Good Bye Civilization

Julie and Micah,

Well we left civilization this morning at around 8:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. back home). Don woke us up at 6:00 a.m. We slept in a nice hotel last night, two to a room. Brian and I got paired up. The hotel was really nice, Don (the missionary we are working with) said they gave him a great rate. Brian and I talked about how we hope Mozambique is less posh, because so far South Africa is very Westernized. There was a McDonalds not far from our hotel, we did not eat there.
So we got on the bus and left for Mozambique. It’s a seven hour bus ride, if all goes well. As you know (just by knowing me) all did not go well. We had to go the weighing station, something I didn’t know buses did. We were approximately 2000 pounds (I think they said 900kg but now that doesn’t sound right) over the available weight.

Trip one through the weighing station: Shift the weight. Apparently the weight was distributed incorrectly (my doctor said that to me once). So we shifted weight from under the bus to the front of the bus. I lost my seat in the process, but that’s ok because they made me a new one in the back of the bus, which is where I am writing this now. Only 19 of us could ride on the bus, which seated 40. Brian had to ride with Don in his truck and the rest of the bus was full of other people passing through. We will be changing buses at some point in the near future to a 26 passenger bus.

Trip two through the weighing station: Call a back up bus to put a large amount of stuff on. We were told the bus would be there in 1 hour. Problem 3 hours later still no bus, but we got a little four-seat truck with a short bed. We reloaded the books (780 pounds) and some bags. They then shifted some more weight.

Trip three through the weighing station: We drove on to the scales only to be denied again. More shifting and re-hifting of weight.

Trip four through the weighing station: We failed again but they have a plan. Drive and around and have the people at the back of the bus redristribute their weight (make that a doctor and now a guard from the scales for transportation in South Africa who have told me to redistribute my weight)to the front of the bus.

Trip five through the weighing station We run to the front of the bus. You can totally see us all standing. We can totally see the guards laughing. Sure enough, we are waved through. The whole process took about 3 ½ hours. It’s now 13:45 hours and 27 degrees Celcius. So seven hour bus ride will now be 10 hour bus ride.

We had to "sneak" through 3 more weighing stations. :)

We were able to start working on our passport stuff for the border guards. They have certain rules about getting into Mozambique.

Currently there are a number of people asleep and Cole has a pretty nasty ear ache which the altitude changes didn’t help.

Driving across South Africa has been not really all that different from diving across the Mid-West. The scenery is mostly the same, aceept for a shanty town that we passed. Houses were maybe 9’ x 12’. They were stick framed and it looked like just mud walls. The houses were built connecting to each other. Well I am going to get off for now, this turned into a longer entry that expected. Don told us that they compound has dial up so I don’t know how often I will get to post, I will most definitely write every day, even if I can’t post so you may see two or more posts appear at a time.

I just turned the laptop back on to share two other quick stories. So we went through another weighing station. The back half of the bus went up front and had to kneel down in the center row. So we basically hid the weight on the front. It was comical because we were able to pass through with no problem.

So we drove for a LONG time and it was past lunch time, like 3:30 here so we hadn’t eaten since 7:00 a.m. We were hungry so we made it to a town Noveld I think was the town. We stopped at a restraint chain that was started in South Africa but designed with an American mindset. It was called Chicken Licken! Pretty greesey and westernized. They advertised Soul Food. They called their chicken sandwhiches SLYDERS. The coolest part was when we met these two guys who saw someone on our team’s passport and asked us where we were from. We said America. He flipped out and his friend, whose name was X, ran away. A few moments later he was back with a digital camera and explained to us that he was a radio D.J. and his friend, X, was the web guy. They took our picture with him for their radio website and promised to email it to us. He has never left the country and thought it was cool that we were on our way to Mozambique. Good times, but honestly the chicken isn’t sitting well, a little too greasy.

I love and miss you!

all about Christ,
David Buckham