Muses on Moz: At the Mall

Finally, we got out of Mozambique. The kids received their Mozambican passports on January 31, and I told Matias that we HAD to get out that weekend. I just needed a break from the heat, grime, dirt, people asking me for every favor under the sun. So Saturday morning, we left at 6AM for South Africa and drove through Kruger Park on our way to Nelspruit. Nelspruit was one of the host cities for the 2010 World Cup, but more important than this, it has a MALL… and a McDonalds.

We didn’t see as many animals in Kruger as we did the first time we went—during the dry season, it’s much easy to see the animals because there’s not as much bush and the animals tends to aggregate around the water holes. However, we were treated to seeing a male lion that had just killed a huge buffalo. We got within about 20ft of him… he was satiated into total apathy, tummy full of the buffalo, and probably wouldn’t have touched us if we’d walked up to him. We were also fortunate to see a very large male elephant up close, and even more exciting for the kids, we got to see him pee. Nalia was trying to make comparisons on how much pee he’d made… bathtub full? No, more than that. 20 buckets full… yes, maybe that.

We spent the night at a beautiful lodge near Nelspruit that had live animals roaming around the grounds- we opened the door to find an ostrich next to the car. The next day, we went to McDonalds for breakfast… and that sausage McMuffin was so tasty. Then, we fulfilled Nalia’s dream and hit the mall! There’s a Chuck e Cheese type play area there, and Elio was so excited that he forgot about the bathroom and went right there next to the Skee Ball machine. After 4 hours of mall roaming, we hit the Pick n’ Pay, or the South African equivalent of Safeway. This was the exciting part for me… because you can save so much money by buying groceries in S.A. Almost all packaged food in Mozambique comes from there, so the prices are a lot higher.

On the way out we stopped at Claire’s boutique so Nalia could get her ears re-pierced… amidst all the mayhem of moving, I forgot to put earrings in and her ears closed up. She was so determined to do it—she didn’t shed one tear the whole time. The ladies at Claire’s said they had never seen a child not cry, so they gave her a certificate.

After all the shopping and piercing was done, we hit the road for the border. I asked Nalia what her impression of the trip was, and she sighed and said, “It was FANTASTIC. It was the best day of my life. My favorite part was the mall.”

Below... a couple of pictures from January. Pictures of Kruger Park tomorrow!