Mozambique

Journey from Malawi to Zimbabwe via Mozambique (Part V)

I entered Zimbabwe in early afternoon. Malawi, where I had been early in the morning, seemed so far away now. I drove on through unremarkable countryside until Eastern Mashonaland, an area dotted with weathered mountainscapes rising curiously up over the dry flat land. More people lived here than in Mozambique. They lived in what appeared to be slightly better conditions than in Mozambique, although many were quite poor. Unlike Malawi, I saw few bicycles in Zimbabwe, a sign that most locals had little discretionary income to buy such expensive items. The Zimbabweans, however, had a better transit system than Mozambicans. Far more trucks operated in this area transporting locals who hailed them using arm flourishes akin to hitchhiking.

I drove on until I reached Mutoko, a large town an hour inside the border. I stopped at a filling station with my tank nearly empty. No diesel. My heart sank. What would I do if I ran out of fuel? This was Zimbabwe after all, a place that faced chronic shortages in virtually all commodities, including fuel, until it replaced the hyperinflationary Zimbabwean dollar with the U.S. dollar as is legal currency a few years ago. I went to another station across the street and fueled up. Saved, I thought. God is my buddy. Although it was a risk driving alone through this part of the world running on faith that I would pass without incident, it isn’t a cliché to say that God was my co-pilot on this trip. He assured me in so many ways that I had nothing to fear and that He would keep me safe, including the moment when I was driving on the highway and suddenly confronted a semi-truck hurtling headlong towards me in my own lane. The driver was trying to pass another truck and ran me off the road. If not for God’s urging me to pull over and my quick response, I might have died, as so many people have on Africa’s highways. I recalled an incident just a month before in which a missionary serving in Zambia died in Zimbabwe when his bus was hit head on by a truck. Can I say I’m lucky to be alive? No, not really. I know God willed it. If He had wanted to call me home at that instance, He would have.

I checked my tire pressure in Mutoko. Very low. All the tires had lost one quarter pressure, an unsurprising fact given that I had run my tires over 1,500 kilometers of broken, pothole-marked roads and harsh terrain. While the man at the tyre (tire) shop filled them with air I surveyed the town. Across the street was a market and bus station filled with loitering people. On either side of the tyre shop were other auto repair shops with car parts, burned-out chasses, and tires strewn in front. I saw the remains of an overturned car beside the road. Mutoko was not a pretty town but definitely a fascinating glimpse into Zimbabwean culture. I stopped by a small market to buy a cold drink and chose a non-carbonated faux orange drink from the nearly empty refrigerator. The store owner said it cost 50 cents and asked if I would like to buy some chips to round the purchase up to one dollar. I agreed even though I was not hungry for a salty snack. Business was apparently slow, and she needed the money more than I needed food.

I drove on from Mutoko to Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, content that I had enough fuel and tire pressure to return to civilization. The journey ended quietly, and I pulled into town at dusk. I was concerned about arriving after dark in Harare, a large city I did not know with its fair share of crime. I also vaguely knew the general direction to my hotel but not the exact location. Once again, God delivered me right to my destination, and I pulled in at nightfall. I am thankful my buddy kept me safe.

Journey from Malawi to Zimbabwe via Mozambique

Journey from Malawi to Zimbabwe via Mozambique (Part IV)

Tete, Central Mozambique’s largest city with about 150,000 inhabitants, was far different from the neighboring countryside. A surprisingly modern city in the heart of an underdeveloped region, its architecture had a Portuguese flavor dulled by the years that followed independence. Situated on the banks of the Tete River, its eastern and western banks were linked by a suspension bridge that had seen better days but was currently undergoing renovation. The city center reminded me of others I had seen during my travels to Maputo, Mozambique’s capital, and Brazil, another former Portuguese colony. An outpost of centralized-style governance, all roads in the area quite literally led to Tete, and virtually all services, from government administration to filling stations, were located within a short drive of the city center. There were no other way stations for hundreds of kilometers. I passed up the opportunity to fuel my car because I had three-quarters of a tank of diesel and did not want to buy the metacais necessary to purchase fuel in Mozambique. I had less than a quarter of a tank left from a fill-up in southwestern Malawi when I finally passed another service station over 250 kilometers down the road in Mutoko, Zimbabwe.

One highlight of a visit to central Mozambique is geography. The landscape changes from stunning to tired and worn and back and gain, growing progressively drier as you drive west. The foliage turns from leafy green to sagebrush and thorny scrub. Most of the rivers in this area had already dried up despite the fact that the rainy season just ended, leaving the land and its people increasingly thirsty and dependent on stagnant borehole wells. The mountains near the Malawian border are wild and forbidding. I reckoned that very few tourists had ever visited this area, most notably due to the lack of tourist infrastructure – roads and hotels – and the fact that the land is still riddled with hidden land mines left over from the civil war that affected Mozambique for several decades before it ended in 1993. While I am an adventurous sort who would gladly lose myself in a place such as this, the presence of land mines made me hesitant to make this wish a reality.

Not far from the Zimbabwe border I saw three small, colonial style buildings at intervals along the road that looked conspicuously out of place amidst the cinder block rondavels and block houses. Featuring stucco walls with tiled roofs, they looked as if they had been transplanted in southern Africa from rural Portugal. I realized that this must have been the ruins of a former estate owned by a colonial Portuguese family that probably grew tobacco, a major crop in the area. The terrain looked as if it had once been cultivated and shaped in a manner more fit for Europe than rural Africa. The estate had most likely been abandoned by its owner either after Mozambican independence in 1975 or during the subsequent civil war. It was now overgrown with wild brush and small, unkempt fields. Locals had moved into the remaining structures and had lost the battle to keep the estate intact; they now spent their time growing maize in small plots and cutting trees to make charcoal. The story of this estate and the underlying tragedy of its demise would make for an interesting read.

Journey from Malawi to Zimbabwe via Mozambique

Journey from Malawi to Zimbabwe via Mozambique (Part III)

I crossed into Mozambique and was confronted by a gaggle of men hanging out near my vehicle. I was a bit apprehensive entering Mozambique for several reasons. My Portuguese consists of “Nao fallo Portugues” (I don’t speak Portuguese), and English and Spanish language skills are of limited use in an area dominated by Portuguese and indigenous languages. The Mozambican side of the border was far busier than either Malawi’s or Zimbabwe’s and primarily consisted of bus passengers stuck at terribly slow border crossings waiting to transit to or from Malawi or Zimbabwe. Central Mozambique is a transit destination for most people, not a destination. A helpful Mozambican gentleman helped me navigate the immigration and customs bureaucracy amidst a throng of people. I made sure he knew I did not have any money to pay him, and he nodded in understanding. I appreciated his assistance and would have been glad to repay the favor if we ever crossed paths again.

Crossing land borders in southern Africa is a “fairly” standardized process – just fill out small entry/exit immigration forms, hand over your passport and immigration form to be processed and stamped, proceed to customs, sign a big “guest book,” and then haggle with customs over getting your vehicle in and out of whatever country you’re in. Pay whatever processing fees and taxes are required and then obtain a form that allows you to drive through the entry/exit gate. It’s not always quick and painless. In my own experience, Zimbabwean customs has been more of a hassle than other countries’ customs regimes. At the Zimbabwean-Mozambican border a plainclothes Zimbabwean manning the gate tried to coerce me into visiting Zimbabwean police camped out next to the gate to “make sure my vehicle isn’t stolen.” This was obviously an attempt to extract a bribe. I politely but firmly told him that customs had already registered my vehicle in Zim and that my vehicle was legally registered in Zambia. I told him that he could not legally hold me at the border, smiled an “OK, you got me” smile and lifted the gate for me. I drove on without further incident. It reminded me that at times at border crossings you need to be assertive and not let pseudo-officials con you into an awkward situation that leaves you cornered and/or forced to pay a bribe.

Central Mozambique was fascinating. Save the bustling regional capital city of Tete, the region felt isolated and disconnected from the outside world. I saw nary a single tourist or muzungu except for a local in Tete who was of mixed Portuguese descent. The local culture is similar to what you find in neighboring areas inside Zambia. The towns are small with clusters of circular rondavels and block houses interspersed with small fields, paths and trees. As I headed west, I saw more and more baobab trees, which, along with the acacia tree, is one of the staples of the African landscape. The distinctive baobab trees accentuated the quaintness of the villages. I enjoyed watching the locals as a drive-by tourist, snapping a few photos now and then to capture the trip for my memory banks. I am one of the lucky few to have had my own vehicle. Most vehicles I saw on the road in central Mozambique were transporting products such as fuel to market. A few others were private vehicles or motorcycles owned by the lucky ones with wealthy. Some were trucks that served as makeshift mass transit transporting villagers to nearby towns. Undoubtedly these drivers were making a killing selling rides for a few metacais (the Mozambican currency).

From my experience in neighboring Zambia, I drew a mental picture of what life must be like in rural Mozambique. Work all day in the fields, children spending most of their time doing supplemental work like carrying water. No electricity means that entertainment consists of playing with whatever makeshift toys can be fashioned, and cooking is done using wood-cured charcoal. In the center of it all stands the church (or mosque) beckoning worshippers to take breaks from life and give time to God. As the dry season drags on, the locals undoubtedly pray more frequently for rain to ensure they have enough drinking water and abundant crops, mostly maize (corn).

Journey from Malawi to Zimbabwe via Mozambique