Hitching with the Priest

We often hear stories from our Peace Corps buddies about how they get free rides whenever they travel from foreigners zooming around in fancy cars. Said foreigners are scarce in our part of the country. Most of the hitchhiking we do is in big semi trucks slowly ferrying good on our road to and from Blantyre in Malawi, and we usually have to pay for the rides. This weekend was different. While waiting at a junction to travel to our PCV Tete buddies we spotted a pick-up with the insignia of a Catholic mission near our friends’ site. The friendly priest gave us a ride on top of a large pile of agricultural goods with great views of the countryside passing by, and invited us to lunch. Priests here always have elaborate meals of delicious foods, including meat, so it was a real treat. The mission happens to be a site where Peace Corps is hoping to place a teacher next year, so we enjoyed previewing it. The mission dates from the Portuguese era so the architecture is reminiscent of our home in Spain. The mission residents are an eclectic mix from Spain, Portugal, Brazil and some local as well. Like many missions here, it has a large boarding school and agricultural projects. Afterwards they drove us in to town and dropped us near our friends’ house