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Our baggage at Johannesburg: eleven suitcases,
two car seats and a double pushchair |
So we get off the plane in elegant style: Isaac is in his
pyjama bottoms as his trousers needed to be changed halfway through the final
flight and we didn’t have spares, Naomi is grumpy and tired and we are all a
bit disorientated after overnight flights and a day in Johannesburg that turned
out to be a lot colder than we expected.
But from there on, things have improved dramatically.
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Arrival in Beira
|
We had a very warm welcome at Beira Airport from Lynne and
Fiona (BMS, Angola), who are helping us to settle in for the first few weeks,
and we received a bunch of flowers from Pastor Moises’ wife Selina. Everybody helped with our baggage and soon we
were off to our new home. Expecting the
worst after panicked phone calls just before we left England, we were
pleasantly surprised with how spacious it was.
The décor may not be to our taste but everything more or less works and
we even have hot water and a decent shower. Moreover, there are only a few cockroaches
and they are very small!
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| Our kitchen |
We have spent the first week shopping, as if we didn’t shop
enough before we left the UK! Priorities
include new child friendly furniture and stocking up on basic supplies. We’ve
already got acquainted with the local Shoprite supermarket which really does
seem to sell everything, and the gas canister supplier. Amazingly, all our
baggage has arrived, although we had some fun at customs trying to work out why
we had to pay three or four different types of import duty and tax at rates
that seemed to randomly change depending on who we were speaking to.
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| At the First Baptist Church |
To make sure we’re not too overworked Lynne and Fiona have
shown us good places to eat out. It
seems a bit like we’re on holiday some of the time, especially watching Isaac
play in the golden sand as we eat fresh crab and huge prawns and look out over
the Indian Ocean. However, the amazing volume of ironing that needs doing to avoid getting
mango fly larva in our clothing will ensure the holiday feeling soon dulls, I’m
sure.
There is still so much to see and do at the moment. It won’t
be long before we start language training, sort childcare and, as yet, we
haven’t visited any local projects run by the Baptist Church around Sofala
Province. We are picking up little pieces of language, although Isaac is
learning Portuguese the fastest, and we’re slowly learning our way around the
area. But I guess all these things will happen in time, it’s only a week ago yesterday
that we arrived!
Please keep in touch and we’ll try and keep you posted as we settle into life on the Mozambican coast!
All was going well, until the power went off and the water
stopped. The workmen had overrun the electric circuit to the whole building and
burnt out the mains. At some point the electrician would turn up to repair the
mains, so we decided to go out for birthday dinner after the kids woke up from
their afternoon nap.
