stuck: a border story

Sitting in this aircon i-cafe in Nampula City, the district capital of Nampula province in Northen Mozambique, it hardly feels possible that a week ago we were in the situation we found ourselves. I'll try & recount it all here in detail, while my memory is still fresh. I wish I was there to tell you in person rather than writing, as the telling would be sure to evoke both laughter and tears...

...so...we set out Monday morning after a pleasant breakfast at the Old Boma (see earlier post on splurge accomodation for one night) and got dropped off at a half-full pick-up truck that was heading to the border. We actually secured seats in the front (as opposed to hanging on in the back), but we waited for at least an hour while fellow passengers straggled by. When we had enough folks to head out, we hit the road (by that time around 9:30am - late by African travel standards), and we still felt hopeful we´d make it to Pemba by the end of the day). We picked up about 10 or 12 more people at a few more stops on our way out of town and for some reason as we passed one of the many police checkpoints that exist across Tanzania & Kenya, an officious looking woman officer waved our driver over. After about 30 minutes of sitting in the hot car waiting, people started to pile out. It became clear without understanding swahili all that well, that the driver was pleading his case to officers who were not in the least impressed by it. Eventually someone else in the truck broke the stalemate by asking the officers how much the fine was (for what we still aren't sure as we were allowed to continue with the same number of people after the stop), and he collected the overpriced fares of us two mzungus plus another professional looking older man, and once the officers were paid we piled back in and were off. The driver was furious and when he jumped in and started the truck a very loud "pop" sound was heard. Everyone groaned and several people jumped out, opened the hood, and pulled out a broken piece on the battery. A few bangs later and the consensus among the men was that we should move on, and so the truck was jump-started and we pulled off onto the border road - a particularly badly rutted example of unsealed dirt.

Though the trip was only 30 km or so, it took nearly 3 hours to pull into the small exit immigration terminal on the Tanzanian side. We got our passports stamped, and were descended upon by moneychangers who could smell our American dollars. We waved them off, imagining that something less hectic would emerge on the Mozambiquan side, jumped back in the truck with the rest of the people, and rode to the edge of the Rovuma river, a few km beyond the post. Here, our bags were grabbed and thrown onto one of several boats that awaited hopeful border crossers. Some looked more worthy than others, and Hung very calmly asserted himself, retrieved our luggage and bargained our way onto the most trustworthy looking of the boats, one that even had seats!

Unfortunately, our boat captain headed in the opposite direction of where you'd think the crossing would be. Soon we found out why, as we were backing into a small gulley where another (seatless) smaller boat was being pushed out, even as the motor on our boat was swapped. How do you say "bait and switch" in Swahili? In any case, everyone piled in for the short trip across the river (about 1.5km). When we landed our bags were grabbed by a group of young men who headed quickly on foot through large reeds. We had no idea what was happening, but were calmed a bit by the fact that everyone else in the boat was going in the same direction. Hung walked quickly to keep up with the bags, while I tried to negotiate the muddy paths and not get too cut by the reeds. Eventually we found ourselves wading shin deep in muddy water, tramping through more reeds, and hustled onto a roadweary landrover with no seats in the back where we were told we would be waiting to move on. After 30 minutes or so of waiting, we were able to cobble together the information that we would be waiting a long time, probably over night(!) for more passengers before we moved on. Though it was only 1pm, it was assumed that no more folks would cross until the next day, and our driver and a motley assortment of young male money-changers informed us that they would be camping right there by the river until the next morning. With no food or tent and only a few Meticals changed from our TZ shillings, this seemed a fairly grim prospect. We eventually befriended a young man, Frank, who was more friendly and less aggressive than the others, and he informed us that the boder post was 6km further, and he would help us with our bags if we wanted to walk. We decided to pay our driver of the landrover a small amount to take us to the border village Novato, where we hoped to get another ride to the next larger town.



Another young man jumped into the truck, and we found out he was going to Pemba as well, having just finished his engineering degree in Kenya and was moving back to Mozambique to work. As per many of our trips, our fates become intertwined in a superficial way with other fellow travellers, and sharing little bits of pieced together information in several languages forms with these folks provides a better picture of what is in store.

When we arrived at the border shack in Novato, the immigration officer took our passports and said he would stamp them after he returned from lunch. We sat on some benches on the porch of the immigration shack, and contemplated our diminishing options. Several broken down trucks were parked by a small merchant shack. Ahead of us was a big red rut that led to a corn and cassave field. Across the clearing were several buildings (the planned immigration offices) in various states of completion. Up a path that led from the border post were a smattering of village huts. We bought a coke to have something cold and discovered that the laws of supply & demand were in full force in Novato. The seemingly unending stream of money-changers had disappeared, and as the afternoon wore on we better understood that we were now officially stuck here, with only a few meticals, and still nowhere to sleep.

Frank offered that the merchant shack had prepared wali samaki (fish & rice), so we sat down in the eating hut with the engineer grad and ate something. As the sun descended into the cornfield, Frank informed us that the immigration officer had a bed in his house he rented for the night - when we explained we were out of meticals, he kindly offered to put us up at his own house (the engineer grad would be staying there). We felt it best that we just stay on the immigration porch and so we pushed the two hardwood benches together and I strung my mosquito net from the thin branch beams that formed the porch roof.

The next morning we pissed behind the buildings, and I finished reading my wonderful Nurrudin Farah book "Links" as we waited for our driver to show up with more passengers. We found out from the engineering grad that at Frank's house he had shared some Ch'anga (local homemade spirit) with the family & before passing out had been given a panga (machete) and told to hold onto it while he slept. We felt at that point that we had made the right decision to remain in the exposed, but safer spot of the immigration shack porch.



When we finally headed off (onto the deep rut, that we only then realized was the road), we were packed with many others, feeling lucky for the first 10 minutes that we had secured places in the back of the truck on the steel plate that covered the wheels. Three hours later, after speeding through a particularly bad road, not just our butts, but my head had been bounced off the surfaces of the vehicle. We landed in the closest border town, Mocimboa de Pria, and negotiated an evening accomodation in a particularly poorly ventilated cement rondavel and set the alarm for 4am in preparation for a 5am departure to Pemba.

I reminded myself throughout our border time that "we chose it," and really, as bad as this was to experience, its sort of fun to recall. Pictures of the border shack to appear upon my return, if not sooner (I'm starting to see USB ports!).