A few hours after the conclusion of the last Mozambiquan tale, wherein I achieved a complete victory of obtaining a new passport and visa within 24 hours, a new twist arose.
My purse was located. I was driving around with the doctor who guided my site visits and he got a phone call from a doctor at the first hospital we visited. She proceeded to explain what happened:
I got up to inspect an ultrasound machine with my tote in hand and left my purse by the chair. The doctor came into the room, saw the purse and assumed it belonged to one of the nurses. To ensure it didn't get stolen (not even by one of the generous thieves) she subsequently locked the purse in the top of a cabinet in the back of a small room... and then went home for two days. She came back two days later and thought "I wonder if anyone ever picked up that purse I locked up without telling anyone?" and dangnabbit she saw that it was still in that cabinet in the back of that small room. Now she got curious and opened it to find a zillion documents with that foreign girl's photo and name on them. Little did she know that now the purse mostly contained an invalid passport and two cancelled credit cards...
So at least I got my phone back..
I am sorry for assuming my purse was stolen. I should have been more generous with my assumptions and thought "someone probably locked it in a small room to ensure it doesn't get stolen by someone else". I stand humbly and offer my sincere apologies.
So you'd think all my troubles were solved but alas, I had cancelled all of my credit cards and was thus left with a little cash and another country and 7 days to fund...
My office wired me some money (this was a Friday) and by the time it was 9am in New York to get the wire started it was already past business hours in Mozambique so no chance at getting it. However, I was informed that there were a few banks that are open on Saturday so I got up early, ready to chase down my cash.
For some reason in Mozambique all Western Unions are located inside of banks and only three banks are open on Saturday. Also apparently EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHER does all their banking on Saturday. You would not believe the snaking line at the bank. I think half the people were just there for the AC. Thankfully, the driver who picked me up spoke some English because he is a Jehovah's Witness and is learning English at his church. His vocabulary was a bit biblical but I was thankful for his help. The two of us stood in line for 1 hour and 15 minutes at which time I noticed that there seemed to be some secret line to the left of all the tellers. Some people seemed to be able to bypass the giant snake and go straight up. I wanted to be in that line. What did they do over there. I asked JW to find out what that line was for and in the process of him doing this he found out something even more interesting- the Western Union teller doesn't work on Saturdays. Ugh.
Thankfully there was a bank next door but that one didn't use Western Union, only Moneygram. We proceeded to drive around town searching for open banks and Western Union tellers to no avail. Thankfully I had enough cash on me to cover my lodging.
No comments:
Post a Comment