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After our extended holiday in Malawi last month I returned to work the following week, and was relieved to find that most of my students had returned, despite my three week absence. The only student not to return was Valéria, which is unfortunate as she was one of the brighter students in the bunch! After two final weeks teaching all students sat the final test, which I had to write myself. It is a lot more interesting to set tests then having to set them! All my students passed except one, and even he was very close to a pass. All in all I was happy with how the first course had gone, although I was very aware that various parts needed improving during the next course.

On Saturday 15th November we had our first heavy downpour. At about four o’clock it got ominously dark as the clouds came over, then a little light rain came down, but before long it was coming down very hard, harder then I have seen rain come down before. The thunder and lightning accompanying it added to the effect as well. I was at the office at the time, and after about half an hour I was ready to leave, but couldn’t really go anywhere! The dirt road outside was almost a river, as there is no drainage in Lichinga, even on the tar roads, and this makes it very difficult to walk around. I stood in the shelter of the office for a while just watching the rain come down and the way the town reacts during a storm. Fortunately for me however as it was beginning easing off slightly Tim came down from the house in his waterproof and handed me mine, and we were able to make the short walk back to the house, to much amusement of the locals who were still seeking shelter.

The office is close to the market and when it starts raining out come the plastic sheets to cover up the merchandise. People then take shelter wherever they can, under corrugated iron roofs, inside shops and cafés, and the furniture sellers sit on their sofas and pull plastic over them! When the rain is at it’s hardest it is almost impossible to move around outside, and so the whole town almost comes to a standstill. In contrast to when we first arrived in Lichinga, in the middle of the dry season, people are now careful to carry umbrellas with them, and the plastic sheeting people use to cover things up with is very readily available at the market.

On Sunday the rain came down a little later in the day, just as it was getting dark, and just as we were trying to cook dinner on our outside charcoal fire. After struggling for a while to simultaneously cook, keep the fire dry - despite the roof, keep warm and keep a candle alight, Amado, one of the guards, came up with the brilliant suggestion of taking the fire indoors and cooking under the cleverly located chimney. Clever mainly because it’s indoors! That night we made quite a tasty bean and cabbage soup, made even better by the fact that it was piping hot and we were a little damp!

Also that weekend we picked up a portable radio with short wave frequency, which means we can, sometimes, pick up the BBC World Service. We have to pick our way carefully through any number of French, Arabic, German and who knows what else before we can find it though, and often have to stand in different parts of the house waving the radio around as the signal seems to move every five minutes. At twelve noon though I can normally get good reception in the centre of my bedroom, meaning I can listen to the ten o’clock GMT news.

On Wednesday 19th November (during the last week of the final English course) the whole country had the day off, for local elections. This had the major benefit of bringing to an end the political campaigning that had been going on almost every day in the weeks running up to the election, and occasionally since about a month after our arrival. The most usual form this took was a car driving around with a megaphone attached to the top, either playing campaign music or a voice promoting the party ideals. As the election drew closer though supporters of the two parties, Renamo and Frelimo, accompanied these vehicles, dancing and chanting in front of them. On a couple of occasions very close to the election supporters of the two parties met outside the market, and therefore outside our house, with the apparent aim of trying to drown out the other party with your chanting. It seemed that on both occasions Frelimo won, despite Renamo having a couple of megaphones to help them out! We still don’t know who won the election though, there were some problems in another town where the leader of the loosing party fled the town, and because of this the results haven’t yet been announced anywhere else!

That weekend was a very busy one compared to what we are used to here in Lichinga! On Saturday morning we went to the Irish Embassy project office in Lichinga, to the house of Rob Patterson, to watch the England/Australia World Cup final. Those who watched the match will be aware of the edge of the seat action that was the final few minutes of that game, and it was made even better for us because of having two Australians sitting in the room with us. Needless to say they left quite quietly afterwards! Go England – we were feeling quite patriotic after that! After the game it was quite a shock to the system to come back into Africa, where very few know what rugby is, let alone have any concern over who had just won the World Cup.

That night we were invited to an MSF (Medicine Sans Frontier, a French organisation) party, a farewell party for Christian and Laura. Laura has since left and Christian is leaving this coming Tuesday. The crowd gathered was a mix of locals, presumably mainly hospital types, as well as friends from the Western community too. Towards the end a big chocolate cake was bought out with ‘Au Revoir’ printed on it, and speeches were made, in Portuguese, but we still managed to work out a bit of what was being said!

To complete our busy weekend on Sunday we went down to Quinta to celebrate a popular public holiday. This one is known as ‘Thanksgiving’, and, as you might have guessed, isn’t very African! Rebecca is an American volunteer here and was feeling a bit in need of some American culture in the run up to Thanksgiving. A variety of people prepared bits of the meal, which included roast turkey, gravy and Jello - very American! The final week of the English course had been quite an intense one for me, and this was a nice relaxed way for me to wind down a bit! There was a big gathering of people there, including many new faces that I hadn’t seen before. Some because they were fairly recent arrivals, and some because they work in even more cut off and isolated areas then we do, out in the bush. It was a very diverse range of people considering we were in the quiet town of Lichinga, Mozambique! It included people from England, America, South Africa, Wales, France, Australia, Holland, with ages ranging from just twelve months to sixty or seventy. I was looking forward to coming to Africa to experience a different culture, although it wasn’t really the American culture I had in mind!

The next day, 24th November, was the first day of the new English course. Well, I had thought so anyway. When no students turned up for a class at two o’clock or four o’clock I went to the office of the First Lady, responsible for the registration of new students, and found that there were in fact only four new students for the course, leaving me with nothing to do for the week. As you would expect the week passed fairly uneventfully. On Tuesday night there was a gathering at Quinta for a goodbye party for Pete, a VSO (Voluntary Service Oversees) volunteer who has been here for nearly two years. The weekend was a quiet one too, except for Saturday night which turned, at the last moment, into a Golden Night, as the local club was open again. I couldn’t really turn down the offer to go after such a dull week not teaching, and I definitely couldn’t say no when Nadia, another MSF worker, said that she hoped to see me in there. Who was I to turn down a challenge like that? On Sunday night we went to a restaurant for dinner, and met an Israeli traveller in there. I would never have guessed I would meet an Israeli in Lichinga!

This past week has been another with me not working. Monday was International AIDS Day. There was nothing to spectacular going on, although all the trees in the centre of town have been painted with AIDS ribbons on them, which looked quite effective. The red ribbon was painted on a white background however, and this is now very dirty, so it doesn’t look quite as effective. On Tuesday I received three items of post, which always puts a smile on my face. As well as a postcard and a copy of the Sunday Times I received a reply to a letter I wrote to a friend volunteering in Uganda, and that was very interesting to read. I have come to the conclusion that sending letters is much more interesting then writing emails, even if it does take a couple of months to get a reply! On Thursday I received more post, a huge parcel in fact, from Grammy and Gramps, my grandparents. (Thanks very much for that, definitely appreciated, especially the Wine Gums!) In it were newspapers, sweets, nuts and some yeast, so hopefully our next bread-making endeavour will be a bit more successful then the last! Also received my second Christmas card, the other being from Fred and Barbara Wilson. (For which I would also like to say thank you!)

Another weekend was then upon us, and the evening of Friday 5th December saw us attending perhaps the earliest Christmas party I’ve ever been to! Camilla, who works for SIDA, the Swedish International Develop Agency, hosted it. (It is perhaps interesting to note that SIDA also means AIDS in Portuguese. Unsurprisingly SIDA translated their name for working in Mozambique, so it is also known as ASDI.) As has become usual at these events there was a large crowd of both locals and people from the Western community, making for a diverse range of conversation. I had an interesting conversation with a Zimbabwean about the situation in Zimbabwean, and he assured me that the situation has been greatly exaggerated by the world media. As the evening drew on the food was cleared away and the music turned up, creating a really good atmosphere and the livelier of us got up to dance. Not a huge room though so it was quite cramped! Tim and I left at about 12:30, but I’m told it continued well into the night and even ended up in Golden Nights. I think I’m glad we left early, as I was up at seven the next morning to go to the post office. On our return home we found a bat in the house, clinging to the back door. That was fine until we managed to wake it up and it decided to fly straight at me! Bit different, not sure if I’ve seen a bat before, and certainly not in the ‘wild’, if Lichinga can be considered thus!

Saturday night was another gathering, this time a much smaller one, to watch a couple of movies, projected on to the wall with a very flash projector. We watched The Fifth Element and Road Trip, and for a minute could almost imagine I was sitting in a cinema back in the UK. Road Trip was very nostalgic for American Rebecca, as part of it was filmed in the University she went to! She was able to point out to us what some of the buildings were, and it left her feeling a little homesick. I imagine I would feel the same way if I saw a bit of Northampton in a film, although I have a strange suspicion that isn’t very likely. I think I did recognise part of Northampton in an episode of Only Fools And Horses once though!

Also staying with us in the Nakosso house at the moment is Noonoo (spelt phonetically!) who is up from Maputo to organise a gala of some sort in Lichinga on Saturday. Unfortunately he doesn’t know exactly what it is he is organising, but fortunately it means he might be able to find some work for me to do as I go into another week of no teaching! I have also hinted to some others here so hopefully they will be able to find me a couple of jobs too.

We are still working on plans for our Christmas holiday to Cape Town, usual slow African organisation means that we still don’t know if we have a flight from Lichinga to Maputo, which forms the crux of our plans, meaning its hard to organise anything else. Whatever happens though we will get to Cape Town one way or another and spend time there with other Project Trust volunteers from across Southern Africa. It will be a very different Christmas to what I’m used to in the UK and I will definitely miss Christmas dinner and everyone back home during the festive season. However, I am definitely looking forward to it. Jackesh commented on Friday night that when we return to Lichinga after four weeks away it will feel like we are coming home, which was an interesting thought. And he’s right; Lichinga defiantly does feel like home now. The Christmas season must be really getting going now in England, and I have to say I’m not disappointed to be on the other side of the world, away from all the advertising and cheesy Christmas singles!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Nic

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