Maputo to Brea

It's currently 5 AM and suffering from a mild bout of jet lag, I am wide awake, perched on my giant bed in Brea, California watching my fat cat sleep next to me and baffled by the fact that I actually made it home for Christmas. I left Maputo, Mozambique early Thursday morning yet had many near-tear moments when it seemed I wouldn't be home before Christmas. Here's why:

* I Still Love Traveling
There are several things I enjoy that most don't: the smell of gasoline and spray paint, awkward moments, seeing others fall, rolling down hills, and traveling long distances. I love people-watching in airports, I love the food and movies on airplanes and I love how every time I fly it feels like a mini-adventure. After this past trip, several people have asked me if I still enjoy travelling after being tossed around on an emotional roller coaster, enduring every possible delay and disaster when flying. The answer is and loud, resounding, "YES!" It was an adventure and though I broke down and bawled when I finally boarded the plane heading to LAX (tears from emotional and physical exhaustion), God is so good and gave me a perspective and attitude which enabled me to enjoy the journey. Here are some steps of the journey: (not included the hours of waiting in lines and on planes and in terminals)

- 8-hour bus ride from Maputo, Mozambique departing Thursday 7 AM and arriving in Joberg, South Africa at 4:30 PM. No super "news-worthy" tales while on the bus except when I couldn't find the bus when we had to walk across the border into South Africa and I left the group to pee. When I returned, I realized I didn't know what any of my "traveling mates" looked like. (note to self: learn to be more observant) but eventually I wandered over to South Africa and found the bus. We arrived at the station in Joberg which is in a bad area of a town that has one of the highest crime rates in the world. (I should have brought my umbrella!) OC, the mission I'm with, has several families living in Joberg which I had met at the retreat a few weeks prior and the Witherows picked me up from the station. I had written to them to tell them I would be wearing a bright orange tank top so they could locate me. (I never claimed to have much fashion sense) They teased me about this precaution because when I walked through the station I was thee only White person in sight. - I stayed overnight at their home and loved getting to know their three little boys and was ecstatic to discover they have a trampoline! We bounced for literally hours and I thought nothing of the possible consequences of this until I boarded the plane and realized I had pulled my groin and had to limp the rest of the journey and explain to others that it was due to a "trampoline injury."

- 8 hour flight from Joberg to Dakar, Senegal. We were supposed to stop here and refuel and be back in the air after an hour. More than 24 hours later, we reboarded and began the next leg of our flight. (details to follow)

- 9 hour flight from Dakar to Atlanta. For the first time in my life I couldn't sleep on the plane since I had just slept through the night in a bed in Dakar and I ended up watching TV and movies nearly the entire flight.

- 5 hour flight from Atlanta to LAX. As previously mentioned, when I finally boarded this plane, I was crying and trying to tell my mom what time to pick me up but was struggling to speak since I was crying so hard and made many people around me very awkward. You'll understand later why I was so tired and emotional when I finally made it home. This flight was nearly full and I had to fly stand-by with, as the flight attendant informed me, "a 50 percent chance I would make it on." If I didn't make it on that flight, I would have had to stay overnight in Atlanta and just the thought of waking on Christmas Eve alone and in Atlanta, had me near-tears. But I made it on, made it home and was greeted by my amazing parents and sister. I stumbled off the escalator with puffy, blood-shot eyes, a sore throat I had picked up in Senegal, oily hair, wrinkled and smelly clothes, and a huge appreciation to be home before Christmas. Yet, I still love traveling. (still waiting for my luggage to arrive though)

* God Sent Amandas
You know how many people have great conversations with people they sit next to on planes? Great evangelists and pastors lead people to the Lord and such? I confess I'm not one of those people. I usually say hello and then put on my headphones and don't communicate much with others on board. However, this time God had orchestrated who I would sit next to, knowing I would need a friend to endure the next 2 days with. I plopped down next to the girl I had seen in the airport who seemed very "earthy." (she later told me she thought I was "sporty"- do we sound like Spice Girls or what?) When I first took my seat next to her, I would never have guessed in a few hours we would be friends, traveling around Senegal together. Amanda is my age and had been teaching English in a remote village in Kenya. We shared our Africa experiences and were almost instant friends. Others aboard later told us they thought we were long-time friends traveling together. When our plane broke in Dakar and we were informed we would be staying overnight in a hotel, we decided to stick together. God knew if I had been by myself throughout the whole ordeal, I would have been terrified and miserable. Instead, He provided a friend and we were able to have a blast in Senegal together. In the first picture we had just gotten off the first flight and were waiting in the first of 47 lines we would wait in throughout the trip. In the second picture we are in a van, heading towards the hotel from the airport. We were packed like sardines in this van with all our luggage and my favorite quote came from the little Indian man to the right who said to the man packing in the bags, "We are human beings. You can't do this to us."

While waiting for at least 10 combined hours in the airport in Senegal, we befriended another Amanda who lives in LA. I was supposed to be on the last flight with her but of course my bags were last to come off the plane so I was last in line to rebook a ticket and missed our flight. I was nearing my breaking point in Dakar when our plane was delayed after being fixed and it seemed we might have to spend another day in the city. Amanda # 2 was in line with me, sharing her dried pears and company so I didn't break down. (I was so appreciative of these pears because we hadn't eaten in hours and I was starving. So although I am usually quite skeptical of dried fruit because of the affects dried apricots had on my roommate Lesley, I gratefully accepted the pears and they were surprisingly delicious)

God is so amazing how He provides. We all said that the trip would have been a nightmare if we had to go through it alone but God provided traveling friends. He knew exactly what I needed and literally "went before me" to prepare me for this trip by sitting me next to Amanda.

* Dakar: City or Country?
When we first learned of our plane malfunction, I confess I looked at Amanda and asked, "Is Dakar a city or country?" This from the geography teacher who just taught about Africa:) Through some detective work in the airport, we discovered Dakar is the capital of Senegal which is in Northwestern Africa. Part of the silver lining of being stranded in Africa is that I got to explore a new country. Senegal is radically different from Mozambique. Our first adventure in Dakar was finding our luggage in the midst of the baggage claim area. It was nearly impossible to walk through the area because there were thousands of bags littered on the pathways. When one couple finally found their bags on the conveyor belt, they had no room to walk so they jumped up and rode on top of their bags until they could find a clear area to jump off. I was reminded of Jerry MacGuire and smiled. An obnoxious French boy next to me was slapping his parents who were slapping him back, some angry African-Americans were yelling profanities at the workers, locals were passed out on top of luggage and we all were totally unaware of what was happening and how long we would be in Dakar. I tried to capture the chaos of it all but you really had to be there to understand how crazy it was.
After waiting for hours in the airport, completely unaware of any semblance of a plan, Amanda pulled some strings and snagged two seats on a bus for us although we were last in line. (my bags were last off the plane- this tends to be a pattern, which is why we were last) The sun had just risen and we were transported to a beautiful hotel where we were fed a delicious breakfast. Of course my mood instantly improved after eating- food has this effect on me. We ate breakfast with two Peace Corp volunteers from Mozambique and Sean suggested we venture out to the downtown. Sean, Amanda and I pooled our resources and got a taxi which wasn't so easy since none of us speak a word of French and not many Senegalese speak English. Here are some pictures taken from the taxi:
I love exploring and we spent the afternoon walking around the city, trying to soak in Senegalese culture. The people are much taller and darker than Mozambicans and it is a Muslim nation that was once controlled by the French. The city felt like a combination of Africa, Paris and the Middle-East and was unlike any place I've been before. We arrived the day after a Muslim holiday where they had slaughtered goats and saw hundreds of goat hides for sale on the streets. The men wandered the streets in their colorful Muslim garb and Sean confessed he considered converting because the clothes looked so comfortable and stylish.We stopped in a little store to call home and Sean stopped by Starbucks to get a coffee.

We were followed by several vendors inviting us to their "factory" but it was interesting to see how the men only would talk to Sean. Mozambicans have figured out that the women are the ones who will spend the money and this being my first experience in a Muslim nation, it felt so odd to be ignored because I am a woman. One particularly crazy vendor followed us so long he even sat down when we stopped to rest at a restaurant and was not picking up on our non-verbal cues that we didn't like him. Sean was afraid he had a knife and so he wasn't rude and eventually he tired of us.It was a very fun day of exploring but I was pooped by the end (perhaps because I hadn't slept in 24 hours) and collapsed on a chair in the sun at our hotel.

* Rats in the Walls
I knew I was going to have a fun day when I looked out the window from our room in the hotel. Private, white-sand beach, crystal clear ocean, chairs to lay by the pool- my idea of heaven.
The hotel food was amazing (or perhaps I was just starving) and I had a wonderful nap by the pool and on the beach.
Although the scenery was beautiful, the hotel wasn't exactly 5 star quality. The air con only had one setting which turned our room into an icebox which I suspect is what caused my current sore throat. Also, while showering, I discovered some friends- rats live in the walls and were quite loud as they squeaked and scurried about. Overall however, we had a great time at the hotel and it made being stuck in Africa not so bad.

* New Reality Show
Usually when you travel, you can observe the crazies you're with from a safe distance and don't have much interaction. However, when trapped in Senegal together and waiting for hours on end together in strange places, you are forced to interact and a bond is formed. The mormon carrying the cane/weapon, the pot-bellied, crazy but kind dancer, the snobby model, the French-speaking cowboys, the absent, Asian dad, the outgoing professor from New Orleans with his students, the rich businessmen, the red-faced South African, the earthy peace corp workers and the list goes on, of the characters on our plane. It was such a neat experience to be stuck in the same situation and we really did begin to feel like a family and a team. We waited together, ate together, relaxed by the pool together, shook our fists at Delta and shared our stories with each other. We encouraged eachother, vented to eachother, shared any information we had about "the plan," helped eachother carry bags and "watched each others' back." It was so fun to hear the many different reasons people were in Africa and get to interact with so many different persoanlities whom, under normal sitations, I probably would have never talked to. The whole time I was thinking this would make a wonderful reality show- a mix of Survivor, Amazing Race and Lost. CBS, go ahead and steal this idea. While waiting in one of the gazillion lines at the Dakar airport, one man entertained us when he put on his headphones and started dancing his heart out. He's a larger White man and the people around him were trying not to stare but I got out the camera to try to capture the awkwardness.

Click to here to watch the awkward man and see some of my traveling companions

* The Other Side of the Ocean
I called my mom at three in the morning to tell her I was stuck in Senegal and had just seen a goat shot in the street in front of us. She did not appreciate this last bit of information but I though it was so bizarre. I wasn't able to communicate with my family again until I reached Atlanta and no idea that my sister had befriended Delta and knew more about my traveling situation than I did. No exaggeration there- Delta never told us anything about when or where we were going but my sister the "wonder whiz" had everything figured out. (I don't know why I just gave her that nickname) When I finally arrived in LA and realized my bags weren't coming, I trudged towards the baggage claim service area and groaned as I saw a huge line of angry passengers. (apparently the flight forgot about 1/4 of the bags) However, I peeked inside and there was Heidi at the front of the line signaling for me to come up. She had pretended to be me but didn't know what color her bags were:) I don't think the lady actually believed Heidi had just travelled for over 50 hours because she looked like a model while her sister on the other hand who knew what color the bags were, looked like she was about to roll over and die. A few minutes after midnight, the very beginning of Christmas Eve, I walked through my front door and breathed a sigh of relief. I made it.

There are so many unexpected obstacles and challenges that we face in life. So many surprises that aren't always considered "pleasant." But through this trip, God has showed me that despite the obstacle, He is there. Despite the challenge, despite the suffering, He will always be there- but will I always notice Him? He was so close to me throughout the whole ordeal and constantly whispering peace in my ear that despite being exhausted and disappointed, I could enjoy the experience.