seen a Mazunga (white person). No kidding.

Halfway into the journey we approached a military checkpoint. When our truck stopped, a tall, good looking, young man casually wielding an AK greeted only the 3 of us and straight away (in great English) demanded to know what trauma had befallen my face. When I enlightened him, he shrugged and nonchalantly dismissed the event with a laid back, “This is Mozambique.” Ha! I mean what did I expect? An accident free trip? Nope! Not here. Silly me!

At the border we were BOMBARDED with aggressive bicycle taxis, one of them even going so far as to fiercely yank a small child out of the truck in order to try and grab the backpack under him and secure our business. Powering through their pushy attempts to obstruct our path, we hurled ourselves inside the haven of Mozambique’s rundown Immigration Office. Our trio exited the country and a half hour walk through a wide, populated (which is odd) No Man’s Land deposited us on Malawi’s southernmost doorstep.

As a fat, jolly immigration official named Bernard checked us into the country, we asked him how often people used this seemingly deserted border. “All the time!” he proudly defended. “I see someone through here every day! Yesterday, a man came from Mozambique on a motorbike!”

After procuring free passport stamps, we were ushered into another room and asked to produce our immunization records. Although many, many countries are supposed to check your vaccinations upon arrival, I’d been to 46 countries and this was the very first border I’d encountered that actually carried out that threat. Nervously I handed over various scraps of paper.

I have purchased immunity to most diseases by now, but I knew it would take a sense of humor to get my paperwork okayed. My yellow fever shot was given to me in Bulgaria, and though I did convince the stern nurse to let me write my own name so it, at least, could match my passport, the rest of the words on the form are typed in Cyrillic, letters that do not resemble those in our alphabet. Happily, Bernard believed my explanation and then took a look at my typhoid and tetanus certificates. I received these shots in Thailand, which date-wise, marches to the beat of its own drummer. Thailand is 543 years ahead of the rest of the world, and so my birthday and the date my immunity is set to expire are both quite futuristic. Liam joked about how drastically he was robbing the cradle, dating a girl born in 2523. I passed inspection, though to be honest, I envied Liam and Gavin’s compact, organized vaccination booklets given out to would be travelers by the Australian health department.

Our next step was to change our Mozambiquen Metcash into Malawian Kwacha. Bernard notified us that not only was there no bank in the village of Marka, changing money on the black market was completely illegal in all of Malawi but, with barely a pause between sentences, he commanded us to “Wait here one minute and I will go find a man who will change it for you.” Running out of the door, he swiftly returned with a gentleman who duly changed our money. It’s so nice when the government goes out of its way to help you make illegal transactions. Welcome to Malawi.

Pockets full of Kwacha, we set about trying to organize a lift to Nsanje, a bigger town (with a hotel) 12 miles north. A wily man offered to take us for $24 each and when we laughed aloud at his shocking offer, he quickly dropped it to $7 a person. That wasn’t nearly low enough. During the entire (English! Yay!) conversation, he kept pointing out how he had to start the truck specifically for us, and starting any vehicle requires lots of expensive fuel.

Walking deeper into the village, with the hopes of finding some other type of transportation, we immediately were accosted by a hundred children, in our faces, screaming, “GIVE ME MONEY!!” at the top of their lungs. Totally different from the type of kids we’d come across thus far, this was both extremely annoying as well as being a serious distraction. Though shabbily dressed, neither the children nor the village was particularly poor and not a one of them needed food. At some point in Marka’s town history, some patronizing white idiot came through handing out money or other free things to kids and every tourist from that point on has been condemned to suffer the consequences.

Well, no longer, part of me wanted to smack their greedy, naughty, little hands, but the thing about children is, that no matter where you go on earth, they are all the same. Adults are so affected by culture, religion, and/or politics that it is virtually impossible to believe we are all part of one human race…were it not for the kids. At young ages, they are indistinguishable from children anywhere else on the globe. These kids were not ‘bad’, they simply needed retraining. Dusting off my nanny skills, within 5 minutes I had the entire giggling mass clapping and chanting “WEL-COME-TO-MA-LA-WI!” Just a little attention and retraining.

Finding not a vehicle in sight, Liam, Gavin, myself, and a hundred chanting children returned to the man in the truck to reopen the bartering process. To our surprise, the man was gone. To Nsanje. Without us. Gosh, it takes much less petrol to start an engine for us, if you happen to be STARTING IT ANYWAY!!! Whatever.

Just when we were thinking we might have to camp in someone’s yard for the night, a blue truck seemingly came out of heaven and our prayers were answered. Two ministers and an African hitchhiker were headed to Nsanje for the night, staying at a budget hotel, and then going on to Blantyre the next morning. Instead of trying to rip us off, they asked if we wouldn’t mind paying the typical bus fare for the entire trip. We did not mind.

Jubilantly climbing into the back, I finally felt like I was making progress toward the city of which I’d been dreaming. Blantyre, here I come…

Day 10 Budget

$0.54 muffins

$0.49 souvenirs for girls I nannied for

$0.36 soda

$0.46 water

$3.57 lift to border

$2.33 lift to Nsanje

$5.83 accommodation

$2.45 dinner

Total: $16.03

Mozambique - Part 9

On the morning of May 13^th, my goal seemed simple enough: Get to Blantyre. Our trio intact once again, I’d convinced the others to forego the Ilha de Mozambique in favor of Malawi’s second largest city, a place with guidebook foretold cheap accommodation, running water, internet access, and English speaking European doctors on staff, waiting to stitch up my forehead. Blantyre was my shining beacon.

Despite being only 150 miles away, and despite the three of us being packed, ready, and waiting, thumbs extended, by 9am, as we stood on the small dirt track leading toward Malawi, I began to wonder if we’d make it there by nightfall. Happily, my concern faded away soon enough when the 2^nd vehicle to drive by (in 35 minutes) stopped and picked us up.

Portuguese (only) speaking Alberto appeared to be a hardworking, middle-aged man. Unfortunately for him (but to our great amusement) his limited language skills failed to weed out from his wardrobe the navy blue T-shirt he wore. Soft yellow and red letters on his chest touted him to be the “WORLD’S GREATEST MOTHER”.

In the back of Alberto’s (dump truck length truck? What the heck is the name for those size of trucks?...In between a semi and a pickup...) semickup, I wedged my butt into a heavy tire, nervously trying to avoid being thrown out of the bouncing vehicle. Sharing the dirty truck bed with us were 2 barrels of gasoline and a large boat motor.

Anxious as I was about hitchhiking again and road travel in general, even I had to laugh a little when we stopped near a village school because our bloodhound driver smelled gas. Safety first! Sure enough, Alberto and his trusty assistant found a leak in the bottom of one container. After a brief discussion, the two of them flipped the heavy barrel onto its head and called it good. As we trundled off, the entire school, having had come out to stare at us, energetically waved goodbye. (2 whitey guys + 1 bandaged up whitey girl = a sighting far more interesting than any classroom mathematics).

Soon enough, we arrived in Sena and we couldn’t help but notice that the bridge drawn in our Lonely Planet map was nothing more than a narrow railway suspended above the great Zambezi River. Not a good mistake, in my opinion, for a guidebook to have.

Our driver didn’t stop in Sena, but since he knew our destination, we trusted him and rode out of town 6 miles before backing down to the red clay edge of the waterway. Several men stood around and after the three of us were ushered off, they unloaded and cleaned up the truck. We seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and after scanning the empty river for a bit, Liam and Gavin sent my Spanishy self in to discuss the situation.

“Blah blah river blah blah boat blah blah you wait here.” That was basically all I could glean from the busy, fast talking men. So using 5 inch long wooden tree thorns as toothpicks, we sat on our bags and waited, all the while venturing guesses as to what might happen to us next:

Would a big ferry come for the truck to board?

Would a small ferry come to pick up the people, fuel, and motor?

Would a row boat come and use the motor that Alberto brought?

Would a boat come, pick up the stuff and leave us to cross some yet unseen bridge further down the river?

We had no clue, but as 5 minutes dragged out into 45 minutes, I caught snippets of the conversation: boat...time...police...gasoline...police.

Illegal petrol! Obviously! They were smuggling black market gasoline across the river. That is why we were so far from town!

When a speedboat pulled up onto the shore, it boarded 2 barrels of fuel, 1 boat motor, 3 tourists, and 1 World’s Greatest Mother. And indeed, for the next 20 minutes as we sped across the mighty, muddy Zambezi, Alberto and the driver scanned the horizon for the frequently muttered “la policia” while Liam, Gavin and I kept our eyes on a very different type of show stopper; massive crocodiles sunned themselves on the numerous sandy islands and river banks. We flew along and I prayed we wouldn’t hit an overturned log and capsize our vessel. Long, menacing rows of teeth (not to mention 2 large, leaky barrels of fuel) might prove a boat accident to be more fatal than the one we'd had in the car.

At last we docked safely, and saying a final goodbye to the powerful river we’d been following for months, as well as to our new outlaw friends, we heaved on our backpacks and walked to Mutarara. It was afternoon by this time and we were definitely the center of attention in the tiny grass hut village. The three of us moseyed around until we located a cement restaurant/hotel run by an older couple who were probably members of what was Mutarara’s upper class.

Flora, a woman heavily creased by a lifetime of smiles, greeted us cheerfully in slow, patient, Portuguese while holding her (extremely and constantly doted upon) 1-year-old granddaughter. I spoke to her for awhile, ordering food for us all and learning that the 2 chappas to the Malawian border would not leave until the next morning. When I told her we would try and hitchhike that afternoon, Flora smiled, shook her head and gave me a sweet, but distinct, ‘Poor white people, they are so dumb’ look. “There are no private cars going to Malawi” she explained slowly, as if talking to a child, “There are no private cars here.”

It dawned on me that she might be right and after a pow-wow with the guys, we concluded that since the only car we’d seen was a rusted chassis, partly submerged in dirt, we would stay in Mutarara for the night. Due to limited funds, the 3 of us slept, mosquito netted up, on a double bed in a room with no running water. Squashed uncomfortably in the middle that night, I dreamed of Blantyre. Only 120 more miles.

Day 9 Budget

$0.43 breakfast

$0.43 water

$1.79 hitchhike

$0.54 Sprite

$2.50 lunch

$1.43 dinner

$4.79 accommodation

Total: $11.91

Mozambique - Part 8

Before I’d even opened my eyes, I was aware of a dull pain afflicting the entire left side of my body and a far sharper sting over my left eyebrow. Recalling the accident, I swung my right arm over Liam and listened gratefully to his heartbeat for a moment before I took my living, breathing, fortunate self out to find breakfast.

Walking with a simultaneous limp and skip in my step, I found the town of Caia’s market, and armed with our last 50Metcash ($1.79), my first priority was to find water. Locals boiled theirs but we couldn’t do that, so I searched for the bottled type. Half an hour later, I was still looking. Each shop owner was sure the stand right over there would have exactly what I wanted. One man got my hopes up by asking if I wanted a case or a bottle. When I told him a bottle, he asked if I preferred a small or large one. Gladly I asked for a large. His face fell and he admitted that he didn’t sell larges. Quickly, I told him a small would be ok, but then he looked at me, shook his head confessed he had none of those either. Confused, I asked if he sold cases, and to my great bewilderment he did not. Surely I had misunderstood something, so I clearly asked again if he sold ANY type of water. “No Ma’am but the shop over there might sell something like that.” I looked at him blankly. In Nicaragua they have a saying that goes, “I have more time than life.” It applied here.

At long last, I located a comparatively large store and my big, blue eyes fell upon a big, beautiful bottle of H²O. I leaned over the counter pointing, and requested triumphantly in Spanish, “One large water please.”

“25 Metcash” the man responded, handing me my intended purchase.

I pulled out my 50 note and he looked at me like I’d given him a 1000 note. “I have no change for that!” he sputtered in Portuguese and showed me his box of paltry change. “Don’t you have any small money?”

The store, though at least 150sqft in size, could not muster the equivalent of 89 cents. I shook my head and smiled as he ran out of the shop with my bill, on the hunt for some change. Laughing softly, I closed my eyes. I could hear children giggling and screeching while men and women languidly haggled over prices; above it all, at least 4 different African pop songs blared aimlessly from scratchy speakers. I smelled an amalgam of raw fish, fruit, spices and freshly baked bread. Markets, by nature, are inefficient and somewhat ridiculous, but that morning, I was just exceedingly happy to be part of the crazy Alice in Wonderland frustration for one more day.

Fifteen minutes later, the guy returned with my money and I completed the purchase. On my way out of the maze, I bought several delicious bananas and a few sandy muffins before returning to the hotel. Still somewhat clingy, I practically sat on top of Liam as we dined.

At 2:00pm, after leaving several notes at the hospital for Gavin and successfully (yay!) using an ATM, Liam and I hitched a lift to the river in an attempt to find our missing travel partner. Traffic was stopped in a long line, and while chatting to a few truck drivers, we learned that despite being Africa’s major eastern lengthwise artery, semi trucks would commonly have to wait up to a week before it was their turn to cross. Luckily, a brand new, nearly finished bridged towered above us. The ribbon would be cut in less than a month and, in the words of one man, “It’s going to change the face of southern Africa forever.”

(there is a goat atop this truck)

Jumping on board, we couldn’t help but notice the ferry price per person was the same as our exorbitant hospital bill...$0.05. Unfortunately, despite all our efforts both directions, we couldn’t find anyone to pay.

On the northern side of the continent splitting river, a few bored locals approached us and asked where we were going (a favorite question for Africans...and Asians now that I think about it). In my slow, puzzling Spanish, I explained our search for Gavin and gave them a brief description (white guy). A sense of purpose temporarily interrupted their idle lives and they were off; here, there, every whichaway, until one guy named Paul ran up and grabbed Liam by the arm.

“Come! Come with me! I found someone who knows something!”

Liam and I were ushered into a dark, shadowy, restaurant and told to take a seat on the blackened benches while we waited for the boss. Paul backed out of the room respectfully. Only 2 yards away sat a huge and imperious woman, The Boss, slowly stirring a pot of corn meal which bubbled furiously over a fire burning on the earthen floor.

“Hello. We look...” Liam began in English but was firmly cut off by a man sitting next to The Boss, “Please wait!”

A couple nearby spoke to the prodigious lady and then left the building. The woman eyed us evenly.

“Now what is it that you wanted to ask me?” she queried, mafia boss style, in perfect English. We explained our hunt for Gav.

“I know the man you are looking for.” She reported solemnly. “He is white and is wearing black shortpants I believe.”

Excitedly, we confirmed her assumption. “Do you know where he is now?”

“This man was here from 6:00am until 2:00pm. This man has eaten at my restaurant. Then, he left on the ferry at 2:00pm. He has gone to search for you and you.” She pointed at the both of us expressively.

Thanking the redoubtable woman for her precious information and congratulating her on her flawless English, we reversed out of the intimidating room, ran back down to the ferry, crossed the river and began walking back to Caia. Originally we’d planned to hitch or take a minibus, but no minibuses, and only coldhearted, callous drivers passed. So we walked…and walked…and walked, for an hour and a half, stopping only briefly to watch a disturbingly close hippo snort around in a swamp next to the road. Finally we returned, and running up to the hotel hopefully, we crashed inside and found a white man in black shorts calmly watching a game of rugby. Gavin!

(Gavin’s story: Gavin, 40 kilometers down the road, had learned about our accident, though because he spoke no Portuguese, he only understood ‘accidente’, 2 white people, and the motion of a car flipping. Knowing we never wore seatbelts, poor Gav had no idea if we were dead or alive, and if we were alive, he figured our injuries were probably pretty serious. The car he was in, having found out the scary news, sped up to get to the nearest gas station so they could return to the crash site. The vehicle was instantly pulled over for speeding and the policeman spent half an hour sorting out a ticket for them. Finally, they reached Caia’s filling station but the entire place was out of petrol. Crossing the river on the ferry, they fruitlessly searched the entire town for black market gasoline. When they tried to cross back over to maybe meet us in Caia, the ferry was closed so they all, including Gavin, slept in their car. At 6:00am, the ferry commenced operation and the ever unhelpful Roy and his sidekick Zizu, our drivers, crossed on the first one and climbed into Gavin’s car, ready to continue the journey north. Gavin got out and they stupidly told him to wait where he was, when we had made explicitly clear to them that Gavin was supposed to meet us at the hospital on the southern, Caia side of the Zambezi. Gavin waited and waited but eventually decided to cross, and on the southern side, got in a minibus that unluckily passed the truck Liam and I were hitching with. Once in Caia, Gavin admitted that being the only white people had made finding us easier because he simply had to ask around “Where are my friends” and everyone in town knew exactly who he meant. Finally, our trio was reunited once again!)

Mozambique - Part 7b

Ok, yes. We survived the ordeal, and yes, Liam was right. That was the worst thing that happened to us that day, but to be fair, it was only the worst because it was so bad, not because the day got any better.

That morning, when we’d climbed into the ill-fated car, Roy, the driver, told us that he was originally planning to leave at 5am, but it must have been angels that had made him late so that he could pick us up. Well, I’m not sure about angels, but we were certainly thanking God when we climbed into the minibus and began our 50 mile trip to Caia. So were the other passengers. Gracias a Dios (thanks to God) was muttered by several of the people we squashed on top of (which is a bit strange because they use obrigado instead of gracias here for thank you.) The only person who didn’t seem happy we were alive was the driver of the bus who seemed to be arguing with everyone else about who knows what.

On the way to Caia, I mainly focused on not passing out and dying. I felt spacey. At one point, Roy and his buddy got off and encouraged us to get off too, telling us the hospital was nearby. Immediately after we’d disembarked, the bus began to drive off with our backpacks still tied on top. I jumped onto the side of the bus and yelled at the driver to stop. Everyone inside was yelling unintelligibly, and the driver stopped only long enough for Liam to hop back in before we were off again, destination unknown. NO one spoke English but someone indicated to us that the hospital was up ahead.

Six miles further down the road, we encountered the mighty Zambezi river. No bridge spanned the flow, but instead, cars and people were taken across by a ferry...which was of course closed for the evening. Worn out, Liam got out of the minibus, removed our bags, and finally found an English speaking truck driver who informed us that there was a clinic about 6 miles back the way we’d come. Ah! So frustrating.

While Liam was gone in search of more information, I stood outside the minibus and a large crowd of children gathered to stare at me. Normally, being white, children like to stare and wave, but being white with half my face and my shirt covered in blood brought the attention to a whole new level. I was sighing and saying hello to my jaws-to-the-floor audience when a local guy approached. Though he spoke some English, he was very drunk and kept trying to grab my backpack and get me to follow him and leave my “husband”; loudly volunteering of course to be my new one. While I fended off my admirer and grasped my things with all of my might, the mysteriously cranky bus driver began driving away. There were only a few people inside the vehicle and I began screeching about Liam. Angrily, the man slammed on the brakes and began honking nonstop until Liam came running back. Undeterred by the arrival of my boyfriend, the drunk guy hopped in with us and demanded we proceed to the hospital.

Desperately and unsuccessfully, we asked the oddly impatient (especially for an African) minibus driver if he was going back to Caia by pointing at him and the road and repeating “Caia?” He gave us only a growl in response, but ten minutes later, dropped us off in front of a rundown white building. It was the clinic. He barked “$3.00 each”. We paid. My drunk suitor then demanded money from Liam. What? Why? For translations of course. Not a chance, and the man left with neither money nor a wife.

Squaring our shoulders, Liam and I walked into the hospital, determined to get me cleaned up. Of course no one spoke English, so in Spanish I tried to explain our situation to the kind looking doctor who informed us that before being treated, we needed to go file a report with the police. Weighed down by our increasingly heavy backpacks, Liam and I trudged through the mazelike village asking everyone we saw where the police station was. Finally, our tired eyes spotted it. I sat down on a cement step for a moment and Liam and I had a pow wow to discuss our options:

Need #1: A western doctor, trained in scar prevention, to clean and stitch up my face and remove the glass shards from my arm.

Need #1 deemed: Impossible.

Need #2: A public phone to call my family and tell them what happened and that I was ok.

Need #2 deemed: Impossible.

Need #3: Warm, clean, running water, soap, tweezers, and a butterfly bandage.

We realized that Liam would be able to do as much as a dirty, underfunded African clinic could to get me patched up, at least temporarily, and without the potentially very expensive hassle of going to the police and filing a report in a language neither of us spoke.

Need #3 deemed: Possible (except for the butterfly bandage part).

Need #4: A place to stay for the night that wasn’t too expensive because we only had the equivalent of about $20 between us.

Need #4 deemed: Possible (hopefully).

Need #5: Dinner. Though after dark now, we’d only eaten a light breakfast.

Need # 5 deemed: This we could take care of. We could eat at the restaurant across the street, and, at the very least, check that need off of the list. Ha! Just kidding! Liam ordered rice and chicken without checking the price, and after waiting an HOUR, we were given half of a chicken and charged $12 (a live chicken isn’t worth $5). Mouths gaped open, we argued for awhile. This was an unimaginable price, and twice what we’d been paying at the most expensive places previously. It wasn’t just that it was ridiculously expensive, we needed money for a hotel. Normally camping would be ok, but I NEEDED water.

A local man heard our balking and came over to ask if we were alright. I fought back tired tears trying to explain our situation in Spanish. Kindly, he offered to take Liam to an ATM on his motorbike. Honestly, it had not previously occurred to us that a village that rural would have an ATM, but Liam jumped at the opportunity. Twenty minutes after he’d gone, Liam returned. The ATM was out of order. Of course it was. Dejected, we paid the outrageous bill, and picked at our meal quietly.

I watched the road for good Samaritans. Though I have already in my life (especially my travel life) had far more than my fair share of strangers appear out of thin air and save me when I needed them most, it seemed implausible that this much bad luck could befall us without someone stepping in to help. Any second, a car full of tourists or NGOs would show up and we would temporarily hand in the reins to them, and they, more organized at that moment, would fix everything.

No one came, and weighed down with life, we trudged back to the hospital to leave a note for Gavin in case he knew of our accident and went to the hospital to find us. When the doctor I’d spoken to earlier asked about the police slip, I tried to explain how the chicken was expensive and the ATM was broken and we couldn’t pay for a doctor because we needed money for a hotel, but if he could please give this note to our fri…

The fatherly doctor cut me off with a scolding babble. Too tired to fight the day any further, we allowed ourselves to be dragged into a back room where I was seated on bed with a seriously stained sheet. Knowing Africans were far tougher and braver than their western counterparts regarding pain and injuries, I let out not even a whimper while my glassy arm was scrubbed, my excess skin torn off and my wounds cleaned and disinfected with burning iodine. When it was over, I whispered a thank you and Liam began nursing his unfortunately mashed hand.

Back at reception, the doctor doled out 3 Tylenol pills and explained 4 times that I was to take one that night, one the next morning, and one the next night. He was admirably, if not a bit comically, determined not to let the exact dosage get lost in translation. In the end, the bill was only $0.05. This we could afford, and the fact that we didn’t have change for a 15-cent piece bothered only the fair minded man. If the 450lb restaurant woman got an extra $10 off of us, we could tip this man $0.10.

We paid for a little, but adequate hotel room that night with the last of our cash and though there was no running water, the manager pumped us a cold bucket from the outside well. There was a mirror in the room and we agreed that I should have had stitches or at least a butterfly bandage…but without these things, Liam gently re-bandaged my face with scar reduction in mind. I had never loved him more.

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY the day was permitted to end and we lay down on the worn mattress together. I was exhausted, but terrified to sleep because I imagined I might go into a coma and die. I demanded that Liam rouse me in the middle of night should he awaken.* Sleep at last enclosed and though it was deep, black, and dreamless, I did not die. It was not yet my day.

*Liam did apparently wake me up and I am told that I snapped at him irritably. I am very sorry about that.

Mozambique - Part 7a

My incurable writer's block for this event forced me to use Liam's version of the first half of the day:

Once again, Gavin, Les and I found ourselves at the side of the road waiting for a ride but the many passing Chapas (minibuses) stopping to offer us a lift for a price wouldn’t take no for an answer. We had caught a Chapa before, so we knew the drill. They couldn’t seem to grasp the concept that we wanted to go all the way to our destination without stopping every kilometre to pack even more people into a clearly already overstuffed vehicle. And when we said that we wanted to get all the way to our destination without paying, they would just laugh, say something like “you can’t get places for free!” and drive away. We decided not to tell them of the thousands of comfortable African kilometres that we had already covered at zero cost. As we tried to shoo away our 19^th annoying minibus driver in 30 minutes an empty, cushy looking 4WD passed by without seeing us. Yet another missed opportunity! Locals surrounded us, offering advice on where to catch buses, minibuses blocked our view of the cars we wanted to catch and Les and I were becoming irritable. Gavin, always the last to lose his cool reassured us with his favourite line: “if missing a few potential hitchhikes is the worst thing that happens to us today, we should consider ourselves lucky”.

BAM!... silence. We hit another pothole at 120kph and the CD player took stress leave for a few seconds before resuming the Portuguese pop. The terrible roads must be the reason cassette players still reign supreme in African cars. CD players aren’t made with the third world in mind. We had successfully hitchhiked once again and our hosts were friendly and seemed more interested in us than our money. Not only that, but we had happened upon a ride going nearly all the way to our eventual destination, Ilha De Mozambique. Fourteen or so hours of driving covered in a single hitchhike! Unheard of! Gavin had been allocated to a different vehicle with our driver’s friends also going to the same destination, so presumably while Gavin did the same in his car, Les and I chatted with our hosts about the usual stuff. After a while the conversation died away like an unattended fire and we all fell into silence.

BAM! The front axle took another battering as we smashed into yet another pothole. This time the music didn’t return. The car’s electrics were not working – I couldn’t wind down my electric window. When I asked, one of the guys in front explained to me that “It is my friend’s car. This always happens” and at the first opportunity, we pulled over so they could fix the problem. They also noticed that one of the tyres was getting low, so decided to replace it. Wanting to be helpful, I fetched the spare from the back (one of those temporary-use wheels) and brought it around to where the other two were busily jacking up the car. We bolted the tiny, flimsy-looking wheel in place and were back on the road soon enough.

As the second hour of driving passed Les scribbled away in her book and I blogged on Tinks but it was difficult to concentrate. Considering the road quality and the fact that we were running on a temporary-use tyre, the car was going a little too fast for my liking and the look on Les’s face indicated that she felt the same way. The two in front had swapped and the new man behind the wheel clearly fancied himself as a rally driver. We careened through a small village on the heavily potholed Mozambican artery road at 120kph without slowing. As per usual, the road was lined with men on bikes, women carrying huge loads on their heads, children and various animals. We approached a small child clothed in rags shepherding five goats. He stood at the side of the road with three of them, beckoning the two still idling on the bitumen (pavement, in American) to join him. Our driver slowed from 120kph to 100kph (in the clearly marked 60kph zone) and pressed his fist to the horn. But one of the goats was too slow. It leapt sideways a second too late and our car smashed into its rear legs. Les let out an uncontrolled “ugh” and covered her eyes. I gawked backwards to assess the damage. The goat spun on the tarmac for a few seconds, blood spurting from its crumpled rear legs. The animal’s life was clearly over and the poor shepherd had just lost 20% of his flock. Les and I, shocked by the carnage were forced to express our trauma using only facial expressions for fear of hurting our driver’s feelings. The two in front acted as if nothing had happened, and without saying a word, sped back up to 120kph.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Gavin was in another car I would have suggested getting out at this point but, instead, for the very first time in Africa I buckled my seatbelt. Les reached for hers, but there was no connecting buckle, so as subtly as possible she shifted left across the back seat towards me and clipped the centre belt around her waist. Not two minutes later, the car was completely written off.

A huge pothole materialised from nothing and our driver veered sharply off the left of the road into the dirt and then to compensate, steered sharply right. The car skidded on the right side of the road, and grass on the verge bowed away from the speeding vehicle in a cloud of dust. Les and I, gripping the chairs in front of us knew the driver was no longer in control and, no longer able to contain her natural urge to scream for the sake of politeness, Les released a repressed screech. The car veered to the left a second time, back wheels accelerating to overtake the front ones like an overexcited dog. All of a sudden the screeching stopped. The tyres had left the ground. A blur of golden-green whizzed past the top of my window in silence before.... bang... crunch... scccrrrrape. Les’s head smacked into my shoulder and Tinks leapt off my lap. The car was upside down, then right way up, then upside down again and sliding through the long grass. It came to a stop, rocking back and forth on its roof, wheels spinning.

There was silence for a moment before broken by Les’s screams: “we’re trapped!” She unbuckled her seatbelt and crashed into the ceiling. She took a moment to right herself and bashed on the window with her fists before trying the door handle. To her (and my) surprise the door sprung open enthusiastically, shoving the ample greenery aside. Les was out of sight in 2 seconds flat (her movie-trained self-preservation instinct was to get out before the vehicle exploded). I, still suspended by my seatbelt, clearly remember my next thought: “Well this sucks. Now what?” Outside, Les had presumably made it away from the Hollywood blast radius because now all I could hear was my name being screamed over and over. Les’s shrill cries were unsettling, making me feel less confident in my composure. Was there something she knew that I didn’t? Was something wrong? Well, other than the fact that we had just nearly died.

More and more blood succumbed to gravity, congregating in my scull so I unbuckled and accelerated upwards abruptly, colliding with force into the ceiling. Somehow, even though it was covered in broken glass, I came out of the interaction unscathed. I took a moment to gather my thoughts. The healthy volume of Les’s panicked screams indicated that she was probably ok so my mind turned to my other precious: Tinks. I looked around, spotting her on the ceiling above/below the driver’s seat and semi-submerged in a mound of broken glass. I retrieved and dusted her off, slipped her under my arm and swiftly exited the vehicle through Les’s open door. Following the wails I found Les sitting in the middle of the road with her head between her knees. I assured her that we would be ok and she thanked me for my concern, lifting her head to look me in the eyes. I had to conceal my shock: looking like a batman villain, the left side of her face dripped with blood while the right remained unscathed. It appeared serious, but on closer inspection I could see it was just a cut on her eyebrow. This and some glass cuts on her arm (from landing on the ceiling) were the only injuries sustained from the accident! I, and the two drivers, had come out of the incident without a scratch! I helped Les move to the side of the road and we sat in silence for a moment to catch our breath. She exhaled deeply, lowering her head on to my shoulder and whispered: “I don’t think we should give them any money for petrol.”

Les was still breathing heavily and rocking slightly when a car approached along the straight road. Immediately, she leapt up to wave the driver down and dismissed my suggestion that she remain sitting, pointing out with wild eyes that she looked “more pathetic”. I couldn’t disagree. The chapa stopped and the twenty people within flooded out to help flip the destroyed car and push it back onto the road. After attempting to tow the car to town using the now even fuller chapa (Les wouldn’t get into the car again – and I can’t blame her) for a while, one of the tyres on the buckled front axle exploded and we were finally forced to leave the wreck behind. The four of us squashed in the chapa, sitting on top of other people where necessary and were finally on our way to the nearest town (80km away). Sardine-packed amongst locals I had a chance to ponder our good fortune at having survived the ordeal. I turned to Les and in my most reassuring tone said: “If rolling a car at 120kph is the worst thing that happens to us today...” My joke (and with it, my stupid grin) withered under Les’s scowl.