Moving to Mozambique

Mozambique. It had never crossed my mind to visit this country. I had barely heard of this country. Whenever I thought of “Africa”, I thought of places like Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia. Places made famous by romantic movies or devastation music fundraisers. In my very short amount of time in an extremely small corner of a vast continent, I have quickly come to realize how absurdly ignorant I am of this place, of these places. Overwhelmingly, embarrassingly, shamefully ignorant. Needless to say, Mozambique was not my idea but it was the best coat tail idea I have ever chosen to hop on. This place is amazing.

By the time I left Tanzania, I was feeling pretty hopeless. Far too many hours on difficult transport and way too many run-ins with painfully aggressive men who felt it was their right to invade my personal space and peace of mind at every turn. I was exhausted. Physically and emotionally. It wasn’t all terrible, I met some incredibly nice locals along the way but sadly, it was more the exception rather than the norm. I was tired of 5:15am prayer calls that carried on throughout the day. I was tired of the repression of women and the absurdity of men. I couldn’t take anymore of the lying and manipulation and nastiness that happens when a country connects white skin with dollar signs and adopts a sense of entitlement to take you for every bit that they can. The fact that I have almost no pictures of Tanzania is representative of my experiences there. Every time I took my camera out to try to capture the incredible chaos of a daily market or an unbelievably interesting scene on the street, I was quickly approached by a kind woman who always quietly but firmly advised me to put my camera away or it would be snatched out of my hand. The kindness of some warning me of the ever present nastiness of others. Would there be the same risk at home? Would there be the same consideration of my safety? No idea. But either way, I was ready to go. It had been a trying few months, indeed.

So I had a “direct” flight from Dar Es Salaam to Maputo, a major city in the very south of Mozambique, close to the South African border. Brendan had quickly found an instructor position with a very busy dive centre in Tofo Beach, 20km outside of Inhambane, 500kms north of Maputo but internationally, Maputo was the closest airport for me to fly into. No worries. Would fly in, and then bus up. Easy peasy. *** sigh *** Why oh why do I never ever learn?

My “direct” flight stopped in two other cities before we finally arrived in Maputo. And as always, there were several head shaking moments along the way. Examples… waiting in the departure lounge in the airport in Dar, I watched as a plane full of people disembarked through their glass exit hallway. Most of them hesitated at the top of escalators that would lead them to the way out as there were plumes of thick smoke billowing up from down below. The hesitation was marked with brief looks of confusion then most covered their faces with a scarf or their shirt and continued on down the escalator. Umm… what? As soon as I saw the smoke, I packed up my staff and moved out of the lounge ready to make a backtrack through the body scanners. Panic here is amplified by the fact that there is usually no one who knows what is going on or what to do so it has the potential to become mass suicide through simple lack of thought. I watched several employees look around at the smoke, shrug their shoulders, then carry on with their casual conversations. I watched several white faces approach these same employees to ask what was going on and saw the same shoulder shrug with an “I don’t know” attached to the response. I don’t need to know what’s going on, I just need a clear line to the nearest way out. I have learned quickly, dear friends. I am always looking for the nearest way out.

Anyway, no one seemed to figure out what was actually going on, the smoke dissipated, and airline life carried on. Holy crow.

Played musical chairs on the plane as two of us were assigned to the same seat and I usually try to be the last one boarding the plane so I no seat for me. I was hoping for an upgrade but no such luck. Regardless, sitting on the plane, watching the passengers and the crew, everything looked and felt very, very different. A nice, clean, fully functioning plane with professional looking staff and nice looking people. There was a safety briefing, the musical sound of the Portuguese language was rolling around the cabin, and it all seemed much more relaxed, happy, peaceful. Sitting on the plane, I felt lighter. A weight that I hadn’t even realized was there, was melting away. My guard was slipping, my jaw was relaxing, I was meeting people’s eyes and seeing them smile and I was smiling back. Sitting on the plane. It felt that entirely different just sitting on the plane. Good things were coming.
First leg into Mozambique and my seat mate is an exceptionally drunk, somewhat unfortunate looking Thai guy who was in the ruby business. Drunk, drunk, drunk but funny drunk only because the flight was quick one. Any longer and my soft spot for all things Thai may have been tested. We all get off to do the visa / customs thing. A bizarre shmozzle of typical African chaos where security seems sporadic and often an afterthought but it runs much more smoothly than I had anticipated. It’s not uncommon to wait in line for 2, 3, or 4 hours as one very disinterested agent lazily scans passports and fills out random paperwork for an entire plane full of tired and bewildered passengers in between chatting on their cell phone, watching the soap opera that is on a rickety TV that’s turned on in the corner of their over-stuffed workspace, and gazing blankly into space. I promise people, I couldn’t make this stuff up. But anyway, we are cleared quickly and I even get a little extra attention as the MALE agent was tsk tsking in good humour at the fact that he and I share the same first name. I was the first girl he had met named Janice and he the first boy I had met. Probably completely meaningless but I took it as a good omen for my introduction to this new country.

Next quick leg from stop #1 to stop #2 was… dreamy. A very, very, VERY dreamy South African kept my attention for the duration of the flight. He was getting off at stop #2 and I was seriously considering making that my stop as well. I could have just caught the bus south instead of north the next day. Oh my goodness we were having such a lovely conversation. Oh my goodness he was so lovely to look at. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. But he carried on and my impulsive inclination to follow along was held in check. I conceded to my next and final leg to Maputo.

My last and final seat mate was a very commanding woman who worked in civil aviation and was quite keen to be as helpful to me as possible. As she downed a couple glasses of wine on the very short and final leg of my journey, her eyes became glassy and she became chatty about African life and the different countries she has experienced. She guided me off the plane and to my waiting taxi man from the guesthouse informing him of things I needed and what he was to do to take care of me. Very commanding. She introduced me to her waiting children who all greeted me warmly with kisses on the cheeks and she gave me her contact information making me promise to get in touch with her once I found my way to Tofo. First day in and I have connections already! Sweet!

The guesthouse situation was the regular mess of missing keys and mixed up rooms. I booked my spot on the bus that was leaving 7 hours later and begged for a bit of sleep in between two painfully long days of travel. I was in Mozambique.

15 white, sleeplessly swollen faces crammed into a bus at 5:30am to make the 500km, 8 hour trip to Tofo Beach. We leave almost on time only to arrive at the local bus station where we of course, stop. For the next hour and a half, we pile as many local people and as much crap as the bus will take before it burst at the seams. Please oh please I just want to be done with buses. We finally bumble off somewhere close to 7:30am and for the first couple of hours, most of us fall in and out of fitful sleep in an attempt to just get the trip done and over with. 8 hours. Yeah, right.

Bad roads, stops here and there for who knows what and we finally arrive at our destination at 4:30pm, sore, stiff, and sleepily breathing in our first glimpses of a magnificent Mozambique coast line. Stunning.

I’ve debated for a long while as to whether I should include the following story that happened on our journey early in the afternoon as it was a difficult situation to experience and I know it will be difficult to write, let alone read. I’ve decided to share it for a couple of reasons. It’s an example of African life and I need to remember that in a world where life has little meaning, I will not become part of that mindset. Please, please, please… if you are feeling quite sensitive, please skip over this next part. It’s disturbing.

There was a section of road that was newly constructed. Nice wide, smooth, tarmac road. Thick, soft red dirt lined the new surface on either side and the sun was shining clear and bright. It was early afternoon and school kids were walking, running, skipping, and riding bikes home. So many school kids in uniforms swinging bags and happy to be free from the classroom. We passed a bus like ours that was pulled off to the side of the road and our bus driver slowed down, and then turned around to head back to the bus. Thought that was kinda weird because so far, here, buses don’t stop to help other buses but really, by this point, we had been on the road so long that I just stopped caring about where we were stopping or why.

We stopped on the opposite side of the road as the other bus and I was sitting in the window seat facing the bus. People were slowly getting off what we all thought was a broken down bus. Then we took a closer look and quick, disjointed puzzle pieces started clicking together in my brain. Oh my gosh. A bicycle. The bus facing the wrong way on the road. Deep skid marks in the deeper red dirt. People standing around the back tires of the bus. Our bus driver racing across the street after someone from the other bus shouted to him. Our bus driver dropping to his knees and digging frantically at the back tires.

I jumped out of my window and ran. Someone was under the bus.

A few other of the people from my bus followed after me. Two young nurses and a doctor were among the white faces. Our bus driver managed to shout enough encouragement to the passengers of the offending bus and we all attempted to push the bus on its side. I was shaking violently but felt like I could have pushed that bus over by myself. We lifted it just enough to see that yes, someone was under the bus before we had to set it back down. The doctor got down as close as he could and was trying to find a pulse on an arm that was uncovered. He looked under the bus and looked at me. I was on my knees beside him digging and talking to him as I could feel him shaking as much as I was. He just shook his head, said the head was completely flattened, it was a mess, there was no pulse. Then they started to lift the bus again. We stood back, the bus was lifted, someone else dragged the limp ragdoll like body out in a split second and the doctor and I were on our knees over the body while everyone else stepped back or walked away. He checked again for a pulse and I just knelt there, one hand on the doctor’s shoulder, the other on the dead boy’s chest. He was a boy. Maybe 14. Coming home from school. His broken body was covered in thick red dust. Any blood soaked into the dirt. Alien looking. Gone.

The locals all walked away, no one was looking at this boy, distant looks on impatient faces, and I just kept saying, “We can’t just leave him here. We can’t just leave him like this.” I couldn’t just walk away. I saw piles of canvas bags on the bus so I got on the bus, tore one off and went back to cover him. A couple of white faces from our bus stood around as I put the bag over his face and chest – such a cultural thing I guess. The need to pay some kind of respect, to award some sense of privacy. I don’t know. Maybe I made it too much about me. The thought of this boy, alone. I had to do something.
On my knees next to this dead boy, I looked up and saw our driver across the road. He was talking to and walking beside a boy of about 12 who was desperately wiping at tears that were streaming down his face. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

I ran over to the driver and yes, this was the dead boy’s brother.

Thinking back on it, I was really concerned about the fact that the whole while we were dealing with the boy under the bus, I didn’t feel anything. I was shaking, but no feeling. My heart wasn’t hurting, my stomach wasn’t sick, I had no feelings. When I saw the brother, my heart shattered.

One arm around the boy holding him to me and his hand in mine, I begged our driver to let him on our bus, to take him home. We couldn’t let him walk home. We had to help him, this poor boy, not knowing how much he actually saw but knowing that his brother is dead and he had to be the one to tell his family. Our driver was wonderful. He actually seemed to be the only one of the locals affected by the whole situation as he coordinated the attempted rescue effort, sorted out the crowds, and tended to the brother. Of course we’ll take him. Of course.

We all pile back into our over crowded bus and drive a short distance up the road where there happened to be a make shift police stop. Our driver got out and was trying to explain what had happened to a handful of very confused looking officers. Finally one of them ran off to grab some paper work out of a shack off the side of the road before they started back to the scene of the accident and up ahead, in the distance, I saw the brother slipping away, by himself, walking through a grassy field towards a path that led back into some trees. Heading home, by himself, to tell his family that his brother was dead. Shattered.

The bus was quiet, for a short while. Then nervous laughter and uncomfortable comments broke up the somber mood for most as we carried on for the rest of the journey. I couldn’t stop thinking about the boys. As terrifying as it was to see that boy under the bus, I don’t want to forget it. I don’t want to forget him. I don’t care that I’m in Africa. I don’t care that here people suffer tremendous losses everyday their whole lives long so another death is meaningless. He was going to school. He has a family. His life was not meaningless. I don’t ever want to get used to this kind of thing. Ever.

A tragic story that broke up our 11 hour, 500km trip. Exhausted upon arrival. Yeah, completely. This is Africa.