This blog post was written by Global Gap Bridge Year Fellow Nora O’Connell.
I thought I would use this blog as a bit of a story time—there are SO many tales to be told.
Two weeks ago, I went on a weekend day trip to a forest reserve along with 7 of my housemates. It was about an hour and a half away, dirt roads all the way! We only had to push the car 3-4x (only lol)! Once we reached the forest reserve, we thought it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. At the lodge, they took our lunch orders so that our food awaited us after our hike. We took off for our hike, marching through ridges that revealed Mozambique! We hiked to the top of the mountain, overwhelmed by photo-ops in every direction. Selena, my fellow intern, led the descent, literally tumbling down the mountain. Covered in dirt, we all returned to the lodge where our beautiful meal awaited. I tried nsima (pronounced “sima”) for the first time and I really liked it! It is a national dish sort of like grits or Nigerian fufu. It is used as a utensil–you use it to scoop your food (stew, veggies, etc.).
Time to head home! As we drove off, a man banged on our car window. He told us that we had a VERY flat tire…no problem, we can change the tire, or so we all thought! I stood in awe when I saw the completely shredded tire clinging to the cracked rim. After about ten minutes of frantic searching, we realized the car we rented came with no spare! OH! And I forgot to add, we had no phone service. Truly, I was stumped. I felt my heart start to race, so I ran off to the terrace with some of the interns for a cup of Rooibos tea under a blanket (Mozambique winds!). I began to panic as 5:00 pm rolled around. The sun starts to set around 5:30 in Malawi and because of a lack of street lights, it is best to drive only during daylight. It would be 90,000 MWK (~50 USD) to stay the night and most of us only had 2,000 MWK to our name. The lodge owner called someone to fix the tire. Unfortunately, after the tire guy stuffed it with concrete and plastic bags (not sure why, but I trust his process), the tire was no longer salvageable. Our choices were to stay the night and wait for a tire the next day (which could take hours because of how remote this area was) or hitch a ride back and leave the car for the car rental guy to pick up. The lodge owner’s brother pulled through as a transport option for just $30 total! Because his vehicle was unregistered he could only drive us to the bus stop nearby (about a 45-minute drive from the lodge). He drove us to the bus stop, but when we arrived the buses had stopped running and people were just hitchhiking. As a last resort, we called the head boss at our internship. Thirty minutes later he was there to pick us all up. While we waited for our ride home, we looked at the stars, reflecting on our seven-hour ordeal. Before I left for Malawi, everyone I knew who had been to Africa told me all about the stars. I finally understood. The stars are clearer and closer in Africa and look completely different than in the United States.
My reason for telling this story is twofold:
1) Have faith. Have faith in your abilities, humanity, etc. (maybe not in your tire!). The lovely part of taking a gap year is that, in many situations, all you can do is have faith. So, every time you feel a bit uneasy,
F A I T H!
2) There can be a positive takeaway in the most stressful situations! After a long, stressful day, the GORGEOUS stars shone brightly for us. They were beautiful and surreal. I hope my gap year is filled with more stars and NO MORE flat tires!
Cheers,
Nora