15/04/13

            Today I was well enough to travel and made my way up to Inharrime. As much as it seems that some external power was screwing with me yesterday to thwart my efforts to travel, it seemed like something was helping me today. I made it from the house where I’m staying in Maputo to the mission in Inharrime in 5.5 hours, which is truly incredible. Right as I arrived at the bus rank (which has been completely redone and looks wonderful!), there was a bus going north about to leave. Sometimes it seems like a bus is about to leave, but you end up sitting at the bus rank with the engine running for an hour or two. But as soon as I sat down, the bus pulled out! It was an express bus going about 3 times as far as I was, so it didn’t make many stops to drop people off or pick people up—I was going one of the shortest distances. Our bus, unlike so many heaps of metal here, was actually capable of reaching high speeds, and our driver was maniacal enough to drive that fast.

            On the ride up I was struck by how many new houses and buildings there are since I last made the trip in November, particularly cement block structures. The bus rank in Maputo used to be an overly congested sandy area next to the highway, full of people milling between busses hawking goods and trying to get you on their bus, but now it’s a fenced-in, paved area with designated spaces for buses to different locations, and the ground was noticeably free from both the hawkers and all their litter.

            Home at last, and all the girls are so grown up! It’s wonderful to see them again, though I miss them when they were shorter, chubbier, and spoke with stronger speech impediments!

            I forgot to write, over Easter one night I was heading back from eating dinner at Ben and Beth’s house. It was dark and I was mostly monitoring the ground in front of me with my flashlight, so I noticed belatedly that we (baby D was tied on my back) had made our way into the middle of a herd of cattle. Cows are pretty docile and slow-moving, but it still made me really uncomfortable in the dark, with a baby tied on my back, and bags in my hands, knowing that I couldn’t run very fast if I needed to. Also in the dark their eyes were lit up red by my flashlight, plus their horns were slightly silhouetted against the sky, so they looked like devils. I was relieved when we made it back to the house safely.