south africa fun!

Angie and I unfortunately did not receive our temporary residences (diris) so we had to leave the country on Wednesday to go apply for new visas.  We packed up our rental car and headed out for an adventure.  I thought I was going to have to drive, but Chico (a staff that came with us) found a friend that was willing to drive us for a free room and food.  That was a pretty good deal to us so we took it! As the trip went on, I became more and more thankful he was driving and not me.   This is because:

-          The trip that would normally take 3 hours at the longest took 5 hours to get there and 6 and a half hours to get home.

-          Two extremely long stretches of road work on the way there and the same 2 extremely long stretches of road work on the way back.

-          The South African border on the way there was unusually crowded even though the Mozambican side was not.

-          On the South African border on the way there we waited in the long visa line while the driver waited to get the stamp he needed for the car.  We got out of our long line and he was still waiting in his line to get to the front and find out that he had to wait in the visa line FIRST before he could get his car stamp.  So he had to then wait through the long visa line and then rewait in the long car stamp line.  We just sat in the car :)

-          Pretty soon after making it through the border we got stopped by police.  They searched the car and our bags and decided they were going to fine us because we didn’t have a fire extinguisher.  A FIRE EXTINGUISHER!  So they wanted 2,000 Rand.  Chico said he didn’t have 2,000 Rand so they went down to 1,000. He said he didn’t have 1,000 so it continued down until all we paid was 150 Rand (about $15) and were on our way.

-          While we were in Nelspruit, we were running around doing things non-stop.  It was not really bad traffic, but a lot of driving in the city.  It was super beneficial to just be able to jump out of the car and let the guys go handle something else while we took care of stuff.

-          On the way home, we got stopped by police AGAIN (there were TONS of police out because it was right before a holiday weekend).  This time we got fined for our break lights being out.  So the guys went through their bartering phase starting at 2,000 Rand again and settling in on 200 Rand (about $20).  And this time our driver said, if I give you 200 Rand then you give me that banana.  And the police officer did!  So we paid 200 Rand for a banana.

-          We had to wait in line to try to cross the border for about 3 hours in the dark because the Easter holidays are a big deal over here.  All the Mozambicans were returning home for the holidays. 

-          We didn’t get home until 10:30PM Thursday night so that means we had to go through the border on a very crowded busy night, had to wait in road work at night without lights on the road like home, and there would have been a lot of driving in the dark. 

Overall, I’m sure you can see why I was very grateful my first time driving was not on this particular trip.  Don’t worry, my day will come!  I’m hoping it will come on a less eventful trip but that is doubtful because this is Africa and everything is eventful.

During the 39 and a half hours we were away from home we accomplished a lot of things: 

-          We applied for our visas at the Mozambican embassy.

-          We went and picked up 11 boxes of donated goods from a company (shirts, hats, cups, backpacks, binders, etc) from the Post Office.  We then had to unpack the boxes on the street corner and stuff all this stuff into our tiny rental car to get everything to fit.  Then we went and picked up giant plastic bags to put the stuff in to get it back to Mozambique in.  We unpacked the car into the plastic bags in the parking lot of the hotel.  Then stored the plastic bags in our rooms while we went out the rest of the day.

-          We went to the mall and bought bedding and other things for the house and kids and ate dinner.

-          We went back to the hotel, took long HOT showers, crashed onto real beds, and slept in nice air conditioned rooms.

-          Chico and his friend got up early the next morning and took 3 of the plastic bags to be transported over the border by chapa (public transport that you can pay a fee to ship your stuff across the border so you don’t have to deal with finding a place to put it or worry about getting it through the border).

-          Angie and I went and got pampered with a hair wash, head massage, haircut, and style each.  Mine only cost about $18 USD! 

-          We drove out to a warehouse and bought some real, legit beds to send home.

-          Chico went with the beds to be shipped by chapa with our last plastic bag of goods from the boxes we picked up earlier.  While he was doing that, we went and bought some toner for the printer and some other goodies at this giant place that was just like Sam’s. 

-          We picked up Chico at the chapa place and went to try to pick up our visas.  They were not ready so we ran to the mall to get a few more things we needed for the house.

-          We went and successfully picked up our visas. 

-          We headed to a special grocery store where Angie can buy her Gluten free food (being Gluten free in Africa is not the easiest).

-          We picked up some McDonalds and headed home. 

-          We waited 3 hours to get to the South African side of the border then were taken up to the place where people who are walking through the border go get their passport stamped.  We were told to follow the car in front of us, turn around, and queue behind them.  Then we all stood together in a line and they herded us in to get our passport stamped.  The guy working there was FREAKING OUT and said “WE ARE IMPROVISING PEOPLE!”  It was brilliant and hilarious!  Once we got into the border, we got through the South African and Mozambican side pretty quickly.

-          I said after the border that I was glad we hadn’t hit that second part of road work that had made us wait 45 minutes on the way there.  Literally as I was finished saying that, we came to a stop and waited for 45 minutes at the road work.  DOH…….I know better for next time.

These were just a few of our adventures while traveling.  The two days felt like a week, and we were so tired when we got home. But we still had to unpack, get all our stuff through the dark, muddy, watery road (because we’ve learned cars can’t travel there or they get stuck), bring everything in and put it away, and then get our beds set up that were waiting on us thankfully from a staff that had picked up the stuff we had sent on the chapa.  So we finally got in bed after midnight and enjoyed our nice new beds!  It was a crazy trip, but we had so much favor along the way.  We got everything we needed plus some.  We got better deals than we expected, and we got to send stuff via chapa so we didn’t have to worry about getting things across the border.  All of our stuff arrived with no problems, and we were safe the whole time.  It was a great trip!  Even though we did a lot and it was exhausting, I still felt rejuvenated afterwards.  You have no idea what a nice hot shower and an air conditioned room free of bugs can do for your spirit. :)

My real new bed :)