31/05/10

Today I headed home from Maputo which turned out to be a bit of an adventure, but every day is a bit of an adventure here. A bus was supposed to come pick me up at the hostel at 5:30am, but I waited for an hour and it never appeared, so once it was light enough to walk I just decided to go to the bus place, called “junta,” myself. A chapa pulled over and I asked the conductor if he was going to the junta and he said yes, so I got in. After about15 minutes when it became clear that we were not going to the junta I asked him again and he said “oh I didn’t understand you, you wanted to go to the junta?” I chewed him out in front of the chapa, telling him I don’t see where the confusion was, considering there is only one place called junta and, let’s be honest, that’s where most young white people with large backpacks in Maputo want to go. After I was done I am pretty sure a woman in the back of the chapa chewed him out one more time (though it was in local language so I am not 100%). But he was contrite, helped me get to the right chapa, and didn’t even attempt to get me to pay.
When I got to the junta there was a chapa going up to Inhambane already fairly full, which is nice because they don’t leave until they are full. I ran into one of my colleagues on the chapa, returning from a weekend in Maputo with his family, and they offered me the front seat which I gladly accepted because they are more comfortable. About 2 hours into the ride we got a flat tire, so the driver pulled over and AAA was called. HAHA, funny joke. The driver, conductor, and a few passengers fixed the flat while the rest of us sat on the side of the road and occasionally wandered into the brush to pee for 45 minutes while we waited. Sometimes chapas make good time. This one did not. But I had my own seat and got home eventually, so I can’t complain. For the first couple months I was in Mozambique I refused to sit in the front seat of chapas. The way I saw it, I didn’t need to see how I was going to die. Nine months later, a lot of the things that used to send me reeling don’t even faze me anymore, and I enjoy the front seat. However, there are occasions (such as when we are about to have a head-on collision with an oncoming car) when I just close my eyes for a few seconds—if I am going to die I don’t need to see it, I’ll find out soon enough anyhow.