vacation in Mozambique

                                       I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that my
family homeschools, but the reason we where just on vacation is because we had school in
August. Mozambique was so cool, we saw:starfish, brittlestars, chestnut crabs, whales, dolphins,
yellow finned tuna, sea urchins, jelly fish and lots of other animals in the coral reefs.

Pirates Cannons and Urinals oh my!

 Well, my family has been in Malawi for a year now, so we decided to have a vacation. My dad was asked to do some youth training in Mozambique, so we decided that since we had paid for visas for Mozambique already that’s were we would go on vacation. We noticed in Mozambique that the roads where much better than in Malawi, even the dirt roads were better.  It was fun reading, and eating tamarind (a fruit that tastes a bit like a sweet and sour gummy bear) during the drive. After two day's travelling we arrived on Ilha de Mocambique (Mozambique Island.) The island was so cool! After a good nights sleep we explored a very old fort. It was shaped in a square, there were old rusty cannons
everywhere. In the corners there were  small rooms with slits to shoot guns. They had channels on the side so the gunmen could urinate. LOL! There was also an old slave market and a dungeon for pirates (basically just a covered square pit.) If the pirates survived for six months they were shot. And the pirates all lived happily ever after, 
THE END

Jonathan standing at the front gate.

Fort view of the slave market.

Sarah standing next to a cannon.

Driving to Mozambique

Hmm, I don't know were to start? Aha! Well, my family has been in Malawi for a year now, so
we decided to have a vacation. My dad was asked to do some youth training in Mozambique, so
we decided that since we had paid for visas for Mozambique already that’s were we would go on
vacation. We noticed in Mozambique that the roads where much better than in Malawi, even the
dirt roads were better.  It was fun reading and eating tamarind (a fruit that tastes a bit like a sweet
and sour gummy bear) during the drive. After two days traveling we arrived on Ilha de
Mocambique (Mozambique Island.) The island was so cool! After a good nights sleep we
explored a very old fort. It was shaped in a square, there were old rusty cannons everywhere. In
the corners there were  small rooms with slits to shoot guns. They had channels on the side so the
gunmen could take a whiz. Lol! There was also an old slave market and a dungeon for pirates
(basically just a square pit.) If the pirates survived for six months they were shot. After two
nights there we traveled on to the beach.

Wahoo the power is back on.

finally the power is back on, it has been of for 5 days!

Baboons!

Yesterday dad sprained his ankle chasing a baboon (a monkey bigger than a 5 year old)! The brats. The baboons ate three of our papayas, and only took a couple of bits out of each! This happens regularly. Once the monkeys even pulled my moms carrots! Better go - the dogs are barking, probably at monkeys.

monkey attack!

In Canada monkeys are considered cute, not so here. Here monkeys are a pest.Ya think you're going to harvest some fruit from your apple tree and presto the monkeys got 'em.Thier not all small either, a lot of them are LARGE baboons. Also the small neighbour dog gets teased by the baboons, if they get a chance they'll pull on his tail.Me and my brother are glad to have two golden retrievers to defend us and help with the chase.

Going to the village

Nearly every Saturday and Sunday we go to the village. People in the village are farmers, but not the kind of farmers we have in Canada. They work with a hoe and put the seeds in the ground with their hands. Malawians grow maize(corn), beans, yams and cabbage. Some people are lucky, and are able to raise a few animals such as a goat or some chickens, but most Malawians only have meat once a year (for Christmas). In the village people live in houses made out of mud, and the roof is made of grass. They don't have any furniture, the women cook over a fire and the whole house is about as big as your bedroom. Going to the village is fun but also tiring, with lots of dirty children crowding around you and asking: "Whatey isae yoa name(what is your name)?", which is often the only English sentence they know, so they say it over and over.

Sometimes I just climb up in a mango tree to read. It's the only place where 50 kids can't surround me.

The Botanical Gardens

This Sunday we went to the Botanical Gardens. It was started by the British (when Malawi was a colony) and is now run by the government. It's a place with lots of streams and trees and beautiful flowers and bushes, plus a lot of monkeys. We sometimes go there to have a day off and enjoy nature. We also celebrated my brother's 8th birthday there.  It's fun to imagine that this a place out of a movie, like Pirates of the Caribbeans, Narnia, or another fantasy movie, because there are lots of old bridges with missing boards, jungle, and big rocks you could just imagine there was a cave inside.

MR. OWL

Awhile back I decided to take an early morning stroll. As I was walking I saw Evans (one of our guard/ gardeners) , he started talking rapidly in Chichewa (the local language)  I did not understand . He brought me to his house and emerged with a live owl! I ran to get my mom and dad and they were just as amazed as I was. Our gardener explained that the owl had gotten stuck on the barbed wire on the top of our fence. The owl had flapped its wings trying to get away and you could see feathers on the wire. My dad put it in a card board box and later we brought it to a friend, who tried to help it, but it was too badly injured and they had to put it down. He may not have been very healthy anyway, because we saw that his poop had all kinds of slugs in it, not their normal diet.

mowing the lawn

Here in Malawi people don't mow their lawn like people in north America do. They slash the grass with grass slashers.  Now how do I explain this.....? A grass slasher is a metal stick with a knife on the end. Umm.... Here's a video.

EVER EATEN A RAT?

Well, first I have to explain that we have a gardener/guard who is living with his family in our back yard. His oldest son, Little Evans we call him, often plays with us, and today he had a new surprise, rats on a stick! Here in Malawi rats are a problem so when they get their hands on one they'll hit it with a club, fry it, and eat it. Anyway, today they found two or three and ate them for lunch. They also found eleven baby rats, still blind and unable to move. When rats are fried they look disgusting!

FOWLTOPIA

No I don't mean foul as in foul smelling. I mean fowl as in chicken. English spelling is quite foul wouldn't you agree? Anyway we got ducklings and chicks! We bought the six ducklings on a mini getaway. And the chicks we bought from a local store. My dad had asked for 25 day old chicks but they gave us 26 since some usually die. And it is a good thing they did, because one has already died (but that's normal). I think I like the ducklings better because they are about five weeks old and because they ahhh.... do more than eat,sleep and poop which smells foul.

KAMBA

Awhile back Evans {one of our gardeners} was slashing grass outside our yard and found a tortoise. He brought it to our porch where me and my family were sitting and showed it to us. Us kids begged to be allowed to keep it in a enclosure and finally mom and dad relented. So me and my brother set out to build a cage.We decided we would build it out of  broken bricks (which are plantiful here) and that we didn't need mortar. After a while we got tired and decided to take a break. I figured the tortoise was so scared he would stay were he was for the time being. But I was wrong and he escaped. Now, we have a wall around our yard so usually it would be ok but our yard is BIG.We have found him twice since then and we named him Kamba which means tortoise in Chichewa, the local language. We are now building him a cage with mortar and bricks so that he can't escape next time. I love the nature in our back yard.