What Mum and Dad won't tell you...

Mum and Dad have been a bit slow in the blog department so we are going to write this one, please excuse our mistakes as Naomi can hardly talk so writing a blog entry is particularly difficult for us. After our party, life has continued as normal so we thought we might tell you how our days are.

Every morning we wake up nice and early and act as the most effective alarm clock Mum and Dad have ever had.  Just in case the noise we make isn’t enough, Isaac likes to jump on the bed and generally climb all over them until they get up and get our breakfast.  Breakfast is a great time for making sure that the bath we take each night looks like it never happened.  Naomi feeds herself (and her hair) Weetabix and sometimes Isaac helps her by giving her some of his soggy cereal.  Then it’s play time, we run around laughing and avoiding Mum and Dad so that we can stay in our pyjamas.

Once they manage to dress us we head off to our nursery in our blue uniform tabards.  We both love school as we get to speak and listen to both English and Portuguese.  We play with other children and get to do drawing, singing and a little bit of learning numbers.  There is a big red slide outside and our favourite thing to do is climb up the steps, crawl through the tunnel and go down the slide again and again.

After nursery we get collected and go home for lunch. Then it’s nap time (although sometimes Naomi has a late lunch as she often falls asleep in the car).  If we’re nice to them, Mum and Dad get some free time to do homework and other boring things.  After our nap, we like to play ‘towers’ or go down stairs into the yard outside.  If Naomi wakes up early, she likes to go for a walk in a caplana (Mozambican sling) to buy fruit and vegetables from the market. After all our playing, we are hungry and generally want dinner at 5 o’clock (it normally arrives at 5.30 which is really very late). Both of us love to eat spicy food; if the food isn’t spicy enough we add spicy peri-peri sauce to it.  After a bath together with lots of splashing and a little bit of a DVD, it’s time for bed so that we can get lots of energy to wake up Mum and Dad bright and early the next day...

The best room for a party!

It might not have been the best cake we’ve ever made, but it certainly received the biggest response! Birthdays here are definitely to be celebrated if at all possible and if there are two birthdays in a family, there is cause for a big celebration. Dona Louisa had birthdays to celebrate this week: Raulinho had his first birthday on Monday and on Tuesday, Bilão turned three. As she now has a job, it was definitely time for a party.

Slowly the requests came: ‘Senhora, what do you need for a cake?’, ’Senhora, how to you bake a cake?’, ‘Senhora, could you bake a cake for me?’ The ingredients for the cake arrived one by one as they could be afforded and carefully stored away in our house so none of her neighbours were tempted to ‘borrow’ them. A few days later more questions: ‘Senhora, how do you cook spaghetti?’, ‘Senhora, are you around this weekend?’ and finally, ‘Senhora, could we hold the party in your garage?’ The spaghetti arrived along with other various ingredients, we had a practise cake-baking session and all was set and ready to go.

It’s Saturday morning, and Louisa and her husband, Abdul, arrive at our back door having swept and cleaned thoroughly below our apartment and sorted the garage ready.  The party is supposed to start at two that afternoon, but this is Africa so we expect it to start at three.  At around two-thirty, Dona Louisa arrives at our back door again and asks me to cook spaghetti for 4 adults and 10 children. We hadn’t realised this was part of the deal but it’s a bit late to say no now.  We quickly cook spaghetti to be ready by three… At four, the first guests and children arrive.

The garage is decorated with balloons, there is loud party music and children running, laughing and dancing. Naomi is whisked away by some of the children and promptly joins in the dancing (though in a proudly British, uncoordinated way). Isaac eventually realises that if he joins the children he gets food and he becomes part of the crowd. As dinner is served, a quick head count shows there are 8 adults and 25 children including us. We quickly pray for a miracle, something  similar to loaves and fishes, but there seems plenty to go round. Soon it’s time for the cake: the most important part. Happy birthday is sung and Raulinho and Bilão get the first pieces. The rest is eagerly shared out and, after a little more running around and dancing, the majority of children leave allowing Isaac and Naomi to play balloons with Dona Louisa’s children and to run wild in the yard.

Whilst the children were clearly having a great time, we all felt for Abdul, who carefully avoided the plentiful crisps and biscuits because of Ramadan. But we’re not sure food was on his mind that afternoon. He was quietly tucked away in a corner, listening intently to the radio through his mobile phone. But who can blame him! Clube Ferroviário da Beira were drawing 3-3 away from home in the capital Maputo with only a few minutes left. Ask any man anywhere in the world and they’ll give you the same response when it comes to priorities in that type of situation.

Oh, and last week’s test… We both passed and amazingly got exactly the same overall percentage. Just as well really, it’s not that we’re competitive,  but…

Sun, sand, surf and immigration...

A view over the city from our language school

This week has already been significant for lots of reasons. Firstly, we finally managed to get all our paperwork together and apply for a DIRE (Documento de Identificação de um Residente Estrangeiro) each. This is basically a residence permit for foreigners, and involved us traipsing up to the local immigration office with Pastor Moises yesterday to get this important job done. We were fearing the worst as these things can be a little tricky, but the whole process only took three hours (that’s really not at all bad) and was all very professional. The most amusing part involved trying to keep a screaming Naomi’s index fingers still for long enough for her fingerprints to be scanned!

This Friday we have our first little language test: just two and quarter hours of speaking, reading, listening, grammar and writing… Terrific! But, before we dive headlong into last ditch, late-night cramming sessions, Christine has the very important job of helping Dona Louisa make a trial-run birthday cake for two of her children, Bilão and Raulinho, who were 3 and 1 this week. This needs to go well because on Saturday our garage is going to be transformed into children’s party central…

Fishermen unloading fish and prawns at Macuti

And there’s more! These things pale into insignificance compared with Geoff having his first Mozambican haircut. He had toyed with the idea of embracing the beach-lifestyle scenery and adopting surfer-dude style golden curls but he couldn’t cope with the constant mocking from his wife. The verdict? A little on the severe side, but really not that bad!