Janet Hits the Road

Usually we take the 4am bus between Tete and Chimoio since it’s the only formal transport available, but Janet likes to get her sleep, so she’s been trying to think outside the public transit box to avoid that dreaded 3am wake-up alarm. Last week, for her regional REDES coordinators meeting in Chimoio (REDES being the national girls’ empowerment program spawned by earlier generations of Peace Corps Volunteers we’ve worked with during the past year) she decided to chance the hitch hiking method of getting around. For many Peace Corps Volunteers hitching is the preferred means for covering long distances, especially in the heavily touristed southern provinces where friendly South Africans with fancy vehicles just seem to be waiting on the EN1 (the national North-South highway) for volunteers to pick-up and chauffeur around. Up here in Tete most highway traffic consists of large semi trailers hauling goods from Mozambican ports to landlocked Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. We’ve taken these trucks over shorter distances visiting our neighbors in the province, usually paying for our rides. Although it isn’t too glamorous or fast, it usually gets us where we need to go. After a short hitch in a personal car to the crossroads outside Tete, Janet waited only 20 minutes until a big Coca-Cola truck stopped for her extended hand (no thumb signals here). The driver was a nice man named Luis, driving crates of empty soda bottles back to the factory in Chimoio for refilling (soda and beer bottles get reused in Africa, not recycled, a much more environmental option!). Although his truck was slow, he drove safely and chatted with Janet about America and science (Janet was surprised the former geography teacher thought the world was literally flat, he adamantly wanted to know what was beyond the ocean and what was below the ground). They arrived outside the Coca-Cola factory, where he dropped Janet, since he’s not allowed to give rides to passengers, and he didn’t even ask her to chip in for the gas, always a welcome situation. Janet caught her third ride of the day from the factory into Chimoio town and spent the weekend with a few volunteers, planning out the activities for our girls’ empowerment project this year. Chimoio is our favorite of Mozambique’s provincial capitals, for its cool weather, wide tree-lined avenues and walkability. It was, as always, great to see friends, eat city food, and do city shopping (on the list this trip were Pringles, nail polish, ramen noodles and garbanzo beans). One volunteer living in Chimoio has a particularly nice house, where she spent several evenings cooking, playing games and writing scavenger hunt clues for a regional get-together next week. Janet sucked it up and took the 4am bus back to Tete though, but enjoyed some language practice with a friendly Frenchman sitting next to her. It was exciting to come home and swap tales with Luc, who spent the weekend visiting new Tete volunteers.