We arrived in Mozambique over 3 three ago. It’s been a funny 3 weeks. The opportunity to move to Mozambique came about several months ago and it seemed too interesting an adventure to miss out on. But actually getting out here took a long time from the point of deciding to go, and unfortunately resulted in us moving in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The pandemic made the adventure quite a bit more risky than we had initially envisaged. In normal circumstances, if all else failed, there would be the chance to get medical support in neighbouring South Africa, or at worst, hop on a flight back to the UK. But with international borders rapidly closing, flights stopping and medical facilities showing early signs of the strain to come, those fall back options were going to be limited. Was it fair to take a family abroad in those circumstances?
The alternative; to stay behind, without a house (which had been let), without our things (which were on a ship somewhere), without a school (which was closed, of course), without a job and more importantly, to miss out on an opportunity for the whole family, didn’t appeal. So late one Sunday evening, Sam and I decided to go ahead and catch a flight the following morning.
The kids have written about the journey, so I won’t repeat that, except to say how amazing Sam, Harriett and Imogen all were. The girls were barely fazed by being woken at 6am on Monday morning and told that rather than going to school, we were leaving right then for the airport. I’m not sure how many families would have taken such disruption to their lives quite so positively.
Our first fortnight in Mozambique was in quarantine of sorts. At that stage, there were no confirmed cases in Mozambique (and to be fair, almost no testing, either) and the quarantine restrictions hadn’t been defined. But we stayed in our hotel apartment area, only heading out to get food and water from the supermarket. I was still working for the UK business, but being overseas made little difference when the UK office was shut anyway. My main problem was poor internet access which resulted in me working a lot outside near the pool (I know, it sounds terrible…but it was baking hot) where the wifi signal was best.
We have now moved into a house in Maputo. For some reason, houses in Maputo are outrageously expensive, but it is really nice, and most importantly, has a nice garden and a little pool so the girls have space to play while confined at home. Our container keeps getting delayed, so we’re sleeping on air beds and the kids don’t have many toys, but we have plenty to get by. I’m becoming pretty quick at handwashing now, too, but I’ll always appreciate washing machines in future!
I started work last week; as food producers, the factory will continue irrespective of coronavirus movement restrictions, but office staff may work from home. It has been great to get a chance to spend some time on site with my new colleagues and team before any further closures happen.
The girls start online school tomorrow; we planned to continue home-schooling them until schools reopened, but it’s clear that will take a long time. Home-schooling for a while has been a side benefit to the situation; it has been fun to engage the girls with a whole range of subjects and issues that they wouldn’t be exposed to in a normal school setting, constrained by the national curriculum. Harriett isn’t interested in ever changing another plug, though…
That’s enough waffle from me. It is Easter Sunday, we found a few little Easter eggs, the kids are in the pool (again) and we’ve been joining in the Camp Bestival Stay at Home Easter Sleepover (thanks to Andrea, an old school friend for pointing that one out). We’re all well; the girls are happy, Sam is busy and I’m keen to get back to work tomorrow. And so far, the coronavirus isn’t taking a strong hold. I’m hoping (but not expecting) it stays that way.
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