Two days time (15/09/03) will mark the end of the first month of my gap year, and how time has flown already! Last night at Quinta Capricórnio (referred to as simply QC in my last update because that’s all I knew!) Jacques (a British man living and working out here in Lichinga) remarked that it seemed we had been here forever already, and he might be right: Lichinga is certainly starting to feel like home!

Sunday 31st August saw us taking our first trip to Lake Niassa, the lake that lies on Mozambique’s border with Malawi. It is Africa’s third biggest lake and it feels more like a trip to the coast. Sandy white beaches, surf and water stretching all the way to the horizon means that it is a bit of a surprise to enter the water and find that it isn’t salty! We spent a relaxing four or five hours on the beach and had a delicious lunch in a restaurant right there on the beach. It really is a very scenic spot, the views are spectacular and because the area is so hard to get to it is not overrun with tourists either. The trip back was interesting – we were sitting in the back of a Toyota 4WD pickup, completely exposed to the elements. By the time we reached home (2 or 3 hours later) we were caked in dust and sand!

The next day was my first day of teaching, and as you might be able to imagine I was extremely nervous. I had spent a lot of time over the week preparing for the lesson and so I was fairly confident I would be able to pull off a reasonably decent lesson. Immediately before the lesson we had a Portuguese lesson which I found rather hard to concentrate on because of what was coming.

As two o clock drew nearer I was watching the minutes go by on my watch dreading the moment I had to start! At 2:00 I only had three students (out of an expected 13 or 14) and by 2:10 I still only had three, so I thought I had better start! I got through the entirety of my two-hour lesson plan in about 10 minutes, and then panic set in. After a few minutes of stunned silence, a very dry throat and wanting to run away I managed to get my act together and made up the rest of the lesson as I went along! In the end I think I turned that lesson into something worthwhile, and by the end I had noticed my nerves had calmed down a lot. As Tim correctly observed from the next room, the lesson “started of very badly but got a lot better”. So in the end I was reasonably happy with how it had gone.

Over the week I steadily grew more confident in what I was doing, and as I got to know the students a bit better things became easier. Communicating ideas with my limited knowledge of Portuguese and their limited knowledge of English is proving difficult, but we tend to get there in the end! I have two groups of mixed ability with 5 in one group and 6 in the other and age ranges from 19 to about 35. All in all I would say that teaching has come as a challenge, but I am glad of that, as at the moment it seems to be a challenge I can meet! The work is enjoyable (most of the time) and rewarding – when I say “Well done” it often puts a smile on the student’s face, but puts a bigger smile on my face!

I am finding Portuguese pretty hard to pick up. Our teacher Moises keeps giving us lists of verbs, which are all said differently depending on if you are talking about me, you, him, her, us or them. Eu sou, tu és, ele é, nós sommos, vós sois, eles são! (I am, you are, he is, we are, you are (plural), they are.) Then you have to do it all again in the past tense, the future tense and the past participle. It’s impossible! We keep talking to the guards at home and at the Learning Centre and that gives us a bit of practice, but we could do with more. Still, I have plenty of time!

In the week we have been eating well as we have the maid to cook for us, but last weekend we had the dubious pleasure of cooking for ourselves on a coal fire. Pasta is easy, but the sauce was a little more complicated. It seems there’s a little more to it then just bunging tomatoes, onions and garlic in a saucepan. It was edible but it was nothing special, so any cooking ideas and recipes would be appreciated! The facilities and food we have available are limited and basic though, so that’s where are problem lies. Earlier today we had xima (pronounced shee-ma), a maize-based staple food that looks like mashed potato and tastes of not very much really! Its easy to make though, so we might be eating it a lot at the weekends!

Last night there was a big music event in Lichinga, for which a good few thousand people turned out. A popular Mozambican band was performing in the centre of town and we went along to see what all the fuss was about! The music was fairly good, very ‘pop’ but with that relaxed African feel to it as well. The crowd close to the stage was getting very rowdy at times, and I was quite shocked to see the crowd control, which consisted of policemen with sticks and truncheons hitting people, pretty hard by the looks of it.

That’s all my news for now, so until my next update: Até logo. (See you later.)

Nic

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