Wednesday night I went to Chimoio to stay at Wendy's because we wanted to leave really early the next day (5 AM). We left by 5:30, caught a chapa to Inchope (took about 2 hours) and from there we set up camp on the side of the road to try and bolea (hitch hike) south. After almost 2 hours of waving down cars with no success a car stopped for us. Sadly it was just a cop car, he wanted to take our nice spot in the shade to set up a check point (to monitor speeding, check cars...etc) so we moved. A random drunk guy that Shane had befriended decided to move along with us--he was having way too much fun talking to us white people so he wasn't going to leave. We moved to a new spot farther along the road, our drunk friend got tired and left, and shortly after we got picked up by two Mozambicans who worked for Coco Cola. They offered to take us about 2 hours south to a town called Muxungue. We of course accepted their offer and climbed in to their nice, cozy, air conditioned car--where we could use seatbelts and relax a bit. That drive went by pretty quickly, we took turns napping and after about 2 hours got to our destination. We got dropped off on the site of the road, were wished safe travels and our new friends drove off to work close by.
The three of us wandered to find some snacks (we hadn't eaten since 5 AM and were kind of hungry), we bought some bread and bananas and found a new spot to camp out at to eat and try to hitchhike. We were sitting down for maybe 5 minutes (I hadn't even finished my banana yet) when we saw a Land Rover down the road, driving in our direction. Wendy and I jumped up, I remember saying 'there's no way we'll get picked up this quickly but we have to try' and we both started trying to wave the car down. When the driver actually stopped right in front of us were in shock. I remember seeing a small American Flag on the inside of the window and was just thinking, oh my gosh, a bolea that speaks English this is too good to be true. The driver got out of his car, asked us if we were Peace Corps volunteers, then asked where we were going and told us to get in. His friend who was in the passenger seat also got out and they both started moving stuff around so we could fit in the back seat.
Turns out our driver was a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from the Gambia and was now working in Mozambique, doing medical research and his friend was also a doctor in the states; he was just visiting for a few weeks. We talked a bit, and then basically got to enjoy taking an awesome bolea all the way south to inhambane city where we could stay with friends for the night and then continue our journey the next morning. At one point along our drive we stopped at a small baraca on the side of the road to get refrescos. Wendy asked the Americans if they could look at her burn wound on her leg, they happily agreed and checked it out and then offered some advice on how to keep it clean and care for it.
We'll back track a little here, so about a week ago, I noticed a small red bump on my stomach. It looked a lot like a mosquito bite but it didn't itch at all, it actually kind of tingled. After a few days though it started getting really sore, and slowly got more swollen and more sensative each day. I called the PCMO (my doctor) and sent her a picture of this bump, and was advised to keep it clean, and start taking antibiotics. We thought it was just an infected bug bite and that with the antibiotics it would go away. So this "bug bite" hadn't really gotten better but I was taking plenty of ibeuprofin and that definitely helped the pain, and after being told it was a problem that would take care of itself I decided to travel with my medical condition. I decided to ask the doctors to look at my bite too and well when I showed it to them they kind of were really surprised and told me they would take care of it as best they could when we got to a better spot for them to work but that I needed to go to a hospital.
After a lot of hours of driving we get to Inhambane City and meet up with our friends. One of the doctors cleans his hands, puts on gloves, then goes to touch my now incredibly swollen bug bite, and by touch I mean he actually just grabs it and squeezes and lots of really colorful liquid comes out. I almost passed out from shock and pain and started crying and had to sit down. The doctor continued to drain my very infected bump and then gave me some antibiotics. He explained to my friends everything I needed to do since they were in a much better state than I was was, and when I finally calmed down, we thanked them and went on our way.
This bug bite thing was no longer sore the rest of my trip but I was carefull to keep a close watch on it and to keep it clean and bandaged. After a night in Inhambane City, we left the next morning to travel to Quissico, which is thankfully just a 2-3 hour chapa ride away. Of course we wanted to bolea and figured that after bolea-ing almost 1000k another hundred should be easy right? wrong. after three boleas (one of which was a huge truck that we sat in under a tarp while it poured and then had to vacate when the driver decided to pick up a million coconuts) and a short chappa ride we made it to Quissoco and got to see all of our friends!
Catching up with friends at the lagoon. So much fun.
I enjoyed my weekend in Quissoco and had a great time catching up with my friends. On Sunday morning, Wendy and I both got up early to catch a bolea to Maputo. Some really nice South African picked us up and we spent the next 5 hours camped out in the back of their pick up truck. We joked because when they picked us up it was really hot and we figured we'd probably get sunburned in the bed of this truck but after about 20 minutes it started raining, so we used Wendy's sleeping bag to make a tent to try and stay dry. The entire drive was pretty crazy, it kept switching between being really hot, and raining, but atleast we got a nice ride with some very friendly people. We were even given some bottled water and sandwiches!
When we got to Maputo, we went right the PC office and then from there we went to see the doctor. I showed the doctor my bug bites and guess what they actually turned out to be...I'm warning you its incredibly disgusting...it was insect larvae, under my skin!!! The doctor explained that when I hang my clean laundry up to dry, there is a kind of fly that lays eggs in clothing, so in this case it laid eggs in my underware. When I wore my what I THOUGHT was clean underware, I was actually just infecting myself and made it possible for these microscopic eggs to go through my pores in be laid under my skin just below my belly button. DISGUSTING. I asked the doctor how I could prevent this from happening again and he told me I should go back to America. He laughed and then said ironing my clothes should get rid of them. So the doctor cleaned me up and now I am still here in Maputo, totally fine and feeling much better, just waiting for these wounds to heal up so that I can go back home to Vanduzi.
Wendy and I basically traveled half the country this weekend but hopefully we will just get to fly back or take a nice, safe bus all the way up to Chimoio. No more bolea's or chappas and hopefully we'll both be healthy.
The end.
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