On the Road

Traveling so much has really taken its toll on my health. My nose is all clogged up like an overused toilet and my throat feels like it’s been scraped with sandpaper. All I want to do is overdose on Vitamin C and sleep for the next week. But no, no, no… I’m off again for Conference #3, this time in the beautiful beach city of Barra. I’d consider skipping out but I’ve gotta go play the role of camp counselor for a bunch of Mozambican teens. It’ll be fun, as long as I can find a way to alleviate this sinus pressure and my voice stops trying to fugir (escape).
Anyway, here are some anecdotes from my time (literally) on the road.

Walking
While walking through the streets of Maputo, you encounter a lot of … umm, interesting… people along the way. I suppose this is true of any big city- heavy concentrations of the homeless and mentally unstable. For this reason, it’s best to walk fast, with a purpose, lest a pathetic-looking child approaches you to beg for money or a grungy, deformed man tries to grab your arm (been there, done that.)
Sometimes, however, you just can’t avoid trouble. I was with three other volunteers, walking through a crowded shopping area called the Baixa, which is basically a small sidewalk with street vendors on both sides selling all sorts of wares: shoes, jeans, calamidades (cheap used clothes, like thrift store shopping!), capulanas, electronics, anything else you can think of. My friends stopped to barter for Fedora hats, although I did not participate in the matching cuteness, and we continued on our way. I was in the front, threading my way through the masses, when suddenly the crowd parted like the Red Sea and I saw a young man sprinting down the sidewalk, yelling at the top of his lungs. I sidestepped out of the way just in time but my friend Meagan, following at my heel like a baby duck, was not so lucky. The guy barreled into her, nearly toppling her over, and then continued on his crazy way. While walking in Maputo, be careful of getting tackled by strangers.

Taxi-ing
On the way back from shopping, the same group of volunteers and I decided to take a taxi back to the hotel because it was already dark out. We opted to take a tuk-tuk (sp?), which is a motorized carriage-like vehicle that is generally cheaper than an actual taxi car. The problem: tuk-tuks usually fit only three people. We asked a tuk-tuk driver if he would take all four of us… He said no. We said 200 mets (US $6). He said yes.
He waved down his friend in another tuk-tuk that had a plastic flap covering the door and told us to get in. His friend protested at first (“What about the police?”) but soon relented after being pressured by the first driver (“They’re going to pay 200 mets, man! And it’s dark out.”). I was voted the smallest and sat on Meagan’s lap for the ride.
Halfway to the hotel, our driver freaked out. “THERE’S POLICE IN FRONT OF US!!” He whispered frantically, motioning us to reach into the small compartment behind the seats. We pulled out a small plastic sheet, which we were instructed to hold over our faces so that anyone looking in wouldn’t be able to clearly see how many people we were. Meanwhile, the driver was leaning over to the tuk-tuk next to us to ask if he could borrow papers. (All chapa and taxi drivers must have their license papers at all times, if stopped by the police.)
Unable to procure papers, our tuk-tuk pulled over and the driver asked us to get out. My friend Emily slid out first, and as I was getting out as well, the vehicle started moving again. “Go and meet us at the corner of the next block,” The driver told Emily, and drove away.
We did indeed pass a police officer directing traffic before turning off into a dark side road, where poor Emily was waiting for us. “Is this really happening?” She said as she jumped back in the car.
One street over from our hotel, the tuk-tuk stopped again and the driver announced this was as far as he was going. “You know how to get there, right?” He said. Emily and I started arguing with him, telling him we were not going to pay 200 mets for a ride like that. “I can’t go down that road! There’s a police stop there! Look at me, I’m shaking!” The driver insisted, but we were not impressed. We paid 180 mets for a crazy taxi ride, and a good story.

Chapa-ing
In between conferences, I’ve had a couple days here and there at site. It’s hard to recover from “traveling mode” so I’ve just been hiding out in my house, only going the couple of feet to use the latrine (and wondering to myself, “Why is the sun so bright? Am I becoming a vampire?”). I finally decided yesterday afternoon to go to XaiXai, to run some errands.
On the way back, to my dismay I found a giant crowd of people waiting to catch a chapa to Chicumbane. (Note to self: Only go to XaiXai in the mornings.) I had apparently caught all of the XaiXai vendors with their baskets of produce heading home after a long day of work. Every time a chapa pulled up, the crowd would move like an angry hornets nest and surround the car. The moment the poor cobrador opened the door, all hell would break loose as people pushed and shoved and tumbled their way into the car. (Have I mentioned before that waiting in line is a completely novel concept here?) I was not in the mood for mosh pit madness, but I had no choice but to join the crowd after missing the first two chapas. I did, after all, want to get home eventually.
The lady behind me with her straw basket of coconuts was pushing it against my spine and trying to edge her way to the front when the third car arrived. I was not about to let her beat me out so I subtly shoved her back. In the doorway of the car, I got stuck because I was being pressed against from all sides and could not gain the momentum to move forward. “Let me enter!” I finally yelled at the old man behind me blocking my way with his arm. I entered, and so did the man, who sat to the seat in my left.
The car, quickly full to the limit, started moving and the man pulled out a plastic bottle of whiskey from his pocket. Just my luck, I’m sitting next to a drunk guy. (NOT the first time this has happened.) He spent the first part of the ride sipping his cheap whiskey and mumbling in Changana, but somewhere along the way he noticed me sitting next to him. (Bad news.)
He tapped me on the arm and said something in Changana. I wasn’t even sure he was talking to me, because his eyes were unfocused and well, he was speaking Changana. But then he kept smacking me in the arm to get my attention and saying more things in Changana. I told him to speak Portuguese, and he responded in Changana. I ignored him, he smacked my arm and kept talking in Changana. Eventually I turned to him and said very loudly in English, “I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING TO ME,” which all of the passengers on the chapa found very funny. Even so, they didn’t do anything to help me (which further frustrated me) and the idiot drunk guy kept going in his Changana, only dropping in the Portuguese words “I don’t want to speak Portuguese. I want to speak Changana.” I went back to ignoring him and hoping the chapa would get to Chicumbane faster. The guy leaned over and made a kissing sound next to my face, and then touched the collar of my shirt. I screamed “SUKA!!” (“go away” in Changana) and slapped his arm away, getting the attention of every person on the chapa. One lady behind me called the cobrador to do something, and he said something in Changana to the drunk guy, who kept arguing back. The moment the chapa rolled to a stop, I leaped out of the car and raced home.