It’s good to be home. Back where people treat me like family, speak a language I recognize, and see beyond the coins in my pocket. I’m talking, of course, about my home of the past 8 months, Mangunde. I guess it crept up on me unknowingly, this feeling of hominess here in a place so far from my real home. I never thought I would regard this dry scrubby landscape and little mission miles removed from any discernable town as a place of comfort for me. But after the past two weeks of ups and downs – beautiful beaches and verdant mountain slopes juxtaposed with the unavoidable realities of life on this continent like sickness, danger and everything in between – I have to say that I’m happy to be home.
Two weeks ago I finished my exams here at Mangunde, turned in my final grades to the office and set off on the dusty road out of the mission with my backpack loaded up and a grin on my face. I was free. The responsibilities of classes, exams and organizing group events for my clubs had all combined to weigh heavily on my shoulders over the past six months. Now, as the tires kicked up a rich red dust from the road and obscured the fading view of the mission behind me, my stress and workload dissolved into the washed out picture with it. Ahead of me lied only adventure.
The first stop on our trip was to climb Mt. Zembe, an impressive peak few miles outside of the city of Chimoio which forms a jutting backdrop in the cityscape. From a distance the jagged rock faces and impossibly sharp summit make Zembe appear virtually unclimbable. I was travelling with a group of 4 other volunteers and we set off early in the morning for the mountain. We came prepared for a battle of epic proportions with Mother Nature: machetes in hand, gloves and sweaters for protection against the extreme mountain conditions that can befall one at altitudes such as this, and a sac of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for sustenance. Oxygen tanks? Ice axes? Crampons? We thought about it, but figured that our sheer will-power would get us through.
We deboarded the chapa and there we were, no turning back now. The only thing in front of us was Zembe with her spiked summit almost forming a sinister grin, daring us to continue on. We asked a few local mountain savages what the best route to the top would be. With a terrified tremor in their voices and looks of foreboding deep in their eyes they told us to go no further, for no man, woman or goat has ever conquered the great Zembe. Maybe it was the grit and determination within us or maybe it was just plain foolishness but we forged on, eyes fixed on the summit of the great beast. “Yes, we can,” we chanted, as we echoed the salient words of our youthful inspiration and climbed. Step after step, mechanically, up, up and up, we were indefatigable. We stopped halfway up the mountain to eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we had prepared, and then we stop again 10 minutes later to catch our breathes, and then one more time; actually we stopped frequently to catch our breathes, but that didn’t distract us from the goal at hand and the mountain rising up in front of us. We had been cutting through untamed bush for an hour. Our arms were burning from the thorns, necks burning from the sun and legs fatigued from the sheer ascent. I took my sweatshirt, hat and gloves off 10 minutes into the hike, for I had gravely misjudged the effect of altitude on temperature – it was still hot and I would now have to hike holding a sweatshirt in my hands, a setback I would later regret. I checked my breathing. The air was still moist and thick, no need for oxygen tanks yet. We carried on into our tenuous ascent, now sated with peanut butter and jelly. On one side, fatigue pulled us back down the slope into defeat, but on the other side, ambition and tenacity forced us to continue upward. The weak fell behind, the strong pushed ahead; such is the fate of humanity. An errant thought swept past my mind: we should have made more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. After another hour, we finally crawled one final rock face and emerged on the summit of great Zembe. It was a momentous occasion. The view was a bit hazy, and it was still hot on top, which made me curse my decision to bring the sweater again, but we were still pleased. We shot the rope toting crossbow that we had brought up down off the mountain and it snagged a tree at the base of the mountain perfectly. After tugging a few times to check the strength we clipped on the rope and zip-lined safely down to the base of the mountain. Zembe was ours, we had done it. The first leg of the journey was complete and successful!
Okay, we didn’t actually zip-line down the mountain, but we thought about it. It also wasn’t the first time that anyone had ever climbed Mt. Zembe, but you have to include some things for dramatic effect. After our trip to Zembe we decided to check out some local historical sites. In a nearby town there were reportedly some world famous prehistoric rock paintings. To get there we were told to find the old woman who grants people spiritual admission to the paintings. The whole affair was a bit confusing because it turns out there are quite a few old women in Mozambique and the map we had just kind of had a big circle on in that said “old woman.” After asking around a bit though, we located someone who was a woman and appeared to be quite old, so we thought that this was maybe the ticket. When we said “rock paintings” though, she seemed as confused as we did. She guided us to a floor mat in front of her house and we sat there in awkward silence with the woman for a solid 10 minutes wondering what exactly was going on. She sat on her floor mat a few feet away from ours we just kind sat there for awhile, something you learn to do quite well after a year in Mozambique. Then, as if struck by a sudden inspiration, she hobbled quickly into her hut and pulled out a big binder stuffed with old dusty photographs, school notebooks and receipts that were spilling out of the sides of the binder. It seemed that this woman had kept every trivial document that she had ever received in her life. She handed it to us expectantly and sat back down. We paged through the binder and pointed at the old physics tests and bus receipts while she looked on. Among the chaos, however, was a photo of the rock paintings that we were looking for. While we were happy to peer into this woman’s life history, we also wanted to get on with our journey, so we quickly pointed to this photo of the paintings and she gave a knowing grunt as if this was all part of the plan. Maybe she just doesn’t get that many visitors and was hoping for some company. She pointed to the little hill above us and said, “500 meticais.” We weren’t sure exactly what service we were paying for, and 500mts is kind of a lot of money (almost $15), but we gave her the bill reluctantly and headed off in the direction of her pointed finger. Ten minutes later we were on top of the small hill peering expectantly and somewhat curiously at these “pre-historic” rock paintings. I have to say, I can get lobster curry, a couple beers and a chocolate cake for less than 500mts, so I was expecting big things from these rock paintings. I can’t say that I was blown away. First of all, it was my impression that “pre-historic” meant a really, really long time ago, like before “history” even began. No one could give us an actual date, and sadly the Mozambican department of tourism is a ways away from getting good plaques up at all their pre-historic sites, so the only thing I had to go on was an internet site that said the paintings were “pre-historic.” I’m thinking that’s got to mean at least 2 or 3 thousand years ago, minimum. I don’t know, maybe it was just my impression, but that paint was practically still wet. The lines were perfectly straight and I didn’t see even a hint of fade in the red paint. I mean, as far as rock paintings go, they weren’t bad, certainly better than I could do, but I was kind hoping for some real mind-blowing pre-historic history. Instead, we got a nice chat with a senile woman along with a couple of cartoons and ended up 500mts poorer for it. A bit of a letdown I have to say. Feeling slightly disappointed but not discouraged we left the cave painting town and continued on our way.
A few days later I headed north, leaving my home province of Sofala and heading into the unknown lands of Zambezia and Nampula. Looking out from America, the vast interstates spanning the Great Plains and winding through mountain ranges, the rest of the world has always seemed small to me. Before arriving here, I only knew Mozambique by its size on a map, a small coastal country maybe the size of California with a little dot on the Southern tip indicating the capital of Maputo. On a world map a little trip from the middle of the county to the mountainous area in the North seems like a walk in the park, a straight shot up the EN-1 for a few hours and surely we’d be there. One thing I have learned in my time here, however, is that you do not travel on nice flat maps and on the bright red lines of supposed roads. A half-inch on my world map took three days of toil – jamming into mini-buses, flagging down rides, and waiting. Waiting for buses to fill up; waiting for broken down buses to limp their way into the city; waiting for a sympathetic ex-pat to give you a ride to the next city; waiting for the driver to tie the goats, mattresses furniture, and every other earthly possession that his passengers have to the top of the mini-bus; waiting for the goat owner to climb up to the roof of the bus to feed his terrified goat a couple shoots of grass at the stop. Waiting. Patience is something that most Mozambicans were blessed with or at least acquired after a lifetime of it. I am not Mozambican. I am trying to learn patience. There are a lot of different ways to get to the same place in the country, each requiring their own forms of patience of courage. Here is the rundown:
- Option #1 – Chapa. A chapa is a 15 passenger van that runs as a bus service within cities and in between nearby towns. At any given time half of the cars on the road are chapas running people from one place to the other. The advantages: chapas are ubiquitous in Mozambique and you will almost always be able to find one going where you want to go. That’s all. The disadvantages are many: They are slow as molasses. They always cram as many people as humanly possible into the cars. I’ve counted as many as 25 to 30 people packed into a car that’s supposed to hold 15. It’s like a game of Tetris trying to fit people together and still get the door to shut behind them. They load cargo on the top so that between people and luggage the van is practically scrapping the pavement. The driver will wait to until the chapa fills up before he leaves. This means that you could be sitting in your cramped corner, sweating your balls off, knees jammed into the seat in front of you (apparently these cars were manufactured to serve people under 6’ tall) for an hour while he waits for one more passenger to complete the car. There are absolutely no safety regulations on these cars – speedometers don’t work, engine is coughing up smoke, some need a push start, tires are bald and unchecked and most drivers either don’t give a shit or can’t do anything about it because they don’t have the money to make the repairs.
- Option #2 – Hitch-hike. This is the Rolls-Royce of African travel. Sometimes you can get a ride in the front seat of a shiny new SUV or pick-up and cut half the time off of a would-be chapa trip. Every once in a blue moon the car has AC and radio and the driver speaks English. The disadvantages: if you think you’re going to be able to find one of these rides everyday, keep dreaming. I’ve waited hours and let countless chapas pass by, all in hopes of a divine intervention that would bring one of these heavenly chariots to stop in front of me only to pass the whole day on the side of the road in fruitless desperation.
- Outside of these there are a number of miscellaneous options all with their own faults – there are semi-trucks, coach buses, open bed trucks, flat-beds, bicycle carriers and your own two feet. Some are fast and unreliable, others are slow but a sure bet. Pick your poison.
On this particular trip north I was travelling with a friend of mine and we decided to mix it up, alternating between chapas and hitchhiking. The first chapa we got on was an interesting affair. The driver was friendly and eager to meet us, which is always a good start, but the chapa had a peculiar vibe to it; almost all of the passengers were kids and the woman in the seat next to me was making tuna sandwiches. This isn’t normal chapa behavior. They were heading to Quelimane though, which was on our route, so we jumped in. We paid the driver up front and he proceeded to stop in every town to buy more and more food with the money that we paid him. First there were sodas for all (except us), loaves of bread, fried chicken scures, fried fish, tuna cans, a giant bucket of tomatoes and potatoes and finally a freshly chopped off goat leg which he dangled off the driver’s side mirror for the remainder of the drive. One by one we passed the snacks back to the kids and they gobbled everything up as if they had been starved for weeks. The women to my right continued to prepare food for everyone while the man on my left was washing dishes right there in the moving car and tossing the dirty water out the window. It was bizarre. After talking to the driver a bit, however, I found out that this was no ordinary chapa; it was actually a church field trip that we had been crashing. The pastor was driving, his wife was making the sandwiches, the altar boy was on dish duty and all the kids were in the back. They were on their way home and had picked us up to cover their food expenses on the return trip. It was a bit strange, but they were nice enough and even offered us a couple of tuna sandwiches for the road so we kindly accepted and continued on our way.
Our next chapa ride was not quite as friendly, however. After a few more rides we arrived in Nampula and boarded a chapa headed for Ilha de Moçambique, our would-be final destination for the next couple of days. I didn’t take notice of the condition of the car before leaving because I was anxious to get out of the city and finally arrive at the beach we had been heading toward all this time, but if I had I would’ve seen balding tires, unmaintained and ready to burst. The three of us (we picked up one more volunteer on the way) were in the back row of the chapa and the driver was gunning it pretty fast on the surprisingly smooth road. At some point, 10 or 15 minutes in, one of my friends mentioned jokingly that they didn’t want to jinx it, but a few weeks earlier they had been on this very same road and saw a badly crumpled chapa on the side of the road. After asking others she found out very matter-of-factly that many people had died. It was slightly foreboding, but I didn’t think too much of it as it’s easy to think that you are untouchable in this country. That was probably a dangerous thought because not 10 minutes later we heard a loud pop right under our feet where the left back tire was located. The driver lost control of the car and swerved right into the oncoming lane of traffic (they drive on the left side of the road here). At this point, everything kind of slowed down for me. I was calm and helpless. I watched the images slide past me in the window like a slow motion film. There was a blue semi-truck approaching in the oncoming lane that we were now in direct line with. It was right on top of us. The driver desperately veered to the right, avoiding the approaching truck by God knows how much. The driver over-corrected though and we fish-tailed to the left. The mountains in the distance, road, and pedestrians blurred past me as the back of the chapa spun out and I peered intently out the window. Sitting there in the back, eyes glazed on the smeared images, none of it seemed real. Now sideways and still with momentum the out-of-control chapa charged off the side of the road down a small embankment and started to roll. We did a complete flip and finally came to a stop face up with the roof smashed in and windows shattered. I looked around and took in my surroundings. My friends were still there next to me. I felt my around my body for any missing limbs, pain, broken bones? Nothing. We climbed out the side window and I surveyed the damage. The chapa was sunken into the ground and the roof was dented in from the roll. I checked for the other passengers, but didn’t see anyone. We happened to crash in the middle of a small settlement of stores and by the time I emerged from the wreck people from the surrounding building had run out and were encircling the spectacle. I still couldn’t find anyone I recognized from inside the chapa. They were all gone. What happened to everyone? I found out then that we had landed literally less than 100 yards away from a small hospital and everyone was already there. We had been the last people to get out of the chapa. We were also just a stone’s throw away from the police station and the officers were asking questions and trying to herd us in the direction of the hospital. Both of my friends and I had come out remarkably unscathed. With the exception of some cuts and bruises we didn’t have any significant injuries and were anxious to get away from there as soon as possible. We picked up our bags and flagged down the first passing car we saw. Before we could process it all, we were in the back of a pick-up flying down the same road we had just flew off of and the chapa that had crashed was a only an impression on our frail memories. What had just happened? It was a flash. Did anyone get seriously injured or die? I’m actually of glad I didn’t go into the hospital to find out for myself and see all of the other passengers. I was told that no one was gravely injured, which was a relief to hear. Maybe it was too soon, but I joked with my friend that she really shouldn’t have told us that story of the other chapa accident, and that I certainly was not going to pay the collector the 100mts for the ride because he didn’t even get us halfway to our destination. Just like that it was a memory. That night we arrived at another friend’s house and the next morning we were on the beach. Such is life in this country.
Ilha de Moçambique is a tiny island in the north of Mozambique that was first colonized by the Portuguese in the 16th century. It was Mozambique’s first capital and has an impressive stone fortress laden with canons skirting one end of the island to protect the port from pirates and other colonial European invaders. The sand on the beach is as white as a piece of paper and the water is a perfect turquoise. The first night we spent at a small beach house across the bay on an isolated peninsula. We had the beach completely to ourselves and it was pristine. After the stress of school, travel and our accident it was the perfect antidote. My preoccupations faded away into the sand and my stress was washed out with the azure tide. The next day we took a small rickety sailboat captained by a few local fisherman to the actual island. The island is like no place I have seen in Mozambique. The streets are lined with plastered buildings painted in bright but fading colors. Alleys twist and turn in between the buildings and as you look up you could imagine that you are strolling through the streets of Morocco or a small Portuguese village (not that I have been to either place). We visited the museum, perused the shops and took a tour through the impressive fortress (where we learned that the origin of the name “Mozambique” was the name of two locals on the island – Mussa and Bique – when the Portuguese settlers first arrived) and we actually felt like we were on vacation. Our hostel was a cozy colonial apartment with an open courtyard and a rooftop laden with roses and a view of the surrounding ocean. Fresh seafood – lobster, crab, and shrimp – cooked in rich sauces with wine completed the picture. It couldn’t get better than this. We were in heaven. That is, until I got malaria.
Just when things were looking up, too. I spent one of my precious three days on the island lying in bed sweating out a nasty fever and trying to fight off dehydration and a delirium that scrambled my words into nonsense. It sucked and once again I was helpless. I was able to find a pharmacy with the rights medications luckily, though, and I quickly started the drug regimen. After a few hours on the anti-malarial meds I started to feel better and actually got my wits together enough to go out for a crab dinner that night. I was not about to pass up my one opportunity to eat fresh seafood for this year. For the next three days it was at night when the fevers and the cold sweats came the hardest. I found myself pretty functional during the day, but I was soaking through shirts, sheets and pillowcases during the night. I didn’t know one human could produce so much sweat. We stayed at a friend’s house on the way back from the island and when I woke up in the morning it felt as if someone had dumped an entire bucket off water on the bed. I felt like I was 10 years old again and had wet the bed at a sleep over.
The malaria eventually passed though and the memories of the car accident while still evocative faded away into the rest of the mosaic and here I am again, at home, and at school. I don’t know how to sum up a blog post like this, but to say that while I enjoyed my romp through misfortune and bliss, I am happy to be in a place that I can call home for now. I have students that know my name, and while I might not be the best English professor they’ve ever had, they have to at least pretend to like me. It’s going to take awhile to recalibrate my scales to a quiet life back on the mission after such exploits, but I have a lot of goals and challenges to work through here in my final trimester of this year and I am exciting to see how it goes. If I ever get around to writing another blog post after this marathon, I’ll be sure to tell you about the mysterious adventure of the Mountain Queen which I didn’t even get around to sharing in this post as well as some of the exciting things I’m doing back at site. Thanks for listening and I hope that all is well back at home for everyone. Take care!
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