This Friday started off without much of an agenda. Actually, I had no plans at all. The students don’t return to Chaminade until September 13, so we still don’t have too much to do. I took my time eating breakfast, did a little bit of reading, and then planned on spending an hour or so writing emails before lunch. I was just getting started with an email that I should have sent two weeks ago when I hear a car horn beep from our front yard. Then, Molly comes running calling for Matt and I, asking if we are ready to go. What? Ready to go? Where?
Apparently Molly had texted and called Matt’s phone to tell him that Bro. Bill was willing and able to take us to the immigration office in town so that we could get our temporary visas extended, and apparently, Bro. Bill was in a hurry.
Matt and I quickly got dressed, grabbed our passports, and ran out the door. We figured we wouldn’t be too long, since Bro. Bill had a meeting to get to, so we didn’t even tell Alick, expecting that we’d be back for lunch.
Well, we got to immigration only to find they were closed…for the second day in a row. Apparently some of the workers were being transferred to another location, other workers were on holiday during the transfers, and all the other workers decided not to come in since everyone else was out. Sweet. Our 30-day visitor’s visas expired on Monday, and no one at immigration wanted to work. So about 20 minutes after we left our house, we found out that we wouldn’t be able to get our passports stamped in Karonga; we’d have to figure something else out. But for the time being, we had two errands to run.
Our two errands were pretty simple, so we definitely figured we’d be back for lunch since we spent very little time at immigration. Bro. Bill needed to stop at the bank, and then he needed to pick up five cases of Coke for MIRACLE. Simple enough, but both were very important. On Monday, MIRACLE will be having in-take interviews for people who are applying to attend MIRACLE. I’ve discovered that it is customary to serve minerals (what pop is called here) to people who are in meetings for more than an hour or two. I’ve also discovered that people get pretty upset if you fail to provide minerals in such scenarios, so the Coke wasn’t an option; Bro. Bill NEEDED to get Coke for Monday.
We first stopped at Metro, the Malawian equivalent of a Walgreen’s, only with far less of a selection and a few things you would probably never find at Walgreen’s, such as giant bags of maize flour. Metro was all out of Coke. Crap. What were we going to do? Well, apparently the Coke truck had just arrived at the Bus Depot. When shipments of Coke come into Karonga, they first get dropped off at the Bus Depot, so the workers at Metro suggested we swing by there, where we should be able to get some.
Bro. Bill decided to make his run to the bank, and then we would head over to the Bus Depot.
We got everything taken care of at the bank, and pulled into the Bus Depot. The truck was still there, and a sizeable line of people with empty Coke cases was standing along the fence, waiting. This didn’t look to promising. We grabbed our empty Coke cases (Coke is sold in glass bottles here and you pay a MAJOR deposit on the bottle, so it’s quite impractical to buy Coke without first returning empty bottles.) Bro. Bill seemed to know where he was going, so we followed him, only to meet a man who looked like he was directing all the workers who told us they were not taking any customers until they finished loading the truck with empty bottles. There were twenty-some workers feverishly loading crate after crate of empty Coke and Carlsburg (the Malawian beer) bottles onto the truck. We looked, and it appeared that they were about half-way finished filling up the truck, so Bro. Bill got in line, and we decided to wait. Bad choice.
A good forty minutes went by, and they were still filling up the truck. Apparently it takes a really long time to fill up a truck with empty crates of glass bottles. Just then, Jennifer Feldmeier, the mother of the Feldmeier family pulled up in her Land Cruiser. She informed us that she had been by a few hours earlier to see if she could get Coke at which point they were unloading the new Coke cases from the truck. She was told that they were going to take any customers until the finished unloading the truck. Since they were more than three-quarters finished filling the truck with empties, she decided to get in line with Bro. Bill, figuring they’d soon start taking customers. Not so.
The truck finished loading, and the waiting continued. The truck engine started up, a sign of hope for us that they’d soon start taking customers. Well, the truck waited there for a good fifteen minutes before it even pulled away. Now the truck is gone, they should start taking customers, right. Not so much. The waiting continued.
It was now approaching 2PM, and we had been there for almost two hours. Matt, Molly, and I entertained ourselves by talking, interacting with a few local boys, and people watching. We were later given the advice that we should always bring a book whenever we go into town because chances are you’ll be there all day. Since we hadn’t yet received that advice, we had nothing to do but to enjoy each others’ company.
Then, the line finally started moving! Jubilation! They were taking customers!!!
The line moved slowly, but it was moving. We had hopes of getting out of there pretty soon. But wait. What just happened?
The gate just closed. The line stopped moving. And they were not taking any more empty cases. It appeared that after taking in twenty or so people’s worth of empty cases, the crew behind the fence decided to focus their energy on selling the full Coke cases. Perhaps after paying out the return deposits, they had to sell the new bottles so they would have enough money to pay out more return deposits. I could understand that necessity, but boy did it stink.
Jennifer was clearly upset. She began to carry one of her cases back to her car. Apparently she had a meeting she needed to get to at 2PM. It was ten minutes to two. Matt kindly offered our assistance. She could leave her cases with us, and we could return them for her and get some new ones for her: our second mistake. Now we were responsible for someone else’s minerals, so even if we wanted to leave, it wasn’t just MIRACLE’s Coke that we were failing to get; we’d also be failing to get someone else’s Coke. She was extremely grateful and took us up on the offer. However, we had forgotten that Bro. Bill also had a meeting to get to. And so did Molly. As did Singini and Kasunga, the two Malawians who work at MIRACLE who had come with us. Apparently, MIRACLE’s meeting was at 2PM as well, so, understandably, Bro. Bill wasn’t at all happy about our offer to Jennifer, but he obliged nonetheless. A short time later, Madame Malwanda, the chairperson of Chaminade’s Board of Directors came by. She asked why they weren’t taking any customers, and we filled her in on what had been going on. Seeing Bro. Bill in line, only three people from the gate, she decided she would add her two cases to the pile. So now, we had ten cases of empty Coke bottles that we were waiting to return. Now we were in it for the long haul.
Eventually, the group of workers came back to the gate. A definite surge toward the gate ensued, and luckily, Singini and Kasunga were able to maneuver their way through the gate, speak some of the local language, and get our cases through the door just before they closed the gate back up. We returned our empty bottles! Half the battle was won!
Matt, Molly, and I decided then to just find a spot in the shade, and wait this last part out. We had been watching the outflow of Coke cases, and we felt confident that it wouldn’t be too much longer before we had our hard-earned treasure of Coke. By this point, in the US, if all you had to do was pick up a few cases of Coke, you could run into any grocery store and be out in about 5 minutes. Here in Karonga, it took probably another 30 minutes for Bro. Bill to emerge victorious. We all ran over to help him load the cases into the truck. We gave Madame Malwanda her two cases, and then finally, after three hours of waiting in the hot, African sun, we were departing with our cases of Coke. We weren’t going home yet, though. Remember? We still had to drop off Jennifer’s cases, which surely would involve at least a 15 minute visit with their family. Oh, and then on the way home we had to stop for petro (gas) to fill up the truck.
It was about 4:35PM when we got home for lunch. We had left our house sometime around 10:30AM. All of this for a little bit of Coke.
And what about our passport stamps? This deserves a new post.
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