The Bungle in the Jungle - Part III: The Fugitive

This update wins the award for longest name ever. Here's what went down when I reached the Malawi border.

After leaving the Mozambique border post there's another 2 miles of no-mans land where there is literally nothing until you reach the entrance to Malawi. The first that should have tipped me off that this was going to be a bad day was the border patrol is part of the Malawi Department of Revenue. I stood my turn in line, filled out my paperwork, and took a good look around the place. Most of the folks that were there were driving some sort of tractor-trailer combination (and in this part of the country, its literally a tractor and a trailer) and waiting to declare their goods.

As I handed my papers and passport to the gentleman (I use the term loosely) behind the desk, he takes his time looking at it. He takes a moment to arrange the paperclips neatly on his desk, sharpen his pencils, clean the pencil shavings from the sharpener, put them in the trash. Each task was done with such delicate precision so I would know that he really was serious and not just wasting my time. When he was finished with his spring cleaning, he picked up my passport, looked at it for all of five seconds, looked at me for another five and then stated, "You are not fit to enter Malawi." English is the lingua franca in Malawi so I didn't have to interpret that he was being a butthead. After about 30 seconds of just staring at him trying to figure out what he meant, he repeated, "You are not fit to enter Malawi. Go back to where you came." It still took a few minutes for what he said to sink in. I started asking him for a few details. "Is there some international scare I don't know about? Did the U.S. declare war on Malawi while I was gone? Is Malawi no longer a country? This is Malawi, right?" I was given a quick and stern reply. "Thank you for you business, now we have other matters to attend to." He tore up my papers and motioned for the next "customer".

I waited about 30 minutes and tried to go back in there and try to enter the country. Maybe he would leave and somebody else would be at the desk. I hadn't figured it out that a Malawi border crossing more than an hour from the nearest town wouldn't have more than three guards, so was out of luck when this time all three of them turned me away. I sat outside for a pondering my predicament. After talking with Christina on the phone for a few minutes, she assured me she would straighten the situation out with the embassy. And the advice I got from Victor was to assert myself and show them I'm not a pushover. I was determined to go back in there and get an explanation. Here was the exact explanation I received. Pretty close to verbatim.

Me: I would like to know what the problem is with my papers.
Mr Idiot: I will say again. You are not fit to enter Malawi.
Me: Why I am I not fit to enter Malawi?
Mr Idiot: We are a security agency.
Me: So I am a security threat? (*not the first time I'd been accused of this*)
Mr Idiot: We are not allowed to explain ourself to YOU.
Me: I think even if you were allowed to explain yourself to me that YOU wouldn't be able to come up with a good reason!
Mr Idiot: Do you think YOU are somebody special that you demand be allowed into MY country?
Me: I could call my embassy and we could have THEM tell you I'm special. Would that speed the process along?

If this were an episode of Arrested Development, this would be the point where I said "I've made a huge mistake". Apparently, mentioning the embassy did speed the process along. It sped me along right out the door by two men with guns.

At this point, I was left with no recourse but to turn back to Mozambique. After getting my driver (the guy pedaling the bike) to take me bake to Mozambique I hung my head with shame as I entered the Mozambique immigration shack. This is where more of my trouble started. After handing my entrance papers to the guard he looks puzzled, because according to my passport I left Mozambique but never entered any other place. He asks me what the problem is, and I tell him that the guards at Malawi refused me entrance. He confers with the other guard and says that I am prohibited from entering and I'm to return to Malawi (which if not for my current predicament I would find amusing being told to return to a place I've never been). I start to press him a little bit, and he exhibited the same amount of indignation that the Malawi guard did by saying, "Your problem is not with us, you need to take your problem back to Malawi."

To save you the boring details, this turns into about 15 minutes of heated discussion on his part. It was not so heated for me because I can't talk fast enough to convey the amount of pissed-offedness that I was experiencing at that moment. After our "conversation" I went outside and started considering my options. To make a very long story not quite as long, I ended calling Christina, and had the phone cut out repeatedly (I was miles from anywhere, if you recall). I spent the next two hours waiting for the Embassy to call to help with the situation, sitting at a convenience store next to the border station to charge the phone, frequently pleading with the guard to allow me to enter the country, and praying my butt off.

When the embassy finally was able to call back, they knew all about my situation because they had been talking with Christina back in Nampula. He asked to talk to the guard at the border station. The guard accepted my offer, grabbed the phone, casually pressed the big, red end-call button before feigning attempts to discuss how I was a threat to national security and was being denied entrance and acting like he was having a hard time hearing the man from the embassy, saying " The connection must be bad, you should try later." The embassy called back immediately, and passed the phone off to the guard, and again his finger casually hit the end-call button. I thought to myself, "What if my fist casually hit the end-call button on your face?" But, once again, the presence of firearms posed a problem.

This game went on three times, until the guard at the Mozambique border posited a solution to my predicament. "For three-thousand dollars I'd be willing to call the guard at the Malawi border and see if he won't be more willing to help you out."

If you're wondering to yourself how the Mozambican guard could possibly know or have any sway with the Malawian guard, just stop. You don't have to have been in Africa for long to realize that three-thousand dollars here means the Malawi guard will consider letting me in the country for another three-thousand, and then I'm cleaned out broke (the ATM machine that was 10 miles from another living soul happened to be broken that day, so I was out of luck).

After being “consulted” by my embassy that it would be better to return to Nampula and sort it out there, I jumped the fence and booked it back to Mandimba, the nearest town of more than 6 people. As I was going back to Mandimba on the bicycle taxi, every single car I hear I was positive was the enraged Mozambican border guard coming to deport me or hand me over to the local jailer. After making it back to Mandimba, I proceeded to stay out of site by slinking around back alleys and between food carts and behind the disco. I managed to get dinner for the night from a street vendor, who also let me know of a good place to sleep for the night (it was probably the only place to sleep for the night.

As a side note from all the drama unfolding, it is utterly hilarious when people try to help you out here. It doesn't matter if it is me being helped or somebody totally random. People go so far out of their way for things that are totally unnecessary. For example, the guy who I bought dinner from, when I asked if he knew a good place to get a room for the night, not only walked me to the "hotel" but he proceeded to tell the guy behind the desk that I was looking for a room, walked over to two different rooms with us, checked them out beforehand to make sure they were to my liking, and then asked if the room was satisfactory, made sure I paid the hotel, and then showed me where the bathrooms and showers were. I've seen enough of people to know that they'd do it for just about anybody, not just because I'm handsome.

In the morning, I was able to take my time getting ready and hiding because I couldn't return to Cuamba until the chopa that left Cuamba made it here. Once I was safely aboard the chopa, I did not have the luxury of being in the front. This meant that instead of my knees being in the chest for 2.5 hours over a dirt road my knees were in the chest of the person behind me for 2.5 hours over a dirt road. One point of mention: when we were approximately 20 minutes from any sort of town or village, an older lady in the chopa asked to be let out because she arrived at her destination. She exited the chopa, grabbed her bags, and started walking to what I think was her house. I'm not entirely sure if it was in fact here house, because the horizon was kind of obscuring my view and made it hard to see another living thing for 10 miles or so.

Then came the scariest part of my trip. Forget the burning train car, the back end of a bike taxi, being shown to door at Malawi, or faced with paying a ridiculous bribe to a pair of colluding border guards. This was much worse. As we neared the entrance to Cuamba on the chopa, we were pulled over by the police. I use the term pulled over loosely because he was just standing in the middle of the road directing any car who dare use the road over the the side where he could then search the vehicle and demand money to let you go any farther (this was not the first time I've been pulled over by the police here). If I were the driver, I'd be temped to just floor it and hope for the best, because for a completely non-descript (honest) car like we were in, there's nothing the police can do on a little 50cc motorbike that has a top sped of 20mph. In fact, if you actually do every need the police for anything useful and they're not too busy making money stopping all traffic into or out of the city, you need to literally go to town, find the police, and drive themto wherever it is you need them. If you get lucky, you don't have a car and the police will refuse to take the minibus or walk with you.

So this jerk with nothing better to do stops us takes 2 seconds to look inside the car, and asks me to step out. I'm thinking there's a country wide A.P.B. to detain with all unnecessary force any and all good looking 20-something white males who are in the country illegally. He direct me to open my backpack, and start rummaging through my overnight kit. The only thing it had in in was toothpaste and my malaria pills. After inspecting the toothpaste for what must have been two minutes (I felt like I was in an airport again), he packs my bag back up for me and tells me to get back in the car. I've been stopped by cops two other times, and this is the first time that one hasn't asked to see my documents. Praise Jesus! There literally would have been no way to explain to this guy the difficulties I had the day at the border and how I was just trying to get back to Nampula to sort it all out. He would have assumed I was a bandito (again, not the first time I've gotten that) and the next time you logged on to tjgoestoafrica.com it would redirect to tjgoestoprison.co.mz

After the terrifying non-event with the police, the chopa continued to town, I wandered using side roads and alleys to the house where I was at the first time through the town and laid low for the rest of the day. The next morning featured the all too familiar 3am wake-up call so I could wander down alleys and side streets some more to avoid police attention before boarding the train back to Nampula. After an extremely (thank God) non-eventful trip to Nampula, I made it back to my house safe and sound, put in a few calls to the embassy, and collapsed with exhaustion. Apparently God was watching out for me because the next day at the immigration office instead of paying a huge fine or officially being deported they apologized for my troubles and stamped me into the country.

For all those who got a little lost I've included a handy Cliff Notes version of my story. Click on the picture to blow if up full size in all its magnificent detail.

Now I can return to more normal updates about what life has been like, including tornadoes, car accidents, and the day it got so hot my frisbee melted.