We started our voyage to Dondo, Mozambique the morning of May 10th, at 4:45 am. Scott and I rushed to pack all of our belongings into one day pack and one full pack. The rest we’ve left at Alabanza in South Africa (these items will meet us in Swazi for debrief). We raced out the door to find that everyone’s stuff had already been packed up and we were the last to file into one of the 2 combi’s designated to take us to the Greyhound bus station in Pretoria. We looked inside both of them, which were equally filled to the brim with both A and B squad (about 50 people). I looked at which would be the lesser of two evils and got in line to hop in the Sprinter. I could barely see faces in the dark, as well as the fact that most were shaded by backpacks.
Once my turn came, I “crowd surfed” to the back of the bus… and promptly dropped myself on a backpack that was lying in the isle. Facing the rear of the car, barely hitting my head on the roof, one of my feet was lodged under Amy’s armpit, the other, under my butt. If I were to move, I would have fallen on Lynette, who was sitting on top of Emily from A squad. Very interesting half hour car ride. Getting out of the Sprinter in Pretoria was like playing a game of Twister.
And that’s just the beginning. Once in the Greyhound bus, I was free to nap… until the movie came on… Mrs. Doubtfire. I had forgotten how funny that one was. And we were plastered to the screen (mostly because we were trying to read lips since our speakers didn’t work). After that, I tried to keep staring out the window in hopes to see some wildlife, but to no avail.
We arrived in Mombatu, Mozambique at around 8 pm-ish, and we were surrounded by hordes of locals. All the men filtered off the bus, and took every last bag off the bus before the women got off. I was the last person off the bus, and when I stepped down, the first face I saw was Scott’s, as he had been guarding the door to the bus in order to let all the girls off safetly. Behind Scott were countless faces of Mozambiquan men just staring. Little did we know that the Greyhound was the short leg of the trip (and the most comfortable).
Chad and Zaccharias (our Dondo contact) bartered for a ride for both the A and B squad. A hopped in a bus with all of their luggage (they were sardines). Then we got our own ride. Our driver told us he was going to get a trailer for our stuff (praise the Lord!!!). What looked like an amazingly uncomfortable ride, became just an uncomfortable ride.
Packed in the bus, we sat four people per row (2 from A squad ended up hopping in our vehicle part way down the road), including the driver’s helper. We stopped fairly constantly for pee breaks, food breaks, sleep breaks, and one time in order to change a popped tire. And every time the engine was turned off we had to start it by pushing the bus in order to get the ignition going. Totally ghetto, but functional… it did it’s job.
And 22 hours later, we were in Dondo, and greeting the 30-something orphans (all boys) at Iris Ministries.
Tomorrow we’ll be heading to Morumballa (spelling?) which is about 7 hours north of here, closer to the Zambizi river where flooding occurred over 2 months ago. We’ll be going with some of the Iris staff to do disaster work there. We will be there between 1 and 2 weeks. And before we know it we’ll be in Swazi debriefing.
Pray for a broken heart for these people, that I will have God’s heart for the disaster victims. That I will be wrecked for Mozambique. I pray this for you also.
