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.
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