Seattle to Mozambique

21 Sept 2006 9:12am

I’ve decided to keep my computer set to Seattle time so I always have a little orientation. It’s 9:12am for most of you right now and it’s 6:17pm for me. We are nearly a full day off. So…here I am in Beira, Mozambique. I spent the night last night in Johannesburg and, thanks to melatonin I got a normal nights sleep and I’m on this time schedule now. Getting into Joberg was great. Arnold, my cousins husband, is from Joberg and his parents came and got me at the airport and I spent the night at their house. They only live 10 minutes from the airport so I really didn’t get to form an impression of Joberg at all but I did have tea, and a wonderful shower (probably my last hot shower for a long long time), and a comfortable bed to sleep in. Arnold’s mom made a great breakfast in the morning and then shuttled me back off to the airport.

Wow…that was complete havoc. No one knew where I was supposed to check in for my flight so I went from one end of the terminal to the other asking anyone who looked like they might know. This journey took forever because there were swarms of people with swarms of carts and lines for check-in that wrapped around other lines like some complex cat’s cradle. Every time you’d move a foot you would wait for a few minutes for another foot of space to open up and then you’d have to shove your cart into that space fast!! I have to admit that I actually rammed into the ankles of some old Indian woman trying to get my cart through. Sorry old Indian woman!!

Finally someone showed up who could check me in, though at that point I was not sure that my bags were actually going to the right place. Oh well…better leaving them with some guy who seems to know what he is saying then to wade through the throng of humanity again. My flight itself was only slightly harrowing given that we took off straight up and landed coming straight down…there was nothing gradual about our take off or landing. I also have to say that my flight mates were down right scary.

1) an American couple on Holiday. She had been crying and screaming at her husband in the airport because no one would let her through the throng of people. I suppressed the urge to slap her silly and tell her that it was because no one cared if she got through. If she wanted to get through she would have to rely on her own silly little head and do it. Her boyfriend looked frustrated with her as well but vainly attempted to tell people to step aside.
2) Missionaries…can’t go anywhere these days without of few of these beside you. All cheery and pepped up on Jesus. If the problems of the world boiled down to believing in Jesus Christ it would all be so simple. Unfortunately these cheery kids will soon find, I suspect, that even those who believe in Jesus die of AIDS.
3) Elephant Hunters…no shit. A couple from Arkansas who run a gun business and were traveling up further north in Mozambique to hunt elephants. SCARY!!! It was fascinating as their luggage came out in Beira. Gigantic gun cases that seemed to hold weapons capable of…well…killing an elephant.

Oh…and a side note. I didn’t have a window seat (despite begging and attempted bribary) the whole trip. This means that I don’t have any sense of where I am. I was stuck in a metal tube for days.

So finally I got to Beira. I stepped off onto the Tarmac and marveled at how much it reminded me of Brazil. It smelled the same, had the same heavy humidity and the same architecture. In passport control I had my first feeling of “am I ready for this”. Another American introduced herself as a nun from Seattle that runs an orphanage here. She said “bless you for coming, these people need all the help that they can get. But are you ready, really ready for this?” I told her yes but I have to admit that I was thinking no...no I’m not. But really how do you prepare…how do you get ready for poverty, sadness, death?

I went to the table set up for customs and opened my bags for the guard to see. He kept asking me if things were new and I kept telling him that my ratty jeans were not new. Thank god I speak portuguese otherwise I think he would have confiscated alot. Then came the tricky part. He found my four-pack of DVD's. It is four movies by Audrey Hepburn. Lovely classics. He thought they were pornos. I spent FOREVER convincing him that Audrey Hepburn was not a porn star. I had to take all the DVD's out and show him that everyone had all their clothes on. He finally got so frustrated that I didn't have pornos that he waved me through without looking through the things in my other bag that he really might have objected to.

I walked out of custons to find that my friends Ana and Pablo had to go to Chimoio (a city in the mountains that is another base for HAI) and so a HAI driver met me at the airport. We drove into town to a hotel called Lifeline. Minutes after leaving the airport we passed by a funeral procession. Then I really started to ask myself if I was ready for this. I still don’t know. I suppose I’ll just take it day to day.