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The End of a Winter Summer

Since our seasons are reversed out here technically we coming to the end of a nice and typically mild tropical winter whereas most of you are now preparing for the big BBQ weekend and kids (finally) returning to school next week. Unlike most of our international colleagues who seem to take a month of home leave we staying domestic and had to remain creative to entertain Adi during his 2 month ‘summer break’. As you saw from our last post one great week was spent doing nothing on the beach up north which was wonderful. And now that we know we are leaving in December many of these adventures are last time experiences for us (sadly).

We have made several trips to our ‘escape’ city of Nelspruit South Africa but we wish we could say they were for tourist purposes. Although a nice break from Maputo they are all centered around medical visits and shopping for the family. We have developed a nice routine of both a place to stay, places to eat and ironically people from Maputo to see. Aside from minor adjustments here and there, we are all healthy and Rea continues to grow right on schedule. A nice chubby baby girl with an adoring big brother. The simple drive of 3.5 hours now takes around 5 with road construction and a stress boarder crossing on both sides. Coming back ur car looks like we stocking up for a natural disaster. The food prices and selection have gotten notably worse since our arrival so we save substantially by planning ahead for each month’s eating.  But we did take Adi to see Taming Your Dragon II and since he has only seen 3 films before this is a special treat.

We did have a couple wonderful visits with old friends who were in town for business. Jimmy who I met and traveled with in Vietnam in 1998 and Holly who has become a business mentor and a PPP specialist and professor n the same field as I.  We will welcome Gabrielle mid Sept who went to grad school with Pranvera.  Always a nice excuse to show them highlights of the city and enjoy a nice meal out.

Rea is fantastic. Is at the stage of putting her feet in her mouth, cooing non-stop, waking up all the time (she really is a non-sleeper) and keeping her wide eyes open to absorb everything she can. Adi is unfortunately at the same school since he misses the cutoff to join all his friends as they have moved on to kindergarten. So he and Evi are the heads of the school which is fun but it seems like the academic challenges are a bit limiting.

So our plans continue as indicated and we move out of our house end of Sept. We have been blessed with such a wonderful home for a year but the landlords want to take it back forcing us to rent another furnished small apartment for 2.5 months before we physically leave. As much as an inconvenience as this will be, all our personal affects will head back to Kosovo with enough time to actually get there before we do. This is will be an unusual benefit since we have had to get used to making due in any new location with around 3 months of minimal furniture and personal items till ours arrive. This will also adjust us to downsizing since our place in Pristina is a small 2 bedroom apartment that we will stay in at least for the winter till we can add another level ontop or find a house outside the city to rent. Either way it will be cozy but it is ours and won’t have to worry about anyone kicking us out.

Pranvera has planned a magnificent final international vacation for us before we leave the region. Come mid October, which is the ideal season, we will hit Cape Town and surrounding wine area for the first time with the family. We of course plan to do a couple local beach weekends away with friends to soak in the final blue waters, white sand and total isolation from other people. Then in mid Dec we will say goodbye to our dear Maputo after almost 3 years and head stateside for a much needed American Christmas where I grew up in St Louis Missouri. We’ll have over 3 weeks with the grandparents and aunt and the chance to show off Rea to many old and dear friends. Pranvera and I are planning to then take our first solo trip in too long to Chicago for a couple nights over New Years to (re) appreciate one of the greatest cities in its festive season. And before heading to our new home we will visit DC for 4 days in mid January to see other friends and pick-up some of our winter gear in storage before experiencing our first real winter in 3 years.

Pranvera is ready to return to work and very much looking forward to the support of being back home.  We have never actually lived in the same city with family so this will be a wonderful experience for us all but especially the kids. We have a great school for Adi and more baby sitters than we’ll know what to do with for Rea. I still have some old friends left in Pristina to reconnect with and look forward to getting to know the families of all of Pranvera’s close friends that we have never really interacted with much since we were not with kids before. Of course the ‘city life’ and weather will be a hard adjustment for us all but none the less am looking forward to teaching Adi to ski, going on snowshoe walks with the family and making snow angles in our free time.

We are sorry we won’t be in Africa for anytime in 2015 to host some of you we were hoping to see. But this way at least Europe is right next door so London is on the top of our long holiday weekend trips with we hope many more to follow. We hope the Fall welcomes you all with wonderful energy and excitement for change as it certainly will for us.

Until next time.

The Kirkbrides

Local Beach Vacation & Transition Beyond Mozambique

Unlike most of the European or Diplomatic community out here, we don’t get the month long home leave so we decided to keep our summer holiday (actually winter season) local and instead head up the coast 8 hours to the laid back, hippie surfer/scuba community of Tofu.  A perfect reef protected beach cove with whales breaching out in the main channel provides an ideal place for kids to play in a moderate surf and clean white sand beaches for parents to read a book or tend to a 4 month old. The ‘tree-house’ we rented was just up the hill from the beach with perfect views of the surf and distant palm covered landscape.  The thatched roof, wood sided stilted home would have been perfect had it not been for the hot water heater leaking into Adi’s bedroom two nights in a row and us losing water, electricity and pressure alternating for the rest of our holiday.

Except for a couple overcast days and one rain shower, we have perfect warm days and slightly cool nights. The single sand street offers a couple low key beach restaurants we dined at for fresh seafood but otherwise cooked and BBQ’d at home each evening. It was very much a do NOTHING family beach vacation. We got Adi a surfing lesson which lasted about 15 minutes and when I saw him actually catch one wave seeing how fast he shot ahead of me I realized I should probably get his swimming skills improved a bit more before he tumbles head-first in a wave.

Long beach walks and good body surfing were about the extent of our exercise despite the countless scuba boats carting South African tourists out to sea. We had both been diving in this area last year and we’re too impressed with the reefs or the rough surf the Zodiac’s have to launch over in order to get to the dive sites.

I promised my family I would not check one work email so I feel like I really disconnected from the world over the past week. Which was a good thing for all of us to just focus on building big sand castles, pushing ‘dumpie’ back and forth and playing beach tennis.  It was a bit sad for us to realize that we most likely will not be visiting this place ever again as we are now on a subtle countdown till our departure from Mozambique.

It is official that we will be departing Maputo by mid-December for a month home leave for Xmas back in St Louis with my family and then on to our new home back in Kosovo. We got kicked out of our present home Sept 30 (second lease contract violated by the landlords) so our stuff will be shipped to Pristina on that date leaving us 2.5 months to hopefully return to the temporary housing that we started out in 2.5 years ago. But unless we can get them down drastically from their 10K/month rate we’ll have to find a furnished apartment. Regardless we will be sad to downsize radically from our lovely house with a yard and a bike-ride from my office. Unfortunately, my billable work with TechnoServe ends this year and since we don’t anticipate any new awards coming in before then, I will be re-entering my consulting practice provided public private partnership brokering and training to companies, donors and NGO’s. Luckily I have some continued consulting work on a project back in Maputo and potentially continued work with TechnoServe as a consultant.

We are excited and nervous about this transition but since we will be returning to Pranvera’s home we have a huge family network to help with the kids, a school already selected for Adi and our condo in the city to move into. Will be a shock returning to Europe in the winter but am looking forward to seeing and playing in snow again. Just have to purchase winter wear for our kids since we have been fortunate enough to not worn any in quite a long time.