My day today...

My day started at 5am (or sometime before) as I awoke in our tent or Alpendre d'mor as Dan likes to call it! I stumbled through the wet bushes just in time to take Scott and Andrew to the airport - with Claire, Kimberley and Stephen. After we had dropped them at the airport in time to catch their MAF flight (and a traumatised Kimberley had seen a number of stark naked men 'bathing' in the military compound next door) Claire carefully negotiated her way to the New Horizons Offices.There we dropped off an envelope with a signed cheque for the money we need to pay our workers tomorrow - which is hopefully arriving with Wilfred tomorrow morning!!
Next stop was the Total garage where I bought Truck oil in my best Portuguese.
Back we trundled to the farm for breakfast and school...
I had a number of messages to send, emails to write and phonecalls to make for Scott. Then off to the chicken shed to check mortalities (there had been one during the night) then to pick up Rushworth to start vaccinating the chicks! Vaccines all going well I next went to check on the progress of the grader which is flattening our land for the next 3 chicken sheds. (Took the hubby a sandwich which turns out to be the only thing he has eaten the entire day!)
Next started mentally preparing myself to drive into town and get 140L of Diesel so the grader could continue it's progress....this was my first trip into town by myself!! Very proud!!
After a quick sandwich for lunch I went back to check on the vaccinating and grader. All good!
Then I had to find the workers whose day off it is tomorow and try to explain to them that they didn't need to come to work...quite hilarious!! (My Portuguese is interesting!).
Finally had my first shower of the day and washed my hair - yay!!
Downed a quick gnt and now am writing this...
Claire is cooking supper tonight and my exhausted hubby has just come through the door!!
All in a days work.

Hen Night!

Our chickens have started laying about 200 eggs a day - which is brilliant news!! However the shed where they were housed was a bit small and the chickens were cramped and uncomfortable (this means less eggs!!). So the decision was made that it was time to move them to their lovely new chicken shed!! Scott estimated that this would take about 2 hours...so moving began at about 5pm. However we only had about 30 chicken crates to move them - each crate taking 10 chickens. We needed to move 1700!! (A bit less after we had counted them and realised that some - 400 - had 'gone missing'!)
The workers were amazing!! The two that were catching the chickens managed somehow to carry five in each hand!! Dan would then put them in the crates and I would count them. Then Scott and Wilfred, along with the workers, would load them onto the truck and deliver them to their new home!! Very exciting!! This whole procedure took about 7 hours and the guys were eventually finished some time after 12!!
Then chickens LOVE their new home and are very happy with the innovative nesting boxes - check out the picture!! Kimberley and Stephen had a school excursion to the shed yesterday and were very excited to find 6 eggs in the nesting boxes!!
We also hit another milestone yesterday as our chickens layed their 1000 egg!!
(This will be blown and set next to our first ovo!!)

Driving through Mozambique - chaos!

First Month in Nampula by Danny Tanser

School begins!!

Claire Marques very bravely decided to homeschool Stephen and Kimberley while we are in Mozambique! She has been AMAZING - preparing lessons, amassing resources, thinking up exciting topics and ways of teaching different concepts!!! They are set up very cosily in their Alpendre with desks, blackboards and a 'resource' tent.
Kimberley, 'School here is fun, but kind of different...there are lots of people coming by with wheelbarrows etc'.
Stephen, 'School is fun and mom is a good teacher'.

Electric Shock Therapy

It all began so innocently with a request for gravy...Being the good wife that I am I immediately acquiesced. Because our room is still only partially completed and we don't have enough plug points (and because for some reason Mozambique has these incredibly stupid two prong plugs!!) I leant over the stove (placing both hands firmly ontop of it!) and proceeded to try to unplug the stove and plug in the kettle. The result was a massive explosion of electricity up my arm across my chest and down the other arm!!! It was incredibly painful!!! I screamed and burst into floods of tears...feeling that I was about to throw up and faint all at the same time. My dear husband lead me outside to console me while I had a good cry - needless to say it was very theraputic! I am now petrified of plugs, ovens, laptops and anthing electric!!! My hands still tingle but my chest and arms have stopped aching - yay!!

Sssscott, Sssstephen and lots of Ssssnakes!!

Every day the workers clearing the bush for our new homes and chicken sheds find and kill about 4 snakes (cobras, puff-adders and many other delightful varieties!) - cobra in Portuguese! Scott and Stephen love to collect all the dead snakes (usually keeping them in Claire's fridge for a while) and skin them. Thankfully this cobra bit the only worker wearing boots!