Mosi-oa-Tunya — 'The Smoke Which Thunders'

A gentle rumble wakes me from sleep.  After a few moments of coming to my senses in the dark room, I discern three different types of rumblings.  Funny, the morning before they had been commenting on the snoring of the others.  I search the bed for my phone, as I’ll need the light to get out of the upper bunk.  It’s only 5:30 but sleep seems impossible on such an important day.  I decide to take my book and a blanket out into the common area of the backpackers and leave the snoring trio to their harmonies.

The temperature difference between the cozy bedroom and the open-roof common area is surprising.  I find a group of cushions, fashion myself a warm area to read, and take in the area.  What was full of young men and women the day before when we arrived is now empty, except for two felines who take no time in snuggling up to me and my warm blanket.  After a time of reading, I see the sky brightening and decide to head out.  The room is still dark when I retrieve my bank card, and I depart without disturbing anyone.

The streets of Livingstone are almost as desolate as the hostel common area.  The two and three story buildings block the eastern sky as I walk towards Barclay’s to take out money for the trip to Victoria Falls that day.  In the bank parking lot I gain a clear view of the sky as the sun starts painting the clouds on a beautiful morning for what is sure to be an extraordinary day.  When I get back to the hostel, the trio are up and moving about.  We order a large breakfast, and I have two cups of coffee, which I quickly realize is a mistake when my hands begin to shake.

Our cab ride to The Falls is short but informative.  Drivers here learn a lot to try to impress their customers and gain repeat business.  Many elephants wander this area, apparently.  Most of the words pass through my head like flies through a cavern as I anticipate The Falls.  One thing that sticks, however, is the warning about baboons, who don’t fear humans, are numerous in The Falls area, and have been known to steal wallets, among other things.

Once inside the outer gate of the park, we see a group of baboons lazing about a small clearing of grass.  They’re somewhat large, but not surprisingly, and their butts really do look strange.  They seem quite content looking for food amongst the trees.  This wouldn’t be the last group of baboons of the day.  We pass by a sort of market on our way to the inner gate and the normal hassling ensues.  We assure the venders we’ll stop by on the way out and continue to the inner gate.

Our tickets stamped, we enter the gate and gaze on a map of the park.  We decide to leave the up-close view of The Falls now for the roundabout, western trail.  The trail offers some sheltered views of The Falls, but is spectacular because of the rain forest within the canyon.  While the terrain around us is mostly dry, the ravine below hosts a sea of green ferns and palms spotted with browns of rock and dirt.  Across the ravine and 100 meters down, the River flows through a crack that lends a sliver of a view to The Falls.  Not wanting to spoil the main course, we move on.  The trail gives nothing to get very excited about and we make our way back to the main crossways of the park.

On reaching the crossways, the ladies decide to take The Falls View trail and I take the steep Boiling Pot trail.  A minute later and I’m alone walking through the forest.  The solitude is refreshing but short lived.  A minute later and baboons are everywhere.  Between the presence of the baboons in the trees and the caffeine in my blood, my legs tremble as I step down the trail, so I grab the rail for a bit of stability.  Moments later, a baboon jumps onto the rail 20 meters behind me and nearly causes my heart to explode out of my chest.  I look at him.  He looks at me.  We both continue on our way.

They call it the Boiling Pot trail because of the ruckus and bubbles created as a stream coming from a cavern in the side of the ravine tumbles down boulders to meet the Zambezi River.  The sky is open and the sun creates ideal conditions for a bit of boulder jumping.  Finding a large rock at the edge of the river, I sit and think.  The bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe is 100 meters above me and as traffic passes over the bridge, the water passes below.  At that moment, a woman leaps off the bridge.  Her screams echo off the canyon walls as she plummets towards the River.  Moments before she hits the water, the bungee cord comes taut and she springs back towards the bridge.  The thrill entices me, but the price repelled me from buying a ticket.  Instead, I sit calmly in the sun, watching the mighty Zambezi.

I’ve been reading a book about the life of a Buddha called, Siddhartha.  In the book, Siddhartha spends time living next to a river as a ferryman and he has a realization that the river is not just in front of him, but in the mountains, at the source, in the prairies, and at the sea all at the same time.  He realizes his life is like the river; that Siddhartha the boy is also him, that he is the old man, and that there is nothing real separating them.  The river is eternal and yet every moment the river is different than the moment before.  I try to process these ideas on the edge of the largest river in southern Africa.

After some time, I start the trek back up the trail.  Sweat quickly pours out of my body as the heat has increased and the walk up is more difficult that the walk down.  I stop to watch a group of adolescent baboons wrestle amongst the hanging limbs and dry leaves.  Feeding a pair of infants in the background, a mother sits atop a large rock surrounded by her family.  I leave them to continue my quest to The Falls and am shortly back at the crossroads.  The Falls View trail appeals most strongly and I decide it’s time to face the natural wonder.  Within a minute, my feet stop on the edge of The Falls canyon.

Gazing into the roaring, swirling mists of eternity, I stand on the brink of reality.  Few times in my life have I experienced such an intense, indomitable nothingness.  It’s as if the act of taking it all in at once is too much for my brain, and its reaction is to become senseless.  Having stood through epochs of time, juts of basalt thrust out of the edge of the Zambezi as unquantifiable amounts of water plunge over a hundred meters into the canyon below.  The Falls was witnessed by the dinosaurs and hosted the predecessors of man some 800,000 years ago.  Did they look out with the same wonder and reverence I feel now?  How could they not have?

The Falls stretch a mile wide.  The ledge I stand on is covered by a green grass, nourished by the mists that erupt from the depths by the force of the crashing water below.  The cool mists collect on my hot skin as I lean back my head and smile.  Utter bliss.

Leading to the rock-pillar island, the walking bridge lends a view of both The Falls and the canyon where the River passes.  A double rainbow gleams over the Boiling Pot.  I cross the bridge and encounter Rhonda and my mother, who tell about a baboon trying to steal my mom’s soda.  From Danger Point, at the far end of the island, you can get a feel of The Falls’ vastness, but still can’t see the far edge.  After taking in the views, we decide to move to the river above The Falls.

At this point in the year, the River is low because of the lack of rain in the past months.  In the plane of the River, you see rocks, plants and even trees.  We take a seat on the rocks to cool our feet in the River.  I watch as a man crosses the River on foot, wading through pools on his way to the edge.  I feel a tinge of jealousy.  However, a short time later, the same man comes to me and offers to take me to the edge of The Falls.  I am hesitant at first, but after some insisting, he has me convinced.  I leave my camera, as I’m uncertain of my footing in the River and know not to trust a man I just met with my camera.  Feeling like a toddler, I hold Alex’s hand as we make our way slowly across a dike upstream.  He tells me he lives nearby and has been doing crosses like this since he was 10 years old. After making our way across, we head downstream to The Falls.  He offers to hold my hand as I lean out over The Falls.  Again, after 10 minutes of knowing Alex, I’ll trust him with my dryness, but not my life.  I find a dry rock on the edge, lay down and shimmy my way out.

It’s hard to discern the distance of the drop because of the varying sizes of the strangely vivid boulders below.  The water takes both a long time and yet a surprisingly short time to reach the bottom.  The mists appear somewhat clearer from this point, yet a double rainbow gleams again.  After taking in the rare view, I get up and Alex and I head back.  Upon reaching the shore, the ladies and I decide it’s time to go.

The cab ride back seems shorter than the ride to The Falls and we’re back in the hostel quickly.  We go out for a traditional Zambian lunch.  I devour the large fish, but my companions are a little less than impressed by the xima and anchovy platter or the bitter greens.  After lunch we go back to the hostel and have a nap.  When we wake up we have a few drinks, order a couple pizzas and take an easy night before travelling to Kruger the next day.  As I fall asleep to gentle rumblings, I think, “After such a day, how could tomorrow, or the rest of this trip compare?”  Man, if I only knew.*

*See the “Oh, we need a yellow fever vaccination to get on the plane?” blog coming soon.

Unknown Feijoada and the True Spirit of Adventure

The smell of feces and body odor fills my nose.  Not permanently, but for a short while my brain reels from the pungency.   The sidewalk should be enough for 5 people to walk abreast, but I must maneuver precisely to tread through the carts, stands, merchandise strewn about the ground, customers, and vending ladies sitting on chairs.  The museu district of Maputo hosts the terminus of several bus routes and is one of the busier sections of town.  I look to the wall of the large market on my left, notice a small alley and duck in to find some lunch.

Concrete walls hardly taller than my head stretch on for fifty meters, each with a repeating pattern of metal grates: doors and windows.  The shops don’t look the same, but the purpose is the same.  Each is between 2 and 4 meters long and deep and each has an assortment of pots, tables, chairs, stoves, water barrels, basins, freezers, TVs, utensils, plates, and people.  Walking down the alley, my head swivels constantly looking for where I want to sit down to eat.  The shops aren’t full, but I don’t want to sit down at any old shop.  I have to find the right one, but how? 

A person doesn’t really use any one of their senses in a situation like this.  You can’t.  Trying to discern the quality of any property of any shop over the others would drive you mad.  Instead, I shut off the omnipresent clamoring of my internal dialogue and try to sense where to eat.  You might call it intuition.  It’s something you can learn to ignore living the rigorously structured day-to-day life in America, but intuition is an exhilarating thing to follow and through my time in Mozambique, I’ve learned to trust it.

As much as I’m looking at the shops, I’m looking at the people running the shops; not in judgment, but in a sense of extending myself to see who will react and how.  An attractive women lying on the ledge in front of the window grate makes eye contact, but I continue.  A shop is half-full of people with plates of food in front of them, but I continue.  About twenty meters into the alley, I see a shop with three women having a conversation out front.  I decide to stop here and order the feijoada.

Feijoada is a traditional Mozambican meal lacking in initial appeal.  After boiling beans for 2 to 3 hours, you add them to a pot of sautéing cabbage, carrots, onions, tomatoes, garlic, basil leaves, and some random chunks of meat/bones (chicken intestines are common).  After frying the beans for a while, you add the water from the boiling, let that simmer for a half hour, and in the end it comes out as a thick brown mixture.  I’ve been trying to cook it for over a year now, but am still a novice.  Feijoada has great flavor, is cheap, and can satisfy your hunger well when served with rice.  The plate is set on the table in front of me and my mouth begins to water.  Three ham bones stand out amidst the lumpy, brown mix.  After a few shots of piri-piri, the dish comes to life.  My mouth burns a bit, but the pepsi coming out of the chilled glass bottle soothes all.

You’re not going to find this shop in a travel book.  You won’t even find this market in a travel book.  You’ll find the five star hotel around the corner.  You’ll find the restaurant down the street where a beer is three times the price it is here.  People won’t eat here because the street outside and the market itself are unsightly and overflowing with people.  Aside from frugalness, that’s exactly why I came here.

When I turned 24 I wrote a self-motivating paper about what I wanted to accomplish in that year; the theme was adventure.  While writing the paper, images of scaling mountains, hiking across plains and splashing through rapids flashed through my mind.  This grandeous image of adventure is common for everyone.  Hemingway didn’t write any books about market beans.  However, I believe this image of adventure is distracting people from the true spirit of adventure.  A person that gets caught up in the planning of a great journey could potentially eliminate the adventure completely.  Adventure isn’t taking a taxi to a luxury tent in the Himalayas, it’s hiking into a village in the Himalayas looking for a spot to eat and hoping to meet someone who will offer you a place to stay for the night.  Adventure is letting your intuition drive you into situations you can’t plan and, perhaps most importantly, trusting that things will work out in the end.  You’ll probably hit some bumps in the road, but that’s what makes an adventure. 

Looking at three dry hambones on my plate, inside a dark shop, in a side-alley of a busy market in Maputo, I’m now satisfied.  I’ve never seen this place before.  I’ll likely never see it again.  As I drain the last drop of pepsi from the bottle, I think: by taking the road less travelled, following my instinct, and simply not worrying, I enjoyed doing something I would’ve never planned on doing.  I guess that’s the spirit of adventure.

Linga Linga: Hardly a Linger

Birthday weekends can be a bit of a treat for PC Volunteers.  A large gathering of young Americans focused around the purpose of celebration, and as is usually the case for vols in southern Mozambique, at a beach.  A chance to relax a bit and speak English that non-native speaking Americans have trouble understanding. This particular 25^th birthday festivity happened for a good friend of mine, Emily, and was set to happen at a secluded beach, Linga Linga.  Originally planned as a simple nine hour expedition out of Mabalane to central Inhambane, my journey soon became one of the more active, more wakeful, and more fun weekends of my life.

Thursday

On striking 2:40, my alarm begins to beep-beep me from sleep.  After four short hours of sleep, weariness is strangely absent from my mind.  I grab my packed bag, make a peanut butter sandwich and head out the door.  After crossing the field and railroad tracks, my feet tread the dark, starlit road into town.  Thursday’s usually don’t see many people trying to leave Mabalane, so I’m not surprised to find there’s still space on the parked chapa.  I have a one of four spots on the back seat: the worst seat.  Not only is it raised slightly closer to the roof so you can never really sit up straight, but taking its position behind the wheels, the back seat also enhances every bump in the road.  The 100 kilometers of pot-hole marked, torn up asphalt and dirt road that lay between Mabalane and Chokwe.  No biggie, we’ve done this before.  The chapa leaves the stop around 4:00.  (Sleep-4 hrs, Travel-0 hrs)

Six hours of travel later, I’m in a chapa on the outskirts of Maputo.  At this point, I don’t know my way about the chapa system in Maputo, and have to ask the driver and money-handler how to get where I think I want to go.  My destination is the PC Office, which a part of my mind associates with the words Costa do Sol.  I end up being told to relax by a welder who calls himself Rasta.  Apparently a friend of the driver with a day off, Rasta assures me he’s from Maputo and will get me where I want to go.  After an hour or so of detours I’m sure I didn’t have to take, my friends and I pull up to a large chapa station I’m unfamiliar with.  They point me to the chapa marked Costa do Sol and I hop in. 

Twenty minutes later, trees, shacks and sand surround me, and I am 95 percent certain I am not where I wanted to be.  As the crowd in the chapa dwindles down to just me, I decide to ask for help.  When we reach the final stop, the driver points me to another chapa, one I recognize, one that has a pink banner across the top that says Costa do Sol on it.  This chapa runs around a part of town I am familiar with and passes within a block of the office on its way to its final stop, where I am now, Costa do Sol.

At 12:30, I enter the PC Office.  Over the next five hours I return to a familiar yet forgotten mode of work I often entered in my time as a student.  With a computer in front of me, internet music coming through my headphones, an empty bag of chips and a chocolate bar beside me, I work like a man possessed.  Efficiency.  Sweet, sweet efficiency envelops me as I cram a day’s worth of work into a few hours, and it feels wonderful.  Towards the end of my work, Hannah and Kyla, two volunteers from Maputo who are also working in the office, draw my attention to an upcoming drug in Russia called Krocodil.  While some might consider this a distraction, it should be noted that such things are not only common, but necessary in academia.  (Sleep-4, Travel-8)

My work finished, the three of us hop a tuk-tuk to Hannah’s small apartment; a tight squeeze for even three people, but free sleeping is free and PCV’s don’t complain.  After a day of no food other than a bag of chips and chocolate, I’m starving.  Luckily, Hannah knows a place that serves excellent chicken and we all get a half for ourselves.  Shortly into the meal, Vicrum, a PCV from my training group joins us and we enjoy the rest of our meal in conversation before heading to a nearby barraca.  Somehow, whiskey becomes the drink of choice this night and we enjoy.  Shortly into our cups, Gabby, yet another volunteer from my training group (and my Kili climbing partner), joins us.  For the next few hours, we go through an array of whiskeys, stories, jokes, and episodes of Xena which are playing on the tv in the corner.

With a healthy sideways motion to our steps and a slight slur to our words, our company parts ways and heads home for the evening.  Hannah, Kyla, and I decide to watch Space Jam as we fall asleep because Kyla has never seen it.  Kyla is asleep before the theme song finishes, Hannah shortly after, and I fall asleep around 2:00 as Bugs and Daffy try to steal Micheal’s shorts.

Friday

At 6:00 my alarm starts to sing again and by 6:30 I’m sitting in a chapa heading to the north side of Maputo.  Before long, I’m wondering around the Zimpeto area (a stretch along the main highway where there is a market and a lot of traveler transfers between the main northern road and the city) with a pao and bagia sandwich in hand telling numerous people I’m not going to pay for their chapa to such-and-such place.  My goal is to boleia (hitch) to Xai-Xai to meet Queshia and Dan before continuing to Emily’s site, sounds easy enough. (Sleep-8, Travel-9)

After a half hour of waiting and flailing at people as they drive by, a salmon colored car pulls over and the driver offers me a ride to Manhica, which is not Xai-Xai, but closer.  He tells me he is a retired port director from Beira (one of the largest ports in Moz).  Our conversation mainly covers the tenants currently living in his parents’ old house (where he is going now) and the general youth’s lack of respect towards the property of others.  Before long we arrive in Manhica and he pulls off at a café where he is meeting others.  Before saying goodbye, he yells across the street at a lady he knows who is talking to a man in a water truck.  Next thing I know, I’m in said water truck heading to Macia.  In the beginning, conversation is sparse as the driver talks on the phone several times in quick succession in Changana.  After a short break from the phone, he informs me that his wife had left six weeks ago without saying a word, and now she is back at his house and his family is in chaos.  We have a long conversation about the importance of communication in a relationship and before long he drops me off near my favorite chicken spot in Macia.  After a quick bite, I’m back on the road and in another vehicle.  The driver of this safari looking truck is the owner of 23,000 hectares (57,000 acres) of Moz land near the border of Zimbabwe and South Africa, neighboring two national parks.  He’s planning on making it a game reserve, and also a haven for rhinos who have been heavily poached in the area.  We talk about travel, America, and the ethics and effects of the eviction of white farm owners in Zimbabwe during the 1990s.  Xai-Xai is bustling when he drops me off, and I keep moving to catch a chapa heading to the north edge of town where Queshia and Dan are waiting.  (Sleep-8, Travel 14)

Around noon, Queisha reports seeing “a single white arm in a chapa,” and I hop out to greet my friends.  We make up our minds to boleia, and the rest of our day passes as follows:

•           A hour ride to Manjacaze in the backseat of a car with a small boy, whose head is enormous, sitting in Queisha’s lap
•           A 15 minute ride to the Inhambane border in a truck with a man who is certain we should pay him because we’re white (at least Dan and I
•           A hour ride to Quissico in a water truck that moves before Dan is entirely in the back, but he saves himself from falling out
•           A nice, speedy ride to Inharrime in an SUV with a man who likes Whitney Houston and who greets us with, “Yes, yes, just get in.  Hurry.
•            A chapa ride to Maxixe in which the sliding chapa door needs to be closed in the front and then the back
•       And finally, a chapa to Emily’s site, without much incident

Around 19:00 we are greeted roadside by Emily, Lauren, and Tans.  They escort us to Tans’ house where a group of volunteers waits with food and drink a plenty.  The rest of the night is full of shrimp pasta, booze, music videos and assholes (the card game). (Sleep-8, Travel-21)

Saturday

My alarm screams once again at 6.  After a cup of tea, Tans and I hit the road.  The group will meet a boat in the bay at 8:30 and things must be bought and arranged before then.  My charge is to buy bread for 14 people and with that sack in my hand, and a cooler in Tans’, we arrive at Emily’s to find out they’ve already bought bread.  Hope the group is hungry.  After the yo-yo, everyone is ready to go and we’re boarding a dhow (sailboat) to cross Inhambane Bay to Linga-Linga.  (Sleep-14, Travel-21)

Even on schedule, the dhow crew are a bit worried about reaching our destination before low-tide on the bay.  Before long, we sail out of the smaller inlet into the bay, but not before starting into the sangria.  Like I said, weekends with friends are cause for celebration and we’ve got a three hour sail ride across the bay, what better time to celebrate?

Two and a half hours, and several bottles, into the voyage and the tide is clearly dropping.  Our crew navigates through the deeper sections as best they can, but eventually we run into a small sand bar.  Myself and four other pcv’s readily hand their beverage to a neighbor and hop in to the bay.  We make quick work of dislodging the boat and are soon back in the boat a little soggier but no worse for the ware.  We stay at attention for other sand bars as dislodging a boat once is fun, but many times gets a little silly.  Within a half hour, we enter the inlet that leads us closer to camp and are soon on dry land again.  After a short walk through brush and under coconuts trees, we come upon a clearing.  (Sleep-14, Travel-24)

Our camp is formed around a large cashew tree with three hammocks hanging from the lower limbs.  We make quick work of setting up the tents and head to the beach.  Linga Linga is a northern peninsula extending into Inhambane Bay, and access is difficult.  As a result, our group has the beach to ourselves.  The sun is shining and a strong breeze is coming of the Indian Ocean.  A lazy, relaxing afternoon on the beach with frisbee, more drinks, and conversation makes the hassle of travel worthwhile.  As the sun approaches the horizon, the group starts to migrate back to camp.  A splendid supper has been cooked for us in a small dining area at one end of the camp, including many types of seafood.  Being famished, I quickly over eat myself, but am still contented.  Our party moves back to proximity of the cashew tree and find a fire has been set.

We start into a game of contact that lasts hours, and never becomes dull.  Shortly into the game, someone brings out a cake for Emily’s birthday.  Then someone else brings out cookies.   Then someone else brings out brownies.  Even after engorging myself at supper, I can’t stop myself from having my fill of each of the chocolaty deserts.  Sometimes I feel like a mooch while bathing in the kindness and thoughtfulness of others, but I try to payback that kindness when I can and I won’t complain at the moment.  The rest of the night includs a trip back to the beach to see bioluminescence in the water, a spirit animal debate, more drinks, more desert, and talk around the fire.  After several hours that pass like several minutes, the group has dwindled to five of us, and I’m ready for sleep.  As I lay down on the esteira (straw mat), a light rain begins to hiss on the leaves of the cashew tree above me.

Sunday

Sleeping outside instills a sort of energy for me in the mornings, and when I open my eyes and see the sky is grey, I am quickly on my feet.  It’s 5:30 and the boatmen want to push off at 7:30.  The tide will be low early again, but also, some of us hope to get back to site and have a long journey following the crossing of the bay.  While the others sleep, I gather up all of my things and my bag is promptly packed.  By the time I finish, others have started to stir and help me in cleaning up the aftermath of party strewn about the camp.  Bread is the main course for breakfast we’re all on the boat at 8:00.  (Sleep-16, Travel-24)

The group is still a little groggy as we coast through the inlet, but spirits are still up.  The morning is cool, the water calm.  Birds are singing and flying in all directions.  When we reach the bay, the mood of the weather seems to change and the wind hits us hard from the direction of our destination.  Our going is slow, as we need to tack (moving serpentine to catch the wind in the sail while still moving forward) to make any use of the wind.  Karina apparently has experience with sails and performs the maneuver well.  After three hours, we’ve travelled the same distance we travelled in one hour the day before.  By the time we reach the part of the bay at the mouth of our inlet, the tide is out and we are maneuvering through a deeper channel when we finally get stuck.  Looking around, people are walking around in the inlet we want to enter.  Apparently they harvest roots and mussels from the exposed section of the bay at this time each day.  A debate starts among us of whether or not we should just walk back to our dock, but on account of the stuff we brought with us and our obvious ignorance of the tides, we decide to wait with the boat.

We break out the extra bread I bought, which turned out to be a lucky mistake, and make a quick meal.  I walk over to an exposed sand bar and draw a series of lines to mark the motion of the tide.  After a short time, I see that the water is rising around 2 inches every 10 minutes.  Not much, but it’s progress (a common theme in Mozambique).  Even with the progress, some of the PCVs start worrying about the long journey home and whether they’ll be able to make it following the delay.  To bolster the progress of the tide, everyone exits the boat and begins to push and pull the boat and before long it’s free and moving.  Everyone hops or scuttles back into the boat.  And we get stuck again.

An hour of repetitive effort and disappointment later, eight of us still remain in the water pushing when we’re needed, clinging to the side of the boat like rags in the wind when we’re not.  By the time we reach the last straight to Morrumbene, we have no more problems and are coasting to the dock.  People are still walking on sandbars harvesting mussels and roots, but we’re passing them by.  We reach the dock, say goodbye to the crew, and walk back to Emily’s house.  At the last partings, we say goodbye to those heading in different directions (including a final goodbye to my friend Sadie who would be leaving country soon).  It’s a strange feeling saying goodbye to people after you’ve been through such a strange and trying experience.  A sort of esoteric joy and at the same time the sad conclusion of the situation.  After the goodbyes, Dan, Queshia, and I head back to the southern road.  (Sleep-16, Travel-30)

It’s now 13:30, the sun is strong, and we’ve had little or no water this morning.  However, we agree to push on and try to boleia to save a little money.  Standing on the side of the road, we watch the cars pass for nearly twenty minutes before a sharp looking white sedan pulls over.  I’m ecstatic, as this car is likely going to be the fastest thing we could hope for.  Sadly, the man driving asks us what we’re willing to pay for the boleia.  Typically PCVs boleia to save the money they would otherwise spend on a chapa.  However, after a short conversation we decide to take the man on his offer as we’re exhausted, couldn’t expect a better ride and would pay more than he’s asking for a chapa.  We hop in the backseat of the car and talk about the cost of boleias and how exhausted we are following the voyage we just had.  Before long we cover the distance between Morrumbene and Maxixe and are able to finally get some food, juice and water.  After having our snacks and rehydrating, the three of us promptly pass out.

I wake up a short time later and we’re moving.  I can see the 140 kmph mark on the speedometer, but the needle is buried somewhere past it. Dan hops out at his site around 18:00 and by 18:30 Queshia and I are walking along the road in Xai-Xai.  I couldn’t possibly hope to arrive in Mabalane tonight, so Queshia tells me to crash at her place.  I’m eating a good burger at a restaurant near Queshia’s house, running the numbers through my head when I realize that since I went to bed Wednesday evening, over the past four days, I had slept for 17 hours and travelled for 35.  I hang my head and have a good laugh at memories and madness of the weekend.  After the burger, Queshia and I head back to her house, where there is a shower (a delicacy for PCVs).  We watch an episode of Captain Planet, have a spontaneous dance lesson, and go to bed.

Monday

I wake up late, to the sound of heavy rain on the roof.  Queshia tells me I’m welcome to stay another day to avoid the rain and I happily accept.  A day of rest, what a fascinating idea.

At this point, we'd been stuck in this spot for about a half-hour.  The positive attitude of this photo provides good insight into the character of the PCVs I work with and go through such pains to see when I have the opportunity.

Mulungo in London

Looking out over London and the rainbow stretching across the eastern half of the horizon, I felt surprisingly happy as the buildings grew bigger and bigger as the plane landed after the 11-hour flight.  Stepping off the plane, I dreaded the 14 hours ahead of me.  It’s one thing to travel for an extended period of time, but simply waiting around for that long is some sort of mind torture.  After missing my plane in Des Moines (due to a flight schedule change I was unaware of) I was forced to adapt to this new itinerary including a 5-hour layover in Chicago and this layover in London. 

People told me getting out and back into the airport between international flights was a hassle, so I had decided to just wait in the airport.  The wall of screens displaying what flights were leaving from which gates in which terminals now sprawled out in front of me.  The latest posted flight would depart three hours before mine.  Shortly after my head dropped, a soft English voice asked if I needed help.  I turned to look into the large doe-eyes of a young, attractive Indian woman.  Things seemed better all of the sudden.  I explained my situation and she assured me it wasn’t difficult to get out of the airport, and my checked bag would continue as planned.  I thanked her and moved my feet toward customs.

After my passport was stamped, my money exchanged and my bladder emptied, I started asking around about the best means to travel to the city.  A small bar in my university town holds the name London Underground, and I was happy to hear the Underground offered the best travel for the price.  I bought my ticket and headed down two escalators to the station.

A train of cars pulled up to the station on the minute posted on the schedule (a person grows accustomed to this in the States, but you learn a whole new appreciation for punctuality living at the whims of public transportation in Mozambique).  The train made several stops over the next hour, both above and below ground, and I took a closer look out across London for the first time.  The buildings our car passed were compact and almost always stood within a meter or two of, if not attached to, at least one other building.  Yet, green blazed amongst the concrete on many of the building and the occasional park popped up as the train passed.  When the train stopped at Piccadilly Circus, I stepped into the underground station and made my way up the steps to the street.

After quickly consulting a map, my feet took me a block to the east and onto the pathways of Hyde Park.  As I made my way through the green grass and bald trees, I noticed the people jogging, the pets running around, the squirrels climbing up trees, and perhaps my favorite part, no trash on the ground.  The park laid wide open around me and I tried to take in as much as possible as I crossed, but awaiting me on the far side of the park was the site I had come to this park for: Buckingham Palace.

Ornate carvings in marble and limestone stood everywhere around the square, along with statues carved of the same stone or molded from gold.  The palace itself faced the square with a regal aura, the architecture reminding me of some of the old buildings at Iowa State.  After a short time and a few pictures, I made my way through another park with a pond and plethora of birds of varying species.  Also, I saw a man feeding squirrels who would climb his legs and take peanuts from his hands.  From the park, I passed to the square viewing Parliament and listened as Big Ben sounded off twelve tolls for the noon hour.  I crossed the Tames and strolled the southern bank past the Eye of London before crossing back over to the north side almost a mile from Parliament.

Then, I decided I should think about returning to the airport, but before I headed back, I wanted to find a place to get a plate of fish and chips and a couple pints.  What sort of tourist would I be if I didn’t get fish and chips in London, England?  The search led me up and down a few streets, which only promised expensive dining, until eventually I spotted a somewhat darker alley.

As I passed by the shops that lined the snugger, darker alley and drew closer to the light on the farther side, I started to give up hope, when I looked through a large window into a darker room.  Next to the bar in that dark room, a pale, attractive face looked back at me.  After staring for a second, I registered the face as belonging to a female bartender and the room as a pub.  I entered the door promptly.

Established in 1777, Hall & Woodhouse was a small pub with small furniture too, which seemed to add character and space to the room.  The lighting was dark, but calming.  Dark wood made the entirety of the structure with the exception of a few brass fittings and the glass windows, and black and white pictures covered the walls.  The bartender had dark brown hair and was dressed in black from head to foot, which explains why I only saw her face from the alley. 

            “Do you serve food?”

“You can take a look at our menu.”

“I’ll have a seat and a Guinness, then.”

She guided me to a short stool next to a short table in a corner and turned to pour my Guinness.  While the front of her outfit was completely black, the back of her long-sleeved shirt opened to show her back.  Amidst the ubiquitous subtlety of the bar, the sudden shock almost made me dizzy, and I quickly seated myself.  When Sam brought my pint, I ordered the cod and chips, started writing about everything I saw in London, and heard noises from the next room.  A doorway just a foot away from me led to a small compartment, perfect for a group of friends, called “The Snug”.  The sounds alluded to a couple who were trying to make good on the name of the room they occupied.

My food came up an elevator system I had not seen used in any other restaurant, likely due to the small area of the bar.  The fish was passable, but not memorable.  The Amstel Light that followed the Guinness tasted well.  When the second pint was empty, I paid my bill, said thank-you and goodbye to Sam, and headed back to the Underground that would take me to the airport where I would wait for a short time to board my plane for Johannesburg.

One Strange Afternoon

In themselves, Thursdays were typically rather dull.  I only had two classes to teach and Thursday followed Wednesday, which had no classes and offered plenty of time for me to get work done.  However, this Thursday unfolded into a strange series of events that left me dumbfounded, yet altogether pleased with my part in them.

Having finished our lesson early, I decided to do some word exchange with my 8^a 3 class.  We selected a few Portuguese words and I told them the English equivalent, they told me the Changana equivalent.  For the last 5 minutes of class, the 10 students who stayed for the last period (out of a roster of 40) and I laughed as the other tried to pronounce words like grill (they have a lot of trouble with this word) and chloko (head).  An extra bounce in my step, I left the classroom and headed home when the Pedagogical Director waved me over to the window of another classroom.

Being the end of the day, hardly anyone remained at the school, and yet a small group of students gathered inside the classroom around a girl who was lying on the ground, unconscious.  Apparently this girl had a history of fits and on this day had one before passing out.  Immediately, my brain went through my very limited knowledge of medical conditions that could explain fits and passing out: seizures, dehydration and lack of food in the day’s extreme heat all came to the front of my mind.  All wrong.  The PD informed me the girl was inflicted by mau espiritos (bad spirits).

I laughed at first, but she was serious.  Spirits aren’t a major part of everyday life, but they are a part of Mozambican culture, and for some people, can stand as a valid reason for strange phenomenon: such as a girl having a fit and collapsing during class.  At the Escola Secundaria de Mabalane, students talk about Jossefa, a girl who died and whose spirit still haunts the school.  The students’ belief is Jossefa causes strange events such as this.  So, to heal this girl and combat the spirit, the small group of students and my PD called the curandeiro, a traditional medicine and spiritual healer in the community.  I personally have had no dealings with the cuandeiro, but from what I have heard, there is at least on in every community and this person is both respected and feared by everyone.

My PD told me this person was on the way, but that it could be a while.  As I planned to meet Charlie in town for a free meal, I decided to leave the situation to bathe and head into town.  On the way back to my house, my neighbors were playing a game of keep-away soccer, so I stopped to join.

Now, I should remind you, it’s late February at this time, which means that it’s summer in a tropical African country and I’m playing soccer in slacks, dress shoes, a button down shirt and a lab coat.  Needless to say, before long a healthy sweat covered my face and arms.  After ten minutes, I left the game and continued to my house.  As I entered the back door, I heard the sound of rustling plastic on the table to my left.  I turned my head and quickly saw the plastic bag that made the sound, but what caused the-

There!  Its head and body moved up the grate covering our window.  After backing away a few more feet, I watched as the biggest snake I had ever seen outside of a display slithered up our window grate.  The body was skinny, green and a meter long.  After the initial shock of encountering a snake in my kitchen passed, I tried to think of a way to get it out of my house, and quickly realized I had no experience with such things.  I could kill it fairly easily, but that didn’t seem fair.  This dumbass snake just happened to come into an inhabited house, was now cornered and likely scared.  I decided to ask my neighbors what to do and stepped back onto the back stoop.

The crew of four who had been playing soccer were now resting.  This is how I remember the conversation going:

-          Me (calmly): Hey!  There’s a snake in my house.

-          Them: Yeah, ok teacher.  Sure there’s a snake.

-          Me (seriously): It’s this big!

-          Them: Oh, shit!

Something I had never seen before and seriously underestimated was the Mozambican’s reaction to snakes.  The words grave and severe come to mind, and yet don’t seem to quite capture their response.  These teenagers arranged for battle when they realized I was serious.  Sticks, bricks and garden hoes in hand, we went through the front door.  The snake still hung in the grate and they boys let out sounds of excitement and disbelief when they saw it.

I won’t go into the details, but after much throwing, rustling, smashing, and shouting, the snake lay crushed and beheaded.  They quickly removed the body from the house to a pile of brush and burned it.  The burning of snakes is another cultural act done to ensure the snake is dead and prevent its spouse or owner from tracking the scent to you and killing you.

In the aftermath of the battle, I abandoned the bath to hit the road into town and give myself some time to process what just happened.

The heat and sweat persisted throughout the walk and I quickly began to regret not taking a bath.  However around halfway into town, the doctor of Mabalane pulled up and asked if I wanted a ride.  I hopped in and was blasted by a wave of cold air.  Of course the doctor had an air conditioned car.  I, however, had not felt air conditioning in over two months and was in a near vegetative state from the euphoria my sweaty body suddenly sensed.

In town, the doctor dropped my off at his turn and I stepped back into the heat, though now the sweating had stopped and I felt a little better.  I made the short walk to the restaurant, grabbed a cold Fanta, sat down and told Charlie about the strange whirlwind I had just passed through.

A Glimpse of My Journey

After three weeks of writing a blog of the entire trip to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, a thief decided he needed my computer more than I.  Along with the pages of work I produced for this blog, he also took all of my grades for 8^th grade chemistry, a portion of my teaching notes, and my accumulated media from the first 11 months in Mozambique.  I try to forget that I put off creating a system backup copy for the last eight months that could have saved the loss of any of these personal treasures.

However, life moves on, and I’m certain the person who stole my computer will suffer some horrific accident; if not in reality, in my imagination.

Concerning the blog, I was and am proud of what I started writing about my trip.  For me, religion exists in nature.  In nature I feel most alive, most intimate with God.  As much a testament to physical endurance, this trip represented a pilgrimage of sorts, my own Mecca.  I will not, at this point, reattempt rendering all of my notes into prose.  Instead, for this blog, I’ll throw you into the final ascent to Uhuru.

Our camp, Barrafu, rested on a sharp ridge at an altitude of 4,650 m (15, 260 ft).  Earlier that day, when we first arrived at camp around 1500 (3 p.m.), our guide, Kuzlight, pointed to the trail ahead of us and exclaimed, “Look at that f****** s***!”

Day 4.9 – The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done

The regular early morning “hello” woke us from sleep.  But instead of the early sunlight entering with Kennedy’s voice, moonlight illuminated our tent.  Moonlight and the biting cold showing its strength now for the first time on our hike.  The others spoke of cold days before this, but Iowa nurtures a person in cold and I refused to call the weather cold, until now.

The plan sequenced a 2200 wake up call following four hours of sleep, a half hour preparation period, a half hour for eating, then departure at 2300.  Gabby, being from Equador and using a thinner-than-comfortable sleeping bag, had slept in her layers and required little preparation for the hike.  I took my time choosing my cloths before our short rest and after ten minutes I donned my twenty year-old Dallas Cowboys stocking cap, gloves, two jackets above two thermals, snow pants above thermals, two pairs of socks, and hiking boots.  We quickly consumed a very welcome bowl of hot chicken broth with bread.  Following the typical yo-yoing that occurs with any hiking group, our small group of four set our minds and our feet to the trail at 2330.

Immediately after crossing the boundary of camp, the attitude of the trail became serious: changing to switchbacks climbing a (relatively) small hill.  After summiting the small hill, the trail quickly descended into and crossed the final valley before arriving at the base of the last, the steepest, and the longest hill of the entire hike.  The trail, and now we, had reached that base of pebbly, ashy flow leading up to a gap in the rim of the volcano.  That gap that almost appeared to say, “Yes, I have laid out this grey carpet just for you, if you dare tread it.”

After a period of hiking up through the pebbles, I took a quit look back to see what we had gained.  Of course, disappointment, the same disappointment that hits every hiker who looks back too soon, hit me.  Our gain appeared minimal in comparison to the hike ahead of us.  Pole pole (a mantra of the guides that means slowly, or bit-by bit in Swahili) evolved to a whole new level at that point in the hike.  Imagining our pace from a different perspective, we likely appeared as a group of arthritic old women passing down the sidewalk between errands at the post office and the bank.  Even so, at that infantile or geriatric pace, I felt my heart rapidly, forcefully beating inside my chest.

At that altitude, the thinner air holds roughly half the oxygen content than sea-level air.  Because the body uses oxygen to produce the energy used for every cellular process, my body compensated in the following noticeable ways: each inhalation was deep in order to transport the maximum amount of air to the lungs; my blood, more thoroughly enriched with the oxygen transporting hemoglobin, thickened; and my heart beat faster to pass more blood through the lungs.  These processes were not instantaneous or even new to me at that point.  I had been monitoring my heart rate for the entirety of the hike.  At base camp, at rest, my hear beat at 108 beats per minute (normally less than 60).  However, until this point, the physiological adjustment my body made remained docile.  Now the intensity of my heartbeat and breathing battled to consume the entirety of my consciousness.

After an hour of hiking, we took our first break.  After the second hour of hiking, we took another break.  Other groups (including on large group of older folk and one pair of Israeli soldiers) departed camp before us, but through our constant pace we overtook them and now lead the pack.  During our breaks, we would look down to see groups of headlamps moving along the trail from camp, but no more looked down to us.

Gabby and I forwent headlamps.  I knew for weeks the full moon would rise during our hike.  Having shown its whole face just two nights before, the waning moon was brilliant and for our purposes, its light made our hike all the more intimate.  The blacks outlined the rocks and people amidst the grey sea that flowed up to the sharp white snow at the top of Kibo.

After the third hour of hiking, the snow moved noticeably closer.  I could no longer drink water during our breaks because the hose from my camel back froze shut.  As I hiked, I recited a chant from Remember the Titans:

                Hoo Hah!

            How you feel?!

            Hoo Hah!

            I feel good!

Hoo Hah!

            How you feel?!

            Hoo Hah!

            I feel good!

Hoo Hah!

            How you feel?!

            Hoo Hah!

            I feel good!

The chant not only reminded me I wasn’t dying, but kept my breathing regular and helped to keep my spirits up.

Around 3:15 our guides told us Stella Point, the first point on the trail to reach the rim, was about an hour away.  The trail took on a new, greater steepness.  I used my entire body to accomplish each step, felt every heartbeat and heard each breath.  Hoo Ha!

Pole pole, one step at a time, we reached Stella Point on the rim, 200 m below Uhuru Peak.  I bent over my walking stick and breathed, heaved deeply.  At this point, aside from the physiological assault my body underwent, my mind fought against a great amount of doubt and strain.  Kuzlight assured us we only had a bit further to go and that we’re strong.  After five minutes, the Israelis arrived and we departed.

The hike around the rim had a more gradual incline, but we remained at pole pole pace.    During the last stretch of the hike, I began to realize the proximity of the terminus of this great struggle; that this will have been the hardest thing I’d ever done.  For days, weeks even, the fear of injury and altitude sickness weighed heavily on my mind, and in that moment I finally cast it all off.  My eyes began to water at the happy thought.

Against the still dark, starlit sky I saw the dark form of the sign of Uhuru Peak.  Hand-in hand, Gabby and I, casting aside pole pole, rapidly strode towards, extended our hands to, and touched the sign.

I howled!  I screamed!  I jubilantly announced to the world that I had conquered Kilimanjaro!  Hugs were had, laughs were shared, and merriment was thick at that moment atop Africa.  Alone we stood, first among hundreds still battling the mountain and their own minds, the summit to ourselves.

Even then, amongst that esoteric celebration, the world took no time in reminding us where we stood.  During the process of taking pictures, gloves came off in order to handle the small camera buttons, and within a minute my hand burned.  After quickly putting the glove back on, I laughed at the familiar uncertainty of whether my hand would ever warm up.  I would put the wind chill at -20 degrees Fahrenheit at the summit.  For this reason, along with the dangerously low amounts of oxygen, the guides only allowed us 20 minutes at the summit before leading us back down.

At the beginning of our descent, a cloud of euphoria surrounded me.  I now had the time (and desire) to look around.  On our right, what I called snow before turned out to be the first glaciers I had ever seen.  Fifteen meter high glaciers of ice glimmering in the moonlight.  To our left, the great crater of Kibo opened for more than a mile across.  Also to our right, far, far below shown the lights of Moshi.

After a half hour, we reached Stella Point again, but this time a crowd waited for us.  A knowing and (I’ll admit) slightly arrogant smile stretched across my face as I looked at people sitting against the rock wall or putting their entire body into the act of breathing with the look in their eyes saying, “Why the hell am I doing this?”  After another short break, we continued down.

Shortly following our departure from Stella, the sky began to grey.  The colors of coats and hats now replaced the bright lights of headlamps still hiking up the mountain and the rocks themselves started to take on a more brownish hue.  The grey, pebbly carpet remained and allowed the feet to sink in with each step.  Kuzlight demonstrated a way to use this property in descending and another smile came across my face.  The method was not new to me.  For years, I played with this same method on the sand and rock piles at home.  If you keep your weight above your knees and twist your feet ever so slightly to make them dig into the rock, you can actually run down the rock pile (in this case the mountain); and this Kuzlight and I did.

Because of our method, we descended quickly.  

During the descent, a bright orange crack split the boundary between the earth and sky not only to the direct east, but across nearly the entire eastern half of the horizon.  Never in my life had I seen such a sharp, broad sunrise.  We reached halfway down the slope before the sun herself began to peek above the edge of the earth.  The sun now continued up, and we, down.

About an hour away from camp, exhaustion fell heavily on me.  Our break on the ways down had been short and sparse.  The frozen water in my camelback remained frozen and no water had passed my lips for nearly 5 hours.  I started to sweat during the descent due to our speed and the rising temperatures.  Dehydration along with sore legs cast me into a gloomy mood.

When we reached camp, my energy utterly spent, we made a quick plan for two hours rest, followed by lunch, followed by another hike towards the gate.  The guides graciously gave us three hours of sleep, and after packing and a quick lunch, we set off to our final camp.

A half hour after leaving Barrafu, we passed out of the alpine desert into the moorland (which has more grasses and bushes).  At this point, we stopped.  Apparently, Gabby had been hiking on a bum toe.  The pain stayed miniscule during the ascent, but almost every step down wedged her big toe into the front of her hiking boot and caused her significant pain.  Being a little ball of duro, she toughed it out, but now she needed to stop.  I let her try on my blue Nikes (which she later called “the most comfortable shoes ever,”), she approved and used them for the rest of the hike.

(The night of the following day, I was able to inspect said toe.  It was not broken, but thoroughly bruised.  The back side of the toenail rose nearly half a centimeter over the end of it.  I told her I thought puncturing the nail was the only way to relieve the pressure and keep the nail itself, but she laughingly elected to tough it out.)

From the moolands, we passes into heath.  Again amongst the lichen bearded trees and rare flowers our hike continued for three more hours.  Finally, once again on the edge of the Kilimanjaro rainforest, we arrived at our last camp, Mweka.

We had descended nearly three vertical kilometers in just over ten hours (including three hours sleep).  After a bucket bath, supper, and dessert of saved Peanut Butter M&M’s, Gabby and I nestled down into our first full nights sleep since night 3.

“There’s no better food than that served with hunger, and no better bed than that comforting exhaustion.”-Gabby

The following day, the mountain shed tears down on us as we marched towards the gate.  We left the park, passes through the coffee fields, and arrived back in Moshi by early afternoon.  After saying goodbye to our group, we went back to our hotel and thoroughly enjoyed a long, hot shower.  We bought our bus tickets back to Dar Es Salaam for the following day and used that night for a celebration worthy of our expedition.  And my, oh my, what a hike it was.

The Night of Much and No Sleep

The road between Mabalane and Chokwe is not heavily traveled.  In fact, only one reliable chapa leaves Mabalane every day at approximately 3:00.  During the week, one can expect to get a ride on the mini-buses.  The weekend, however, presents no such opportunity, as often times 30-40 people will be waiting in town to fill the one or two spaces left on the chapa by the time it arrives.  As Charlie and I teach on Friday nights until 21:30, this would be our only option of leaving on the weekends without the alternative, hitchhiking.

In Portuguese, the term is boleia and is a relatively common practice among volunteers in Moz., especially along the main Moz. highway where civilian traffic is heavy.  Mabalane has significantly less civilian traffic, especially on Friday evenings when we finish teaching and are trying to leave town.  However, carvao (charcoal) trucks travel at all hours and are relatively reliable, although they usually require twice the time to pass the rough dirt road with their immense amount of cargo.

On this fateful Friday evening of St. Patrick’s Day weekend, we managed to leave the school at 21:00 and made our way to the road leaving Mabalane.  Our destination was Macia, where we would find a ride to Bilene Beach for festivities with other volunteers.  We waited for roughly a half-hour before the carvao truck rolled up.  Two gentlemen were inside, the driver and another passenger.  Luckily, they were driving through Macia.  We found space to sit behind the seats and we were off.  Now that we were on the road, I started to do the math and concluded we should reach Chokwe by 1:30, Macia by 2:30-3:00, and with a little luck get to Bilene around 4:00 (it’s not the perfect time to get to the beach, but we were making due).

Through conversation, we found out our driver was from Maputo, had been driving this truck for six years in order to eventually buy his own truck, and was hoping to make it home to his wife and kids around 9:00 after dropping off the carvao.  We reached the halfway tree around 23:30 and everything was going well.  Then the situation changed.  The driver was not going to make it home the following morning.  We were not going to make it to Chokwe by 1:30 or to Macia by 2:30 or to Bilene by 4:00.  No, instead, the driver was stricken in the head…by drowsiness.

Had you going didn’t I?

I started to notice the driver had slowed down and wasn’t missing many of the potholes and asked him if everything was ok.  He explained that he was tired but was going to keep driving.  He then proceeded to do two things I never conceived could be possibly done simultaneously.

He drove the truck while sleeping.

The technique could only have been accomplished because of the absence of other vehicles on the road, but was relatively simple.  By slowing down to a crawl, he was able to sleep for a good ten seconds before he needed to correct the steering and save us from going into the ditch, and then nod back to sleep.  Even so, the correction took, at most, two seconds- much less than the ten seconds of sleep he was getting.  All in all, he was getting the sleep he needed while getting us closer to our destination.  Revolutionary.

Meanwhile, in the back seat…

While the driver was risking crashing our vehicle into the bush in the crusade for a few moments of sleep, Charlie, along with the other passenger, were also sleeping.  This is a prime example of Charlie’s laid-back personality, which I admire.  I was also in the backseat, but I was not sleeping.  I was watching this madness unfold with a strange feeling somewhere between fear, admiration, and utter contempt* towards the driver.

*I say contempt because, while I typically try to have a go with the flow/it’s about the journey attitude, once I have a plan of how something should work out, or a general time frame of when things will happen, I absolutely hate when people mess up that plan, and this man was destroying my plan.  Realistically, waiting and changing plans is the typical experience of PC volunteers in Moz. and I’ll be tested many times over in this during my service—but back to the situation at hand

I know what you’re thinking, “Why didn’t you get out of the vehicle?”  To be honest, this is what was suggested in our training and the thought crossed my mind for about a half a second.  I need to reiterate that this road is through 70 km of African bush and that we saw NO other cars on the road after we left Mabalane.  For me, walking here was not an option.  And besides, I had a plan of when things should work out, and when I can, I stick to the damn plan.

Our drivers system of driving continued for the next three hours until we reached Chinhakanine (a trip that normally takes 45 minutes to an hour from the halfway tree).  It was now 2:30.  We were 2 hours behind schedule.  I was furious, but we at least stopped to stretch out our legs.  During our stop, the driver broke open a watermelon and we had a snack.  This calmed me down quite a bit, the driver appeared to be rejuvenated and I started to redo the math.  From Chinhakanine the road is paved and travel is somewhat less painful and quicker, so it should take us a half hour to reach Chokwe, 3:15; an hour to reach Macia, 4:15; and an hour and a half to reach Bilene Beach from there, 5:45.  Not so bad, we’ll make breakfast.

About 15 minutes into our drive, I noticed the vehicle starting to slow down…and then the serpentine pattern started again…the driver was sleeping again.  And I had such high hopes for us.  The creeping continued for another 20 minutes before the driver stopped and said he was going to take a nap.  I would have slept too, but I was furious and hated my way through a couple levels of sudoku on my phone.   A while later, the driver awoke and we drove through Chokwe at 4:00.

We were now through Chokwe, on our way to Macia, and then the swerving started again…NYYYAAAAHHHHHH!!!

Of course, I didn’t actually scream.  Instead, I just thought about the beer waiting for me in Bilene.  After about an hour more, we pulled over at a gas station.  But the gas station was closed, and I was uncertain what we were doing there.  It turned out that the driver’s brother was also on the road last night and his small truck (think s-10) was broken down.  So we got out, gave him a push, and got him running again.  I switched vehicles to the smaller truck and was happy for the extra leg space.  I was also happy to escape my self-created realm of hatred in the carvao truck.  We we’re still driving slowly, but I felt a little more comfortable.  The sun was rising when we started to reach the outskirts of Macia.  It was a beautiful morning.

A mist exaggerated each beam of sun shining through the groves of trees and a strange sensation washed over me.  I started to look closer at the grass and trees near the road and it was almost as if I had traveled back in time.  I could imagine monkeys and leopards in the trees.  I started to think about what this place could have been like before humans.  The absolute serenity of the moment seemed to clear my mind and remind me how fortunate I am to be living in such a beautiful world.  And then the truck broke down.

I would guess we were about 5 km’s outside of Macia at this point, and the morning traffic was passing by fairly steadily.  Charlie and I likely could have hopped on with another vehicle, but I surely wasn’t giving up on our group now.  The brothers spent a half-hour attempting to repair the truck before we hooked on the carvao truck and made the rest of the journey in-tow.  We arrived in Macia at 7:30.  It took us 10 hours to make a 160 km trip.  A 10 mph average.

Charlie and I watched our fearless chaperones disappear around the corner heading south and ourselves headed east out of town after grabbing some bread for breakfast.  We caught an awesome boleia to Bilene, and walked to our hotel to the greetings of our fellow volunteers who were enjoying breakfast. My St. Paddy’s turned out to be one of the best I’ve had with a crew of incredible people, but that’s another story.  This story is about the journey.