The Accident

It just wouldn't be a trip to a foreign country if I didn't have some sort of undesirable encounter with a vehicle.

In one of my earlier posts I reference my white-knuckle trip north to Belin. What scared me was people's judgment, or lack thereof. The general rule is, "Pass if you want to." Big scary bend? No problem. Oncoming traffic? Heck, they'll get out of MY way. Solid white line? That's just a suggestion. (Not that the lines are always there anyway.)

In this instance, I was feeling pretty good about my ride. We were coming back from our site visit to Gorongosa. The driver was from Chimoio, so this was his turf, and he worked for an international development firm, which for some reason made me more confident in his driving abilities (don't ask me where the logic is there). But all around cool, calm, responsible guy.

The problem, as I mentioned earlier, was the OTHER guys. It was dusk, we were on a two-lane highway approaching a big ol' semi chugging past another semi (read: in our lane) as it was coming up a hill, around a bend (see? judgment issues) and would have hit that brother head on. So, our driver calmly pulls completely off the road and comes to a stop - it wasn't going to be a good idea to drive at high speeds on the barely-there margin.

Crazy chapa driver man behind us was either not too bright or going way too fast and didn't make the move in time. Instead, he DID slam head on into the semi and spiraled into our parked car, which promptly slid down the embankment. At first I didn't realize what had happened - had we hit the truck? I just prayed we didn't start to roll. We all had on seatbelts and fortunately the car stayed upright. I walked away intact with only a headache.

Chapa folks weren't so lucky. First of all, as usual, they were packed in like sardines. All those people there? That times two, that's what filed out. The little kids were wailing. A man covered in blood was laying motionless on the sidewalk. The men were busy tugging luggage out of the front of the chapa so that they could get to the driver, who was wedged between the crushed metal frame.

We waited around for an hour or so before a friend of our driver's came to pick me and the other TDYer up. Our and his colleague stayed on. The police had arrived and were directing traffic around the scene, and some of the onlookers helped flag down a pick-up where they lifted the unconscious into the bed of the truck - an ambulance was out of the question. I have no idea how they made out. Chapa riders had begun to start the long walk to who knows where.

We eventually made it to the hotel, where they couldn't find our reservation. Go figure.