Since mid August, when the girls’ school returned after the long holidays, it has been online learning again due to Mozambique’s high levels of COVID. We realized as school is online it can be anywhere. So, here we are in Praia de Bilene. We are staying in the same beach front house we’ve been to before, but loaded up with laptops, school books, monitors and more, as well as the kayaks and toys for the water, and four children. School is online for all children, so here we are with Harriett’s boyfriend and a friend of both of the girls. We are certainly moving into new territory with boyfriends.
On the way none of the children fancied being in Zoe’s car, having to be silent during three hours of conference calls. So I got the party car with music, games, Doritos and sweets. Mostly driving during the dark. The policeman who stopped us swiftly moved us on. I don’t think he quite knew what to do with us so thought it best to wave us on once we said hello. Driving in Mozambique at night is quite a challenge and not one I can greatly recommend. But being held up by immigration earlier in the day made it inevitable. There are very slow cars and lorries which need to be overtaken if you want to make any progress, frequent large potholes, many vehicles with just one or no lights, and crazy chappas crammed with people trying to make it to their destination before curfew. The combination is challenging, and I certainly have never worried about falling asleep at the wheel while driving in Mozambique.
Once we arrived the children settled in quickly. On the first morning they took laptops, a portable WiFi router (mobile data based), extension cables, adapters and notebooks and headed to a lovely seating area in the bush at the end of the garden. From there they attended online lessons and in breaks would run out to the lake for a quick swim. They were pleased that teachers weren’t too strict about having cameras on in lessons, as half the time they were dripping wet and wearing only a swimming costume.
On the first day all of them had a free period before lunch (except Imogen). So while Imogen was in a maths lesson, the other three kids got out the kayaks for a little paddle. The first issue was the lack of paddles. In the confusion of packing these had somehow been left behind. But the house here had one kayak and two paddles, that split in the middle. That meant one child got a full kayak paddles, and two more half paddles. They happily set off on their trip, with me thinking they’d go for a little paddle out, jump in, swim around and have a nice time. The next issue was the wind. As standard it blows to our end of the lake so if you drift around you won’t end up very far from the house. But today the wind was going the other way, off shore. They all paddled off happily enjoying themselves.
At lunch time, I found Imogen and the two of us wandered down to the beach for a swim. On the shore there was almost no wind and all seemed fine although we couldn’t see the other three anywhere. There were some dots in the far distance, but they could have been anything. As Imogen and I waded and swam out, we found that the wind was getting stronger and blowing away from the shore. With the other three so far away this was a little worrying. I headed back to the house for some binoculars to see if I could see them.
I could see them out of their kayaks on the far bank. The far bank is a couple of kilometers away. The issue now was them getting back. They had two paddles between three of them. I thought of phoning them but found all their phones were on our side of the lake. I checked Google maps and if needed it looked like there was a sand track around the lake to the other side. It couldn’t get exactly to where they were, but close enough to get to them. However, they were on the edge of a bay. If they headed across to the bay getting to them would be much harder.
As I watched through the binoculars, I could see the tiny paddles start to move. They must have got back into their kayaks and be heading home. The key was whether they were going to make any progress? We could see them moving sideways, but being able to tell if they were making any forwards progress was really hard. I was also worried that they seemed to be taking periodic breaks from paddling; they could easily make no progress at all if they paddled for a while, then stopped and so on. But, as I continued to watch, the tiny figures in the kayaks did start to get closer and gradually closer and were clearly making some progress towards us.
I headed out to meet them. The lagoon is only knee depth for a long way out (but very deep in the middle) so I waded out to meet them and see how they’d enjoyed their experience. They’ve been out doing other trips again since but have been a little more cautious and aware of their surroundings and we’ve now got our proper kayak paddles, so it’s much easier for them to make progress.
edeOn Friday night it was time for President Nyusi’s speech. His last one was fifteen days ago and COVID numbers have been dropping rapidly, so we were interested to find out what he was going to do next with COVID restrictions. The place we are staying has three houses sharing a garden and on Friday night one of the houses had new guests. They arrived one or two at a time and gradually the music started and the party atmosphere was pouring from the house. But at the allotted time, the music stopped and Nyusi came on the TV. We could hear his muted announcement from their house. Not clear enough so we could hear what he was saying, but clear enough that we knew it was going on. Once the speech was over, the music and party restarted. We then have the usual waiting game. Who was going to put a good translation of the president’s speech on Facebook? What has he decided this time? Within an hour there were a few good translations and we could see the latest news. The headlines were that all schools (except pre-schools) were re-opening. Restaurants and shops were having their hours extended and the curfew time was getting later. But the real key for us was schools. And the rules were going live the next day. Our next thought was whether we needed to cut the trip short? Will the children need to be in school on Monday morning while we were planning for more online school by the lake? Withing the hour our questions were answered; Monday would still be online school for the girls and further notices about opening would follow.
So we can finish our trip here and then hopefully on our return the girls can get back to school in person.