Importing my 4x4 (Not!)

I have interesting news for ya'll, apparently (according to the Mozambican Customs Officials) this is a prime example of a DOUBLE CAB 4x4:


Pray tell, where do you see a second row of doors?

Anyways, they wanted 35% import tax on my "luxury double cab 4x4", either that or I could pay 5% import tax and a 20% bribe to them, thereby 'SAVING' myself 10%...when in fact I should only have pay a 5% import tax on a single cab 4x4. So I've just refused to pay the bribe money, not out of principle, but dang it - I could really use that money for myself!!!

Africa is so CORRUPT!

SO, after much much much hassle and frustration I am not going to import my 4x4 to Mozambique. It will stay a South African registered vehicle and instead I will get a year temporary import permit or 'Carnet de Passage' from the AA.

We only found out about this option in the last few days, but becuase of the conditions of this CDP I may not apply for Residency in Mozambique , which means that I still have to either exit the country every month, or extend my visa every month for 3 months at the local Immigration Office before having to exit the country. A hassle, but an oh so wonderful excuse to have a short break every three months (granted the cost of buying airtickets from Pemba to either South Africa/Kenya/Tanzania/Zimbabwe/Malawi every 3 months aint that great!... plus accomodation, transport and visas... So I usually just come to South Africa and stay at my parents' house)

So hopefully this is where my car saga ends...

Malawi to Pretoria in 4 Days...

So now we had given out the last of our food and were planning to head back to Dondo to restock, but my visa and car papers were about to expire, so I scheduled a quick trip up to Malawi to 'go around the flag pole' and get everything renewed for another month. Getting from Caia to Malawi should not really be too hard, the map says its only about 90km... that is 90km of dirt roads, potholes, washed away bridges and a 3.7km long train bridge across the Zambezi. The train bridge has been used as a vehicle bridge for the last few years, but recently work has started to repair the bridge and railway... I went to the WFP office to find out the opening times for vehicles crossing the bridge (the UN have made an agreement to allow food aid to be trucked across at certain times) and I was told it opens at 7am, and again at 12noon. All sorted, we will leave Caia at 5:50am and be at the bridge at 7am when it opens.

The next morning, FRIDAY, 06:55 we arrive at the bridge. The guy operating the boom looked at us and said, "Sorry the bridge is closed now, it opens again at 12." Oh no! But its 06:55!!! I pointed this little fact out to him and said the brige should open in 5mins, and he said "no, it CLOSES at 7am!" I am determined to cross the bridge, even if I have to pay the guy. "It is still 5 mins before 7am, we can cross in 5mins, no problem, PLEASE!"... He looks at me and opens the boom! YEAH! I didnt have to pay a bribe or nothing.

The drive across was pretty cool, its a LONG bridge and your wheels straddle the old iron tracks, they have packed planks of wood for you to drive over, it sounds interesting too!

When we get to the other side the boom is locked, but the guy is there and he opens for us. I roll down my window and double check the opening time for going back to Caia. He confirms that it opens at 12noon. He thinks I'm slightly crazy to be going to Malawian border and coming straight back again.

Finally I get to the Moz border and do all the paperwork, then I drive the 4km to the Malawian borderpost and pay all I have to pay, get stamped into the country. I told them I'll be back in 15mins and then I drove 3km to the first town, and there dropped Tor, a Norwegian guy who had been helping with the flood relief in Morrumbala, and who was now going to be hitchhiking thry Malawi. When I returned to the border within 15mins they laughed at me, and proceeded to stamp my car and me out the counrty. I drove the 4km back to the Moz side and redid all the paperwork and paid all the entry fees. Yeah, I was legal for another month! I picked up Miguel (the translator) who had waited at the Moz side for me and we headed back to Caia.

We were just within cellphone reception when my phone rang, it was my father, he had received a message from our Administrator in Maputo, the guy who was dealing with the import of my vehicle - Francisco wanted me to be in Maputo on Monday morning early!

I text the guys in Caia, told them to pack up and be ready to leave for Dondo at 1pm when I got there. Get to the bridge at 11:30am and wait till 12 for them to open it. 12 comes and goes, 12:15... the boom operator wanders to the car and says, "Oh they are still working, we will open in maybe 30mins" GRRRR! 12:45... still nothing happening, then the boom guy wanders over again, carrying some green plastic containers, "Can you give this to the guy at the other side, its his lunch"... Of course no problem, does that mean they're going to open the bridge now? Of course not, silly me, when they say 12noon, its secret code for 1:15pm. I really must remember that!

Finally we get over the bridge, over an hour late. I still have to get to Caia, load the rest of the team and then its a 5 hour drive back to Dondo, and I wasn't keen to drive at night, the road is badly potholed and also when its dark the Mozambicans are attracted to the road like moths to a candle. Loads of foot traffic and only about 1 in 50 bicycles have reflectors, and NON of the pedestrians wear reflective clothing, even when they are walking in the road, in the middle of the road. SCARY. So I dont like driving at night.

We ended up only arriving in Dondo at 7:30pm, so tired!!! It was a long day for me, and if I was to be in Maputo for Monday there was still quite a lot of driving ahead.

SATURDAY morning I load the car and set off for Inhambane, its 8 hours away and appart from the bit before Dondo the road is good. (OK and the bit before Inhambane is bad too). I am driving alone, I had my music and a thermos of strong coffee so I was fine. I stay at a place in Lindela (Quinta de Saint Antonio), a guest house on the main road run by a couple from South Africa - Good clean chalet to myself, with hot running water and a decent bed - they even had sattelite TV and a DVD player with some DVDs. It was amazing!

SUNDAY morning I had a late start, its only about 4 or 5 hours to Maputo. I stopped in the next town to refuel and just as I left the gas station I was still in the town, so I slowed down to 60km/h, after the town ended I didnt see a 100km/h board so I figured it must have been stolen, but there were no houses so I saw no reason to drive slowly. I got to my usual speed of 140km/h and watched the scenery flash by. I was going down a hill and just around the corner, ahead in the road, hidden from view was a police car and 4 cops! They couldnt see me yet, but I could clearly see them from above. Thats when I realised that this was still a 60 zone. I hit the brakes and as I came around the corner I was innocently crawling along at 45km/h. They were in the road radar gun outreached as they painted my car. I could see the disapointment on their faces as they retreated! Score 1 for me, 0 for them. YEAH!

Straight after I passed the cops I was crossed a lagoon which I think is the most beautiful part in all of Mozmabique, the ocean is going into a lagoon (with a low brige across the water) and its very shallow there, so the water is crystal clear and there are dead tree stumps sticking up out of the water. The water is a turquiose light blue, but its clear clear clear, with palm trees lining the shore in the distance. Its a gorgeous view, my favorite. Should remember to stop and take a picture next time...

I arrived in Maputo in good time - I always stay at the Iris Children's center in Zimpeto (They also suffered some damage with the recent bombing when an old military ammunition dump exploded - but no fatalities).

MONDAY - I went to see the customs people early the morning, they wanted to take some photos of my car to work out if it is a single or a double cab... its obviously a single cab but ITS the clearing agents made a mistake when they inspected my car and now its causing a LOT of hassle for me - ITS refuses to change their mistake and the Mozambican officials see this as a perfect opportunity to line their pockets with some extra cash... So they took their photos and discussed and finally said that they will have a final answer for me on Thurday...

I got back to the Zimpeto base and right there and then decided that I might as well go to South Africa. Visions of Dros' 1kg rack of ribs floated before me and I swear I could even smell the bbq basting...

After a quick oil change (my father nearly had a fit when he heard that I hadnt changed the oil yet, and I had driven 14000km, apparently I had to change the oil every 7500km. OOPS!) I set off for Pretoria. I left at 3pm, and I arrived at 10pm. Not bad, hope there were no speed cameras!

Distribution

Well finally after a week of running around in cirlces we got some food to people in need! There was a village where some people had lost their farms, and a few their houses, but so far they where not on any official lists and the only way we heard about them was thru our church in the area.

5am, dawn has hardly broken and we are on the road to scout out the village where we are going to go do distribution later that day... We got back to the base at about 8am!

First hurdle: Getting a 4 ton truck. I had an agreement with the one that was delivering stone to the construction site where we are building the church, he was to arrive at 8am the next morning. When he didnt show at 8:10 I decided to find another one, but there were none to be found, not at the usual camiao hire area, nor at the ferry. Just then a team from America who had driven up from South Africa arrived and I had to go meet them, so I sent Chris to go find a truck. He found one and it 'quickly' went off to fill up with diesel...haha. After about 30mins I went to find it. It had a flat and was trying to find a spare...

Eventually we make it to the WPF warehouse and load the truck with 4 tons of maize flour and 100kg beans... then the fun began! We were about 30km out of Caia, down a little footpath when we came across a little muddy puddle/stream that we had to cross. I got thru easily but the truck, well it kinda got stuck! We first tried towing him with his old frayed rope, then I remembered I had a good tow rope in my car, it was only goot for up to 5tons, but I thought to give it a try anyways. Well it broke. So then the African way of doing it started. We used the broken tow rope (now sorta fixed), the other broken frayed rope (now fixed) and another rope I had with me and they tied these 3 ropes more than once between my car and the truck. Then we got 50 guys to push while my car pulled. It was quite a sight and with a great heave-ho the truck was un-stuck! It was not moments later, while turning into the drive of the church property that the truck fell prey to the deep sand. We were only about 200 meters from the church so I drove to and fro with my car carrying 1 ton at a time until the truck was empty. Then we had to do the whole towing thing again! Then to top it all off, basically whenever the truck stalled it had to be push-started... or in my case, pull-started, so that was quite fun, interesting to say the least.

While all this driving and towing and pull-starting was happening the pastor was in the church preaching, so when I got there the distribution was ready to start. We personally gave food to about 100 families in the hour and half we were there, but then it was starting to get dark and I wasnt keen to get lost in the myriad of foot paths there were around this area.

We got home at 6pm, a full 13 hour work day for me!

Then today we gave out the last of the food, there were 5 churches that were affected and we sent messangers to 4 of them to let them know to come to Caia to receive food. The 5th church was too far away for people to easily walk, so we went to them. It was a surprise visit, they had not been expecting us so it took quite a while to gather them - so we dropped the food and showed them the portions to give and we left to go do the distribution in Caia 'city'. Some of these 4 churches that were coming to us were still in-accessabile by car, so it was a good thing they came to us.

They started arriving early, but 9am there were already a number of people waiting for the distribution that was due to start in the afternoon. We arrived back from the morning distribution at about 1:30, and immediately started giving out food to these people. It kept us busy till about 4, and each family received about 12kg maize flour, 1 kg beans and 1 litre oil.

We are quite tired now, its exhausting work, but so fulfilling!

What I found in Malingapansi

Malingapansi District

Assessment Report

This is an isolated area located between tributaries of the Zambezi River. During the floods they were classed as an official refugee center until end of February, after which time the people we relocated to higher ground fairly quickly. Because they were no longer classed as a camp, they were removed from the official lists requiring assistance. The people are living in their houses again, but all the crops have been destroyed and they have been unable to obtain food, except for the bit they have in their yards, or from trees in the area.

The following is an outline report made on April 5, by Nikki Wheeler of Iris Ministries, and a representative of the INGC, Colonel Raimundo Fringe. The assessment was made with the assistance of the South African Air Force, by who provided transport by helicopter to Malingapansi.

Population: 7500 (±1800 families)
Distribution: 10 Villages forming the Malingapansi District:
Sorcace Muligo
Chilolo
Nhaminaze
Nhamangowe
Mazungo
Daude
Nhando
Milombe
Luawe
Ndode

Location: S18 40 .44 | E 036 06 30

Accessibility: By boat and by helicopter only. Roads are impassable.

Flood Damage: 1500 lands containing crops were lost, as well as farming implements. No human casualties.

Previous assistance by INGC:
March 10 – 800kg sugar, 200 mosquito nets
They have never received any maize flour, beans or oil

Food available at present:
Bananas, sweet potato and cassava

Facilities:
Hospital staffed by nurse and medical technician. Emergency care is available in Marromeu, 2 hours away by canoe.

Schools are operational in each of the 10 areas.

Administrative post.

No electricity.

No cellular phone reception.

Requests:
Food: Maizemeal, oil, beans, milk
Equipment: Boat, farming impletments
Seed
Limited water available for drinking, more wells and/or purification (Certeza/PuR)
This district is very isolated, so regular food drops would be un-economical.

Possible Plan of Action:
Hire a BARGE to transport:

37.5 metric tons maize meal
1.8 metric tons oil
1.9 metric ton beans

Distribution from a central point – people will come to collect food in smaller groups, provide own transport.

Costs involved:
Maize meal =5 kg per person = $10 613
Oil = 1Litre per family = $2505
Beans: 1kg per family = $1886
Transport from Beira to Caia = $1500
Barge Hire per day - 3 days = $3000
Other Overheads = $500
Total Cost = $20 000

Total cost per family = ±$11.11

*****
I met with the INGC today, and the director of operations for this area, Mr Tambiri, has decided that because of the unofficial status of this District, they would prefer that Iris Ministries' resources be elsewhere employed. Should we want to pursue this endeavor, we would have to do it without the assistance of the WFP, INGC and other local government organizations. (Which would be very difficult to do.)

This is very sad for me, but I respect their decision and will wait till Monday to receive instructions as to where we will be distributing the 15 metric tons of maize flour, 300KG beans and oil we currently have with us.

Helicopter

I have a warm bucket bath every morning - They have a little outdoor latrine area with a drain so it doubles as a bathroom, its made out of bricks, and when I stand up straight I think people can see the top of my head. Its quite cold early in the morning, everything comes to life at 5am, and I finally capitulate and get out of bed at 6. Disrobing in the cold outdoors is quite interesting, and I think that if a helicopter flies past they would see everything! But there is something really refreshing about being outside so early, and when it started raining while I was bathing this morning it just made it more interesting! We are being fed SO well, Pastor Phombo's wife is cooking all our meals - we've had chicken stew, fried fish, beans with bush-rat meat (interesting!) grilled chicken and of course rice. They even gave us maize meal, Shima, yesterday! Its first class hospitality, so amazing! The village itself is quite quiet actually, I havn't felt clausterphobic at all - the people have respected our 'space' - and staying in the storeroom is SO much better than living in a tent!

Then in a different world, just down the road there are meetings meetings and more meetings. Running around in a circle becuase NO ONE seems to know anything about the camp where there are apparently 10 000 people! Finally I spoke to Julia, my contact at the WFP, and mentioned that if no one else knows anything, then maybe we could rent a helicopter to go see whats what. She said I should wait till the meetings that afternoon to see what people know. At the first meeting when I raised my question the INGC and a guy from the Mozambican Army said, 'there is NO official camp in that area', so I said, 'well there might be an unofficial camp and if there is then Iris would like to go help them...' There were officials grumbling, they said they would check it out, and then the meeting was over. I pulled the INGC official aside and asked when I would be able to have an answer about Maringapaz. He said, well come to the next meeting you can ask about helicopters there. OK... I quickly drive to the UN House and plug my computer into the electricity. I only have 20mins before the meeting starts and I really need to re-charge my mac! The 20mins over and I have 3 mins to get to the meeting I have a bright idea - Miguel my translator wouldn't be needed for the next meeting because there are many others who cannot speak Portuguese so there will be a general translator! "Miguel, would you mind waiting here with my computer? I will be back in an hour or so..." He was more than willing - incidentally he even had his cellphone and the charger with him, so he was happy to be able to charge it.

When I got to the meeting they were all still standing around outside: WFP, World Vision, Feed the Hungry, Moz Army, INGC... waiting for the representative of 'Air' - he arrived, an affable Frenchman who is actually a Sea Captain... but now in charge of logistics for the 3 helicopters and 1 Caravan plane they have here in Caia.

Each person brought their daily report, 'Barges', 'Road', and finally 'Air'. He rattled off the figures of what had happened that day, then moved on the what was scheduled for the next day. "...World Vision food drops...., INGC scouting..., Arco-Íris..." WHAT? I was on the schedule? WOW. There was some consternation and the Army guy was adamant that there was NO camp in Maringapaz. INGC concurred. But I was on the schedule! I helpfully tried to give the army guy the phone number of the Administrator who had contacted us with the news, but he had his number already. Finally it was decided that even if the Administrator couldnt be reached we would go anyways. They asked me who was going from Iris, so I picked: Myself (naturally) and Miguel (translator). It is apparently only a little chopper, space for pilot plus 3. We will be meeting the administrator in Marromeu, then continuing on to see the actual vilage.

So lets see how it goes!

Caia - Logistics

We are in Caia, finally made it - we bought 15tons of milled corn in Beira and hired a truck to bring it up to Caia. We thought he had left at 11am, but when we arrived in Caia at 4pm that afternoon he was still in Beira!!! HE had decided to have lunch, take a nap and have a bath... so, we will not be hiring him again! They kindly called me the minute they arrived - at 5am. Not impressed. But we got permission to use the huge storehouses of the World Food Programme to store the food for free, so that is really good.

We are staying at Pastor Phombo's house, Lois and I are sleeping in one of the 2 storerooms, and the guys have pitched the tents in the old church.

There are things to do before we can actaully go hand out the food - first we have to check in with the INGC and see if the place we have chosen needs help, who has been there, what has been done etc. We want to go to Maringapans, a town accessible only by plane/helicopter. But no one here seems to have any info about them! There is a meeting later today where I will try and see if any of the other NGOs have info, else I will ask about the possibility of scheduling a helicopter to take us out there to 'recon' the place! Its all quite exciting really.

I am writing this blog at the UN WFP headquarters - they have electricity and internet!

There is lots to do, but I am learning to slow down and just relax a lot more!

Yesterday I got another speeding fine just outside Caia. 89 in a 60 zone... I got out my car with the 1000mets in my hand. They were still telling me that I was speeding when I cheerfully said 'Please may I have a fine?' They laughed at me took the money and then started writing the receipt... suddenly they closed the book, gave me my license and the 1000mets and said 'go by yourself a coke or something...' WHAT? they were just letting me go. SO that was pretty snazzy!