Weekend Getaway

11-06-2015

Adam & I both slept in until 8am – finally a good night's sleep after all of those travels! We checked out of the Lutheran Center because we were heading out for the weekend. We stopped in town for a bit of souvenir shopping before we had to leave.

Our weekend getaway was in a town called Magoye, about 5½ hours away, up in the mountains. We're going as part of the St. Paul Partners to help dedicate some of ten wells that were constructed with sponsorship from the South Carolina Synod and help from St. Paul Partners. I didn't know any of this while on our way there – I just knew we were in for a long ride, and that the mountains were really beautiful.

You know the saying, “Getting there is half the fun”? Well,.... First of all, we had to fix a tire before even leaving Iringa. We got stopped for speeding, then again for passing someone, I guess. I think the police lady just wanted to yell or something. When they stop a car for a traffic violation, they make you pay right there. I thought that was interesting. Luckily, the yelling lady let us go, because she didn't seem to want to write the ticket, just to get the money. Another thing we learned was that if they don't issue a ticket, you shouldn't pay a fine. So we didn't pay. Oh yeah, one other thing – the first guy who issued a ticket and got the 30,000 Tschillings fine (like $15), he said, “God bless you” when he let us go. I thought that was nice. Much better than the yelling lady who demanded Bo answer whether he was a Christian or a Muslim.

There was an enormous line of trucks stopped on the road for a weigh station. We slipped into a little village to bypass some of it. Once that was behind us, we stopped at a hotel for a drink and a potty break and to wait for Peter and Andrew from SPP to catch up. We waited there for like an hour in the traffic jam.

Then we were on our way up the mountain. I think it's like a mile up, and we started our ascent at dusk. It was very VERY rough roads. There were engine scrapes and gasps from us ladies in the back seat for the next hour. I heard it was about 11 miles and it takes an hour to get up to the village. I also heard it's over 40 switchbacks (Juli and I counted over 60 on our way down).

We got to the diocese where we were going to sleep at about 8pm. We met the people from the South Carolina Synod and they had supper for us, which we immediately sat down and ate. Then they wanted to talk! After talking, they wanted us to do devotions. FINALLY after devotions (actually, during) I got to get out of there to use the restroom. That's another fun story. Anyway, we finally did get to our room at about 10pm. I sure was tired!