Traveling

We started out early in the morning, driving to the Indianapolis airport and then flying to Atlanta. The Atlanta airport was buzzing with school travel groups and it made me nostalgic for the Spain trip last summer. After a long flight to Johannesburg, we took a taxi to the bus station. We got to know the taxi driver, Joseph, and he gave my dad his name and number, telling him to text him for a ride on his way back and promising him a discount. The bus station was a large, open building full or restaurants and people traveling all over. It was pretty chilly, but safe. The bus was nice and warm and we fell asleep immediately although my dad was woken up by a loud Christian soap opera they showed in the middle of the night and I spent most of the night awake in preparation for crossing the border. I’ve crossed the Mozambican border twice before, both times in the dead of night and both pretty nerve wracking experiences. Turns out though that now the border doesn’t open until 6 a.m. and we had to wait before we could line up to cross it. To go in and out of Mozambique, you have to get out of your vehicle and walk about a mile, going through several different check points: one to check you have a passport, one to get a stamp for departing from South Africa, and one for receiving the entry stamp for Mozambique (all with long lines). It was cold doing the whole process at daybreak but a lot more comfortable than doing it in the middle of the night and we got to watch a beautiful sunrise on our way. Finally, a few hours later, we met my sister, Scooter, at the bus stop in Maputo. Scooter had REDES (Girls in Development, Education, and Health) meetings all day so my dad and I spent the afternoon walking around the city, trying to avoid jetlag and stay awake. Eventually we retired to the hotel and I took a nap. My sister had difficulties trying to make and keep reservations at this particular hotel and it almost turned out that my dad and I didn’t get a room but when the owner heard it was my sister’s family who needed a place, she offered us one room she usually reserved for storage. Apparently many of the other hotel workers also stored stuff in there because, during our stay, we had at least five hotel workers walk into our room before quickly backing out, apologizing, quite embarrassed. In the middle of my nap, I woke up to find a small girl sitting on the bed next to me. After giving me a quizzical look, she scampered off and I fell back asleep wondering if I hadn’t just dreamt that happened. Turns out she’s the owner’s granddaughter and probably usually hung out in that room a lot. The next day we woke early and got on a chapa headed to Inharrime. We arrived at the mission where my sister works, and it seemed the long journey was over without any problems but then, just as the chapa took off down the road, we discovered we had left one of our suitcases on it. While I took off running and waving in vain after the chapa, Scooter ran inside the mission and explained the situation. A few minutes later, her and a driver took off after the chapa in one of the mission’s trucks. They had to go 40 km to catch the chapa and it was over an hour before they got back, but they got the bag. After unpacking a bit, we took our instruments up to the courtyard where we sang with all the girls (right, btw, the mission where my sister works and where we’ll be staying is also a school and an orphanage for about 60 girls). We played some Taylor Swift and spirituals but “Hallelujah” was the most popular as all the girls could easily sing along with the chorus.