Yeah! Well, not at all.
Last 20th of October (my birthday by the way) I went to South Africa with a friend of mine to pick up the parts I ordered about two months ago. He went with me so he could get a Visa from the Consulate of Mozambique in Nelspruit, South Africa. The white little car did OK. It managed to get there without a problem. As we enter the town of Nelspruit, we notice that the traffic lights don't work. "It's the same as in Maputo. Nothing works!" so we thought…
Once inside the Consulate, the lights are out and it's filled with people probably waiting for their own visas. It was at about 12h40, and we asked to fill in his request for a visa. A woman promptly replies "You should've filled in your request before 11h30!" Must've been that food stop we made that delayed us… Here's the rest of the conversation:
"Can't we file it anyway?"
"No"
"What are the requirements"
"A letter from the organization for whom you work and a form"
"But I have all that right here. I can quickly fill out the form"
"OK sir. Could you please wait a while? I'm preparing these visas for everyone that's sitting out there with you, and I would like to not be disturbed"
"Can we speak with the Consul?"
"I don't know"
"But I spent my only visa exit to come here! Can't you make an exception?"
"Sorry. Come back Monday morning, before 11h30!"
"But now I can't get back Mozambique!"
"Sorry sir. Come back Monday morning."
"Is the Consul available?"
"I don't know"
"Do you know of a solution for my case?"
"I don't know"
"Can you ask the consul for a solution?"
"Please wait sir"
With this said I made my way to the parts seller. The menace of no electricity was also present there. There was a problem: no electricity, no system; no system, no picking up the parts. Alas, one of the parts was already booked out of the system, and the other one could be picked up bypassing the booking procedure. I think that was how it went. Who cared? All I needed was to get back to Maputo with them, no matter what, especially because we went all the way out there (it's just some 200km).
Getting back to the consulate, I find my friend almost losing it with the employee. "Please speak to them. I'm losing it. I'm tired of getting the same 'I don't know' routine!" I did try something. The )(%#$ was determined in not giving anything to him. We got out so that we could call a contact from Maputo that could grease the procedure a little bit, if you know what I mean. How the hell would we call to Mozambique? Payphones sounded right, but getting them right was another story. When we finally figure it out, we make the call from inside a casino, inside the biggest mall in a 500km area. The call proved useless. The contact's contact in the consulate was none other than the # that spoke with us the whole time.
At about 16 o'clock in the afternoon and with daylight running away, we made a last call to Maputo to his boss to meet us at the border if we had any trouble in getting him in.
We drove off to the border. As night began to fall, we notice that the medium headlights don't work. "OK. I'll stick next to a car all the way and use the heavy ones wherever possible". It starts to rain, heavy rain. We stop for a bite. The rain keeps getting worse. One of the windshield wipers doesn't work. From time to time I fix it whilst on the move. I do it a couple of times but get tired of it.
As we get to the border (finally, but we still had to get my friend in the country!), right at the entrance a policeman signals me to park the car next to him… I thought it was just to park the car, as he was such in a good mood! But he wasn't... Not when we parked and started to drove off. He came by the car and asked us to pop the hood and show him the car's documents.
He fumbles under the hood and tells me he's going to seize the car.
"Excuse me? You're going to do what?!?"
"The VIN tag seems to have been tempered with and the engine number also seems to be tempered with. We have to seize the car to check if it has been stolen or not. And besides, there's another location for the VIN that doesn't show anything. I'm sorry sir."
"But I bought the car last year in Mozambique and I've driven it several times through the border!" (which wasn't true)
"Sorry sir, but this is the procedure. If any doubt exists, we must seize it."
" So be it."
I occasionally thought about bribing the policeman into giving me back my car, but with so many of them around (being South-African and all), no way could I pull that off. I gave my details and wrote a statement consisting of what I knew of the car and what happened at the border. I asked them if they could give me some sort of statement from them stating that they seized my car but procedures says no to that. A citizen can only watch and be amazed... As procedures continued I talked with the policeman, basically saying that lately I haven't gotten any luck at all, specially in my on birthday. Luckily or not, the policeman sang me "Happy Birthday". He wanted every law enforcer around the sing me that but I talk him out of it.... And that was it. My car was gone, but I didn't tell them how to switch off the car alarm nor gave them the key to the gas tank. My Chico will never be a prisoner!!! Freedom!!
My wife Ana calls me to know how is it going with the impounding. She calls the birthday party off...
In the meantime, my friend Tiago starts calling some friends of ours so they could pick us up at the border (some 200km from Maputo). He arranged for it and all we could do was cross the border on foot and wait for them.
Crossing the border on foot next to a 2,5 meter tall wall topped with barbed wire felt something like it was from a WWII movie about concentration camps. All we had was the parts I collected in Nelspruit, all I had inside the Chico car and our passports. In that moment in time I felt alone, with anything and definitely lost on earth. Me and Tiago found ourselves alive and healthy. As long you have your health, you have everything you need. I still had a birthday party to attend to, even though I was late.
As soon as our friends Vasco and Ricardo arrived, they quickly gave us some food (we were starving!) and we drove off towards Maputo. Some beer and cake left my stomach OK and I fell asleep. Vasco, I'm starting to owe you too much. If you say you can't help me out anymore, I won't take it badly.
I wake up to an annoying sound coming from the car. "What's wrong with the car?!" I say. Vasco replies "the car keeps switching it self off!" "How far to Maputo?" "Just some 20km." "Can it make there?" "It has to. At least somewhere safe." "Park it at my place". At this point in time, luck seemed to be slipping away from us. We basically start blaming each other to who is giving who bad luck...
We park the car and soon my wife arrives with Tita (girl, you're more than a friend by now). I show the parts I picked up and say "Mission accomplished. Come on, let's at least celebrate my birthday in peace." We call our friends and arrange a last minute birthday party. But alas, the bad luck wasn't going away and I start a fever of some sort (perhaps it was just a need for a good night's sleep). My friends talk me into going out and have a few drinks but getting up and moving around was a problem and the birthday party was postponed to the next day. As I fell on the bed, sleep took me over and slapped me into deep sleep...
As anyone out there ever had a birthday like this? Please tell I'm not the only one...
I wake up next day at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and just pretty much stayed home until the real birthday party. People start arriving at about 8 and at sometime between that and 9, I get a call. "João, we're stuck in the elevator!!!! We heard a chain like sound hitting the top of the cart. We're on the 11th floor!! Come and open us the elevator door!!"
Shoes on, cell phone in hand, go down 6 floors and bang on the door, push "open", nothing happens, down 4 more floors, meet up with the one of building guards, go up 10 floors, talk with my friends calming them down, tell them they're actually on the 3rd floor, synchronize with the guard to lower them to the ground floor, go down all 20 floors, help the guard open the door and see their faces as they come out. They were terrified! My friend Ricardo arrived in the meantime with his camera and filmed the whole thing. After going down 24 floors and up 23 (376 steps) was I finally having my birthday party? YES! Eating and drinking, blowing the candles and thanking everyone for being there with me and saying I've never been happier than I am here in Mozambique, even with all the misfortunes.
Going down 17 floors onto the street to go clubbing, Ricardo says "Where's my van?!" "What?!" "It's gone! I parked it right here!!!" "Let's go the police station" We quickly call our friends and tell them the situation.
The police station thing takes forever. Everybody just sits around with gloomy faces. Ricardo takes forever, comes out and says "You're not gonna believe this. We have to wait for the print-out of the statement." "?" "We have to wait for the person who knows how to do the print-out. She's coming right now." "Can't YOU do it?" "They won't let me." OK, Mozambique is full of surprises but this!??! Somewhere in time the print-out person never arrives and a pissed-off Ricardo barges in and tries to print-out the statement. Bad luck was still with us. There was no toner in the machine...
We still went out but the feeling was long gone. Eventually the van was found not far away (one for luck) and the following Monday a hammer fell on Ricardo's foot (and another for bad luck. It's a tie).
Lately, the thought of going back to Europe has been runnig across my mind. It won't be the same. Or will it?
JC
Last 20th of October (my birthday by the way) I went to South Africa with a friend of mine to pick up the parts I ordered about two months ago. He went with me so he could get a Visa from the Consulate of Mozambique in Nelspruit, South Africa. The white little car did OK. It managed to get there without a problem. As we enter the town of Nelspruit, we notice that the traffic lights don't work. "It's the same as in Maputo. Nothing works!" so we thought…
Once inside the Consulate, the lights are out and it's filled with people probably waiting for their own visas. It was at about 12h40, and we asked to fill in his request for a visa. A woman promptly replies "You should've filled in your request before 11h30!" Must've been that food stop we made that delayed us… Here's the rest of the conversation:
"Can't we file it anyway?"
"No"
"What are the requirements"
"A letter from the organization for whom you work and a form"
"But I have all that right here. I can quickly fill out the form"
"OK sir. Could you please wait a while? I'm preparing these visas for everyone that's sitting out there with you, and I would like to not be disturbed"
"Can we speak with the Consul?"
"I don't know"
"But I spent my only visa exit to come here! Can't you make an exception?"
"Sorry. Come back Monday morning, before 11h30!"
"But now I can't get back Mozambique!"
"Sorry sir. Come back Monday morning."
"Is the Consul available?"
"I don't know"
"Do you know of a solution for my case?"
"I don't know"
"Can you ask the consul for a solution?"
"Please wait sir"
With this said I made my way to the parts seller. The menace of no electricity was also present there. There was a problem: no electricity, no system; no system, no picking up the parts. Alas, one of the parts was already booked out of the system, and the other one could be picked up bypassing the booking procedure. I think that was how it went. Who cared? All I needed was to get back to Maputo with them, no matter what, especially because we went all the way out there (it's just some 200km).
Getting back to the consulate, I find my friend almost losing it with the employee. "Please speak to them. I'm losing it. I'm tired of getting the same 'I don't know' routine!" I did try something. The )(%#$ was determined in not giving anything to him. We got out so that we could call a contact from Maputo that could grease the procedure a little bit, if you know what I mean. How the hell would we call to Mozambique? Payphones sounded right, but getting them right was another story. When we finally figure it out, we make the call from inside a casino, inside the biggest mall in a 500km area. The call proved useless. The contact's contact in the consulate was none other than the # that spoke with us the whole time.
At about 16 o'clock in the afternoon and with daylight running away, we made a last call to Maputo to his boss to meet us at the border if we had any trouble in getting him in.
We drove off to the border. As night began to fall, we notice that the medium headlights don't work. "OK. I'll stick next to a car all the way and use the heavy ones wherever possible". It starts to rain, heavy rain. We stop for a bite. The rain keeps getting worse. One of the windshield wipers doesn't work. From time to time I fix it whilst on the move. I do it a couple of times but get tired of it.
As we get to the border (finally, but we still had to get my friend in the country!), right at the entrance a policeman signals me to park the car next to him… I thought it was just to park the car, as he was such in a good mood! But he wasn't... Not when we parked and started to drove off. He came by the car and asked us to pop the hood and show him the car's documents.
He fumbles under the hood and tells me he's going to seize the car.
"Excuse me? You're going to do what?!?"
"The VIN tag seems to have been tempered with and the engine number also seems to be tempered with. We have to seize the car to check if it has been stolen or not. And besides, there's another location for the VIN that doesn't show anything. I'm sorry sir."
"But I bought the car last year in Mozambique and I've driven it several times through the border!" (which wasn't true)
"Sorry sir, but this is the procedure. If any doubt exists, we must seize it."
" So be it."
I occasionally thought about bribing the policeman into giving me back my car, but with so many of them around (being South-African and all), no way could I pull that off. I gave my details and wrote a statement consisting of what I knew of the car and what happened at the border. I asked them if they could give me some sort of statement from them stating that they seized my car but procedures says no to that. A citizen can only watch and be amazed... As procedures continued I talked with the policeman, basically saying that lately I haven't gotten any luck at all, specially in my on birthday. Luckily or not, the policeman sang me "Happy Birthday". He wanted every law enforcer around the sing me that but I talk him out of it.... And that was it. My car was gone, but I didn't tell them how to switch off the car alarm nor gave them the key to the gas tank. My Chico will never be a prisoner!!! Freedom!!
My wife Ana calls me to know how is it going with the impounding. She calls the birthday party off...
In the meantime, my friend Tiago starts calling some friends of ours so they could pick us up at the border (some 200km from Maputo). He arranged for it and all we could do was cross the border on foot and wait for them.
Crossing the border on foot next to a 2,5 meter tall wall topped with barbed wire felt something like it was from a WWII movie about concentration camps. All we had was the parts I collected in Nelspruit, all I had inside the Chico car and our passports. In that moment in time I felt alone, with anything and definitely lost on earth. Me and Tiago found ourselves alive and healthy. As long you have your health, you have everything you need. I still had a birthday party to attend to, even though I was late.
As soon as our friends Vasco and Ricardo arrived, they quickly gave us some food (we were starving!) and we drove off towards Maputo. Some beer and cake left my stomach OK and I fell asleep. Vasco, I'm starting to owe you too much. If you say you can't help me out anymore, I won't take it badly.
I wake up to an annoying sound coming from the car. "What's wrong with the car?!" I say. Vasco replies "the car keeps switching it self off!" "How far to Maputo?" "Just some 20km." "Can it make there?" "It has to. At least somewhere safe." "Park it at my place". At this point in time, luck seemed to be slipping away from us. We basically start blaming each other to who is giving who bad luck...
We park the car and soon my wife arrives with Tita (girl, you're more than a friend by now). I show the parts I picked up and say "Mission accomplished. Come on, let's at least celebrate my birthday in peace." We call our friends and arrange a last minute birthday party. But alas, the bad luck wasn't going away and I start a fever of some sort (perhaps it was just a need for a good night's sleep). My friends talk me into going out and have a few drinks but getting up and moving around was a problem and the birthday party was postponed to the next day. As I fell on the bed, sleep took me over and slapped me into deep sleep...
As anyone out there ever had a birthday like this? Please tell I'm not the only one...
I wake up next day at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and just pretty much stayed home until the real birthday party. People start arriving at about 8 and at sometime between that and 9, I get a call. "João, we're stuck in the elevator!!!! We heard a chain like sound hitting the top of the cart. We're on the 11th floor!! Come and open us the elevator door!!"
Shoes on, cell phone in hand, go down 6 floors and bang on the door, push "open", nothing happens, down 4 more floors, meet up with the one of building guards, go up 10 floors, talk with my friends calming them down, tell them they're actually on the 3rd floor, synchronize with the guard to lower them to the ground floor, go down all 20 floors, help the guard open the door and see their faces as they come out. They were terrified! My friend Ricardo arrived in the meantime with his camera and filmed the whole thing. After going down 24 floors and up 23 (376 steps) was I finally having my birthday party? YES! Eating and drinking, blowing the candles and thanking everyone for being there with me and saying I've never been happier than I am here in Mozambique, even with all the misfortunes.
Going down 17 floors onto the street to go clubbing, Ricardo says "Where's my van?!" "What?!" "It's gone! I parked it right here!!!" "Let's go the police station" We quickly call our friends and tell them the situation.
The police station thing takes forever. Everybody just sits around with gloomy faces. Ricardo takes forever, comes out and says "You're not gonna believe this. We have to wait for the print-out of the statement." "?" "We have to wait for the person who knows how to do the print-out. She's coming right now." "Can't YOU do it?" "They won't let me." OK, Mozambique is full of surprises but this!??! Somewhere in time the print-out person never arrives and a pissed-off Ricardo barges in and tries to print-out the statement. Bad luck was still with us. There was no toner in the machine...
We still went out but the feeling was long gone. Eventually the van was found not far away (one for luck) and the following Monday a hammer fell on Ricardo's foot (and another for bad luck. It's a tie).
Lately, the thought of going back to Europe has been runnig across my mind. It won't be the same. Or will it?
JC
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