Junk Food and Customs Taxes
Velveta, Rotel, Snickers, Brownie Mix, Oreos, Kool-Aid, Peanut Butter, Taco Seasoning, Ziploc Bags, Popcorn, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and most importantly twelve 20 oz. bottles of Dr Pepper. Those were just a few of the things on our shopping list before we left the US. Oh yeah, and three huge transformers to convert 220 volts to 110. Before we left we packed our bags with 140 pounds of all those great things that Americans just can't live without and don't exist in Africa. Someone had given us 200 dollars to shop for all this junk that we could take with us to Mozambique and give to the missionaries. We had been dragging this stuff with us for a long time and looking forward to getting rid of it.
As we sat in the Conways living room in Nairobi looking at all this stuff, we realized we had a problem. Coming from America we had a 70 pound weight limit per bag and could check two bags per person. But flying from Nairobi to Mozambique we had a 30 pound per person limit. We each had 70 pounds of food and stuff and our own stuff on top of that. We had hoped that the airline person would not notice our extra 120 pounds of stuff, either that or just ignore it as we checked in. We were not so fortunate. We had to go through it all and decide what we really needed to take and what to leave behind with the Conways.
We boarded our tiny little plane in Nairobi. It was one of those scary planes with the big spinning propellers one of which happened to be right outside my window. When it was spinning I was sure that one of those propellers was going to fly off and decapitate me. I saw my first African snow on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro below. As we flew over Kenya and northern Tanzania I could see huts and villages and the occasional city below. The closer we got to Mozambique the more there was nothing below us. No cities, villages, huts, roads, or anything, just bushes and dirt.
We flew into a little mom and pop airport in the costal town of Pemba, Mozambique. It was basically just a runway and a little building. There was not a white person to be seen but Jeremy and Martha Smith who were there to pick us up and take us back to their home 2 hours east in Montepuez. We got our passports stamped without any problems and then hoped and prayed that our luggage actually made it with us.
Our luggage did come, the only problem was trying to get it through customs. The one person that worked at the airport wanted to see inside one of our bags. He opened it and saw the huge transformer. He mumbled somthing that sounded nothing like Portuguese. It turns out that he was trying to say that he wanted us to pay Mt 500,000.00 ($20)for some sort of customs tax but he refused to give us a receipt. In other words he just wanted us to pay him a bribe to let us through. We refused to pay unless he provided an official receipt for it. So he refused to let us go. It then became a waiting game. The guy eventually got frustrated with us and wanted to go home because the airport was closing. He said, "Since you don't want to pay, just go!" so we did.
As we sat in the Conways living room in Nairobi looking at all this stuff, we realized we had a problem. Coming from America we had a 70 pound weight limit per bag and could check two bags per person. But flying from Nairobi to Mozambique we had a 30 pound per person limit. We each had 70 pounds of food and stuff and our own stuff on top of that. We had hoped that the airline person would not notice our extra 120 pounds of stuff, either that or just ignore it as we checked in. We were not so fortunate. We had to go through it all and decide what we really needed to take and what to leave behind with the Conways.
We boarded our tiny little plane in Nairobi. It was one of those scary planes with the big spinning propellers one of which happened to be right outside my window. When it was spinning I was sure that one of those propellers was going to fly off and decapitate me. I saw my first African snow on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro below. As we flew over Kenya and northern Tanzania I could see huts and villages and the occasional city below. The closer we got to Mozambique the more there was nothing below us. No cities, villages, huts, roads, or anything, just bushes and dirt.
We flew into a little mom and pop airport in the costal town of Pemba, Mozambique. It was basically just a runway and a little building. There was not a white person to be seen but Jeremy and Martha Smith who were there to pick us up and take us back to their home 2 hours east in Montepuez. We got our passports stamped without any problems and then hoped and prayed that our luggage actually made it with us.
Our luggage did come, the only problem was trying to get it through customs. The one person that worked at the airport wanted to see inside one of our bags. He opened it and saw the huge transformer. He mumbled somthing that sounded nothing like Portuguese. It turns out that he was trying to say that he wanted us to pay Mt 500,000.00 ($20)for some sort of customs tax but he refused to give us a receipt. In other words he just wanted us to pay him a bribe to let us through. We refused to pay unless he provided an official receipt for it. So he refused to let us go. It then became a waiting game. The guy eventually got frustrated with us and wanted to go home because the airport was closing. He said, "Since you don't want to pay, just go!" so we did.