7 quick takes...

1.  It's funny how you can continue to work for a long time, until you know that a holiday is near. Then suddenly fatigue hits and all you really want is that holiday. Life here is not very stressful but the lodge, the staff and the happiness of the guests is a big responsibility that we constantly carry with us. At the end of the month we arw taking a shoet break and now that we know that the responsibility suddenly feels heavier and we cannot wait for our holiday. We will take the ferry overnight to Likoma Island, a beatiful, island close to the shore of Mozambique where we will stay with a South African guy who is building a beach lodge there. He has 3 kids and Sophie is very excited to join them in their 'home school', so much for a holiday for her 😜.
2. We really learn to depend on the kindness of others here. It's hard to buy food on Likoma so we have to bring all the food ourselves but that's a problem, because we cannot buy food here either (unless I want to live on a diet of bananas, tomatoes and dried fish) so I am making a grocery list that I will ship to Nkatha Bay so that other people can do our groceries. Hopefully it all works out and we will find a big bag of food when we pass Nkatha Bay onnour way to Likoma. Otherwise we will have to live on that dried fish, I have heard there is plenty of that available.
3. It is 'usipa season' and everybody is happy because it means that money can be made in a place with a very small economy. Usipa is a small sardine like fish that you can mainly catch between august en november and only when there is no moonlight. This was the case last week and they canoos filled with fish were brought to the shore. On the beach are lots of racks and they were all covered in shiny silvery little fish with a very typical salty smell. The ferry this weekend was full with people who were going to bring their fish to Nkatha Bay to sell. The smell of money obviously immediately attracts clever money makers and this week I saw something I never saw before in the village; a 'kaunjika market'. Kaunjika are second hand clothes that come in big bales. Merchants had set up a little shop on our otherwise empty market square where people where happily spending their freshly earned kwatchas.
4. Internet has been tragically slow since we came here but something has changed in the past week. First it did not work at all, which is not a nice discovery after you have just hiked 45 minutes to get there, but after a few days it was back on with lightning speed. Suddenly we could make whatsapp calls, download pictures and uploading on instagram took 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes. However, it only works on the one network (tnm), the other network service provider (airtel) is still completely down. And that's why we are now running into a different problem. Airtel used to be the fastest and that's why most people in the village use airtel and the shops sell loads of airtel credit and very little tnm credit. But now that tnm became the only working provider, the stock of tnm credit got quickly depleted. It's currently impossible to buy tnm in the village so now we have fast internet but no credit to access it. We are not sure if our local businesses have woken up to the changed market yet so we have just ordered some ourselves. It should come with the boat tomorrow and we can be connected again...
5. We share one room with the four of us where we live, sleep, eat and play so it has always been rather multi-purpose but lately it has gotten a new function. Every empty space is getting covered with educational posters and number bunting as our room is slowly turning into a classroom. The girls request school nearly every morning and we do numbers, basic mathematics, reading, writing and a ton of crafts. Sophie wants to learn reading and she is well on her way to do so. I did not expect her to want to learn that already so I was not very prepared and did not bring material for that. Now I find myself handwriting and drawing early reading books, worksheets and word posters. Soon I will have developed a complete bush-curriculum 😜
6. It's time to work again. Hartmut is busy with signs to help with directions on the lodge and he wants me to make sure they are all secured at the correct place. He has spend a lot of time making them. He planed the wood, chiseled out the letters and painted them all. They look amazing and it is great to see how things that don't cost much (because there is no extra money besides money for staff and food) can make a big change to the lodge's appearance.
7. Sophie is asking what I am doing and why I am writing. When she hears that I am writing a blog she says: "you must write that is very beautiful here and that Doris and I are best friends but if people come I can be friends with them too. And Doris and I made a treasure hunt where you must follow the fish and there is a treasure in the end. Do you think people will come?"