Road Warriors

Life has been, if nothing else, interesting, for the last few days.  We started driving around Maputo last Friday.  Though I had the occasional lapse where I forgot which country I was in, I generally remembered to stay on the left.  There are no discernible traffic laws in Maputo—speed and mass of your vehicle appear to be the controlling principles.  It was a madhouse of moving vehicles and people to which I can’t really provide narrative justice.  Suffice it to say that I cut my driving teeth in Maputo and generally learned how to get from point A to B—an interesting thing however, I was thinking that the well organized mission would provide me with maps for navigation both in the city and the entire country.  No such luck.  “What Elder Osborn?  You don’t remember how we got here through that endless maze of twisty back streets?”  I am navigationally impaired and am struggling mightily in this regard.  There was a $300 Garmin Sub-Saharan Africa map set which I had been tempted to buy for my GPS—which temptation I now regret not succumbing to.  Also on Friday we were issued our new cell phones—that appear to be functioning—but I think that I have determined that my illegal US habit of conversing while driving may be best avoided on Mozambique—though it isn’t illegal here.

We attended a delightfully small but thriving branch of the church on Sunday.  Many impressive people—all of which were speaking this funny language which was allegedly Portuguese.  Some people here are very easy to understand for me, but others I’m afraid are incomprehensible.  I suspect, or at least hope, that time and practice will develop my “ear”.  I was asked to speak briefly in church—I haven’t done that in a foreign language (especially not extemporaneously) for a very long time.  Who knows if I was understood or coherent—let alone inspiring.  It was 105 degrees in Maputo on Sunday.

Sleeping and jet lag remains a problem.  I generally have no problem falling asleep but I have had a few mornings awake and roaming around the Spendlove’s home at 2 and 3 in the morning.  (A beautiful 3^rd floor condo overlooking the Indian Ocean).  Unfortunately, one of those mornings, I neglected to turn off the alarm, so all soon became aware of my wanderings. 

On Monday morning at 5 am we were sent on our way—again map-less.  Our objective, we were told was to make it to Chimoio before nightfall (about 1200 km distant).  Chimoio, some may recall, was where we were first told would be our permanent assignment.  For us, it was to be simply our evening stopping place enroute to Quelimane.  Our vehicle is a small Nissan 4wd pickup, fairly new and in good shape—roof rack and covered bed.  Both the bed and 2^nd seat were packed full with our baggage and mail, packages, and supplies for missionaries in all the towns through which we would pass.  There was not a spare cubic centimeter (see, I’m now thinking and writing metric).

The trip was fascinating.  My kind staff at Doyon gave me a great little video camera as a going away gift.  It mounts on a dashboard, among other handy attributes.  I wish that I had done so and taken some footage of the trip like that.  The trip was fascinating and often beautiful—always interesting.  Imagine driving the length of a huge new country (well, new to us) for the first time.  Observations:

·         Not much wild fauna on display.  We had a family of monkeys dash across the road in front of us, and some spectacularly beautiful birds—and then no shortage of domestic cattle and goats.

·         Rural Mozambicans walk on the roads—always and everywhere.  There is a press of humanity on the roads that creates a driving challenge or two.

·         As we drive north, the terrain and vegetation becomes more like that of Tanzania, with which we became familiar in our January safari trip.  The familiar acacia and baobab trees became common on our second day of travel.

·         Roadside vendors are  many and varied—the favorite of ours was the “rat on a stick” of which there is a picture below.  Chickens, gasoline in liter bottles, fruit, beer, cashews, charcoal, roof thatching material, animal feed and countless other things were being hawked to travelers on the road.  It was tough for Debbie to withstand the grilled rat (actually, to be fair, it was more akin to a guinea pig).

·         Truck drivers rule the road and are not always inclined to brotherly love and concern.  There is a lot of commerce that travels over the roads—it becomes particularly intense toward Chimoio which is on the Zimbabwean border.  Big big trucks.

We had been warned that driving at night was unwise and dangerous and thus we were to hurry and get to Chimoio by nightfall.  We did hurry we thought—no stops for pictures or meals nor much of anything else.  Nevertheless, about three hours short of Chimoio we found ourselves driving in the dark.  Chimoio is in the western highlands of the country—about midway up.  The last 50 kilometers are on twisty, hilly roads.  Even after dark, the roadsides are filled with pedestrians with children (all dark-skinned wearing dark clothing), bicycles, and underpowered unlighted motorcycles.  The oncoming traffic lane was often filled with heavily laden logging or other freight-hauling trucks who apparently feel no compunction about taking a portion of our lane as well.  There were truly a few times when the avoidance of destruction was miraculous in a very literal way.  We have always been praying people, Debbie and I, but we have been praying particularly hard for driving oversight and felt a bit of divine intervention on that particular nighttime adventure.  We will not do that again.  Debbie is still shaking a bit from the memory.

We spent Tuesday night with Elder and Sister Banks in the Chimoio residence—a very nice place and we were immediately extremely jealous of their creature comforts (which included a Shoprite store next door (think a small Fred Meyer type store).  The Banks’ hail from southern California where he just retired as a school teacher.  His earlier mission to Brasil was also to Sao Paulo and we missed overlapping by a matter of a few months.  Let me pause here to say something about the other senior couples we have met thus far.  What impressive people they are!   Really, they are good, strong, faithful, and talented people (and universally better than I) who are going about doing good.  We have really enjoyed those we have met so far and regret that our interactions with them will be few.  I note that we were the only one among those we have met to have requested Mozambique—showing that they are also brighter than we are.

Our Wednesday drive from Chimoio to Quelimane was relatively uneventful, but interesting.  We did manage to get it all done in daylight hours.  We crossed many rivers some small and entirely dry, others quite picturesque and larger.  The Zambezi (here it is pronounced Zambezzi) among them which required a toll of 100 metacais to cross the new bridge over it.  There was beautiful picturesque bridge over a  very deep  gorge over another river.  We briefly slowed the car and took a picture of it.  We had not travelled a hundred feet further before we had a man in military dress commanding us to halt.  There ensued a bit of an ordeal as we were made to understand that taking a picture of a facility recently targeted by terrorists is not smiled upon.  I was asked to leave the car, the camera inspected, long discussion ensued regarding our intentions, history and general unsavory appearance.  In the end, formal apologies were made on both sides, no shots were fired and we were able to proceed.  The army guy was the first conversation that I have had with someone from this northern region.  He spoke so fast and had an accent so difficult (not to mention using words I have never heard of) that I began to fear a bit for my ability to communicate in Quelimane.   

From the air, this section of the country looks undoubtedly largely unpopulated.  But driving through, you note that there is not a linear kilometer without a group of mud thatched huts, often several groups—and there are always people walking on the road.  Approaching Quelimane in the evening hours, I was unprepared for the experience.  The roads are a mass of bicycles, and small motorbikes.   Really, they press in on the small amount of automobile and truck traffic so as to make passage extremely difficult.  When one reaches city center, the problem is multiplied ten fold.  The saving grace of Quelimane is that the roads are so very very bad—filled with such huge chasms and potholes (that word doesn’t do them justice, as our US experience with potholes is that they are rare and small), that you must drive very very slow to save your undercarriage.  Truly, off the main thoroughfares,  it is like an ATV trail, only a little rougher and one can walk at about the same speed at which we drive.

In the pictures below, forgive me as I for some reason was unable to get some of them right side up.  i'm sure that my blogging skills will improve with the passage of time.