We almost hit a cow...

****If you care deeply about me and are going to be really upset to hear about the craziness of car rides in Moz please stop reading NOW! (Mom and all other relatives and probably Clemson Crew readers...that means you!) All others enjoy the hilariousness of a developing nation!

So it all started with a text that read something like this..."We have the white Mazda for Friday. Can we use that extra mattress in your building?" I know you're thinking one has nothing to do with the other. Not true. They are very closely related because the text was from Rebbecca (another missionary), and I knew exactly what she meant and why she was asking. The background is this...4 of us needed to go on a border run. That means driving to the country border, stamping out and back into the country to fulfill whatever visa exit you have. I have a 30 day exit...so every 30 days I have to leave the country. And as for the white Mazda, I'm sure you have figured out that is one of the cars here on the base. Well it is a truck that has 2 seats in the front and a covered back bed that usually has benches along both sides for passengers. But thanks to the vehicle inspections Moz has adopted this year the benches were being redone and so it was just a covered bed at this time.
Side note- this vehicle inspection is the CRAZIEST thing I've heard of yet here. It is supposedly something the people wanted. Actually...news flash...the people wanted safer cars on the road not ones with no doors, no windsheilds, wheels falling off in the middle of traffic jams, buses (or chapas as they are called here) with so many people in them some are being pushed out the windows, cars that actually have headlights and taillights needless to say ones that work...they did not want vehicle inspections that don't pass cars because of a tear in the seat fabric or low washer fluid or ones that aren't aligned properly when you can't drive a mile without literally falling in a pot hole (please tell me how your car is suppose to be perfectly aligned!).
Ok...I'll get off my high horse on that since I don't even own a car here. Back to the text...so what Rebbecca wanted to know was...could we put the extra mattress I have in the back of the truck for three of us to sit on during this 2 hour long trek to the border. I replied sure! We met up the next morning, carried our mattress over the the car park (I've become English; it's true), and headed off. First things first...as usual the guys at the gas station flirted with all of us in their best possible English...it was a lot of how are yous and are you married. Then Fi (another missionary) and I were feeling sick about 10 minutes in...the window between the front and where we were was so dirty you could barely see the road. No good for car sickness.
Other issues...the back door doesn't really latch very well. Here's how I felt about that......just a bit nervous!
So on the way there we saw quite a few cows just hanging out on the side of the road. I didn't say anything but thought...I hope there aren't any IN the road. We made it to the border with only two slamming of brakes...one was because a large truck decided to pass a guy and remain in our lane until well he was just going to hit us. That's normal...a normal way to drive. Don't ask me why. It's just a fact. The other was because we hit the town close to the border and it is FULL of speed bumps or mountains they should be called. Our driver must have forgotten about these because the three of us in the back literally hit the ruff on the first one...hence the brake slamming!
Next came the prayers that no one noticed 4 white girls stamping out and then back into the country after about 5 minutes and just walking around the building. Apparently this is frowned upon. Ooops! Anyway we were caught but just ended up walking into Swaziland stamping in, walking around their building, stamping out, and then heading back to Moz. All in all it went pretty smoothly. We did however run into 2 other guys who were doing the same. But oddly enough they have Mozambican passports. We couldn't figure out why they would need to stamp in and out of their own country...we asked what they were doing. They replied "business"...very very very very sketchily I might add. Rebbecca and I looked at each other and both said in unison..."illegal business"! I'm not pointing fingers just saying it was a bit sketchy!
Ok...we were back in the car, back over all the speed mountains in no time. We had a youth driver so trips happen a lot quicker than if you have an older driver! So all is well, the music is on, Emily (another missionary) is laying down taking a nap and all the sudden I look up through the VERY dirty window and think I see something. You guessed it...a COW, in the middle of our lane. Our driver must have seen it at exactly the same moment because then came the screeching brakes. I went flying forward, our mattress slip foward so far that emily was no long laying on her back but instead on her side with the mattress up against the front of the truck bed, and Rebbecca was basically on top of Emily. All I said was...a cow and we all started hysterically laughing! You can absolutely always expect the unexpected here. Here's the cow that caused us so much greif...we maybe stopped 4 feet from it...
There was only one more brake slamming experience, and we were all the way back in Maputo at this point. I'm sure a very nice person decided to change lanes basically into us. Our driver quickly responded and all was well expect for the back flip Rebbecca did in the midst of the stopping that ended in a quite large bump on her head.
So that was our trip to the border...seriously we were only gone about 4 hours in total. It's normal to expect the unexpected. Everyone says when you drive here you can always expect people to not do the normal thing. The opposite is probably what they will do. With their left turn signal on they will turn right. From the left lane they will turn right. When the light is red they will go. People will walk out in front of you while you're driving. When you go to pass someone they will speed up and veer over toward you. The unexpected is normal and somehow expected....
...oh Mozambique...