Amelia Wiggins’ Blog

mozambique

i took sebastians advice and played hard this weekend! me and 8 other docs made a mad dash to the border at 4pm friday afternoon. i say a mad dash because the border closes at 5pm and it’s at least a 45min drive. we don’t get done at the hospital until 4pm, so right at 4 we all threw our camping gear into the back of 2 cars and took off at top speed. we had 6 people in our car and 3 in the other, (i’m not sure who determined these seating arrangments but clearly 6 is too many!) a few miles from the border we got stopped for having too many people, of course.  we had to put one of our passengers in the back of the truck (it was inclosed, basically ben had to sit on top of all our bags!) then we couldn’t restart the car, so picture this, 4 women pushing the car while a man sits on our bags in the back and the other man drives! for the remainer of the weekend that was how we started the car! this put us behind an already behind schedule so the car ahead of us had to stall them at the border so they wouldn’t close the gates. we got there in the nick of time. once crossing we got out and let air out of the tires. i thought this was odd and asked. mozambique doesn’t have paved roads, only sand so we were from then on 4 wheeling!!! it was so crazy. and not only is there no pavement there are also no road signs. so we would go left then right, then left…about an hour later we arrived at a beautiful campsite right on the ocean.  by this point we were all exhausted, so we pitched our tents, made dinner, went to the local bar on the beach and admired the indian ocean and breathtaking stars…the milky way was right above us!

bright and early saturday, martha (an engineer here with engineers without borders from the UK) and i started the day with a long walk on the beach. afterward we went snorckeling…it was amazing! we saw turtles, sting rays, and the most colorful fish…the highlight though was the school of dolphins that swam within arms reach of me!! i can’t even describe how incredibly beautiful the ocean is and all the wildlife in it.

later that day me, martha and polly went for a long run on the beach and passed a turtle laying eggs on the beach. that night we had a bry (bbq) and just hung out around the campfire. it was cat’s birthday so we celebrated that.

by sunday we were all pooped. we spent the morning reading by the campsite, took one last walk on the beach and headed home for evening church. 

it was a great weekend. strange how mozambique, only a few miles from south africa, was so different. hopefully someday i’ll get to explore more of that country.

short update on baby catching and then i’m off to play tennis. i did catch 2 babies on friday, yeah! despite having to sit there all day and wait for them i’m glad i got to do it. it was a pretty cool experience, i’ll try to deliver a few more while i’m here. don’t worry mom, i still do NOT want to do OB AT ALL! 

         well i’m off to play tennis. miss you all and can’t wait to write more later!