Relaxing at Kissama

We decided to have a relaxing visit to Kissama on our early close Friday. It seemed like ages since we’d last been & we were aware that as summer got closer, it would be more unpleasant to go camping. We also knew that it simply couldn’t compare with our safari experience in Tanzania, but the thought of having a relaxing couple of days out in the country was still very tempting.

We packed up the chilly-bin with lunch and the food to cook for our dinner & breakfast & made sure that we had lots of anti-mosquito stuff (which we’d regrettably forgotten the last time). For a single overnight, we sure had a big load of stuff. Because it was a “long” weekend, transport was at a premium, so we shared our 4-wheeled drive with Mara, Rodrigo and Angela who were headed for the Kwanza river lodge & beach for the day. It was a bit of a squeeze, with Angela sitting in the back, but it was manageable.

We dropped the day-trippers off first & then drove on to the park. Although the weather was very dry in Luanda, you could tell it was much wetter this far south. There was quite a bit of road-works on the drive into the park – a normal car would have been able to manage fine, until we reached the end of it. We couldn’t decide what it was all for – whether the plan was to slowly improve the road all the way to the park grounds, or whether something else on the way in was being planned.

As usual, we were the only campers & as the weather seemed a bit dodgy, we decided we’d better get the tent up quickly. We decided we’d do only one safari trip – and that would be the morning one. We took our books and our packed lunch into the big jango and made ourselves comfortable for a relaxing afternoon. We were asked several times by the park guys if we wanted to go on the afternoon safari trip – I think they thought we didn’t understand them as they clearly thought our head-shaking to be quite weird. However, as the afternoon progressed, we were soon glad we hadn’t gone on the truck as big thunder clouds gathered on the horizon & soon it was starting to rain. We got chased out of the jango as the weather further deteriorated & they collected the cushions to keep them out of the rain. We returned our chilly bin to the tent & made sure everything there was under cover and then hit the bar. Hardly a minute too soon – the sky got dark & thunder and lightning became much closer. The rain just bucketed down. We were sooo glad we weren’t sitting on the back of the safari truck with nothing warm to wear & minimal protection from the elements! As it was, the bar was a great place to sit and watch the storm. Visibility dropped right away as the storm got closer & the rain harder. It was quite exhilarating watching it all!

Eventually the storm moved on and visibility improved. It was getting on & we needed to make a start on our evening meal before it got much darker. We were feeling a bit lazy, so we thought we’d check out the restaurant. We asked to see a menu, but of course there wasn’t one – instead it looked to be a buffet – with nothing vegetarian. We resigned ourselves to cooking for ourselves & set about looking for a table to take up to the jango by the campsite. This wasn’t that easy as there were hardly any tables, & they were really dirty. But we didn’t fancy cooking on the floor either, so we took the “cleanest” table and carried it up to the jango. The jango was also noticeably worse for wear – there were large holes in the thatch, but fortunately the light still worked & the jango itself wasn’t too messy. We set up all our food & got out the trangia to make a cup of tea & horror of horrors, discovered that the burner was missing from it! We looked at each other in dismay – we already knew the restaurant wasn’t an option & everything we had needed to be cooked. However, after that initial panic, we looked around at what we had – we decided we’d try putting alcohol in the metal lid of our Tabard anti-mosquito candles. The flame was a bit wild & not the hottest, but we were able to use the trangia and boil our water & then cook our meal. We felt rather proud of ourselves for our ingenuity! (Although we’ll never grab a trangia again without checking the inside first.)

We went to bed relatively early (not much to do in the pitch dark after you’ve eaten) and had a so-so night. Somehow mosquitoes got into the tent during the night & neither of us slept very well. This wasn’t helped by the very late arrival by a group of French guys in several identical cars who seemed to drive around in circles & then put up their tents way to close to ours (why did they do that when the campground was empty?). They took over the jango, so in the morning when we got up we went straight to join the first safari trip of the day. There seemed to be a big group of people wanting to go – but Bill & I have learnt from experience to get on board the second we can so we get the seats we want. In the end, one group went off in their own car with a ranger with them.

We saw an eland early on & then lots of giraffes. We also saw some kudu and lots of bushbuck of course. Then more giraffes, & then not that much else. Definitely no rival to Selous! Bill is ready to never go on another safari there again, but we’ve had much better days (& admittedly worse ones) & I think the randomness is part of its appeal. It’s a shame it is becoming so expensive – around $40 for the tent site (& with facilities getting grottier…) and $30 each for the bone-jarring, skin scratching ex-army truck safari. But the location remains so relaxing and peaceful – maybe we’ll restrict ourselves to day trips in future. It would be sad not to go back!

The jango was free for us to make our breakfast when we got back from the safari & as the weather still looked a bit dodgy, we decided to take the tent down early as we didn’t want to have to take it down in the rain. We set ourselves up in the jango again with our books & waited for the driver to come to take us home. Not much photography this time, but lots of relaxing & we both enjoyed our time chilling.

Rufiji River birdlife

I always take lots of photos of birds – many of which just don’t turn out. However, Selous was great for birds as well as mammals – I saw at least 3 different types of bee-eater, we saw spoonbills, open billed storks, herons, hornbills, Egyptian geese, and lots of different raptors. At the campsite I saw woodpeckers and woodland kingfishers, and one evening I even saw an owl.

Selous Safari

For our October holiday we take advantage of being in Africa by spending time with Bill’s boys in Tanzania. Fortunately they get almost identical school holidays as us, so we are able to spend as much of the holidays as we can with them. Of course, it takes a couple of days to get there – we have to overnight in Johannesburg, as there isn’t a connecting flight through to Dar. And then, the flight isn’t until the afternoon, so we decided we’d pick up the boys the morning after we arrived rather than trying to do it the evening we flew in. Just as well as it turned out, as our flight out of Jo’burg was delayed due to a big thunder and lightning storm & we didn’t get into our hotel in Dar until quite late in the evening. However, the hotel restaurant was still open so we were able to have a curry (always a treat) before crashing. This was our first trip out of Luanda with the “new” system at the airport – the departures section is a big tent, but still a HUGE improvement on the old set-up. We were able to go into the check-in part as soon as we arrived (no more amorphous mobs trying to get through) and despite the lines being incorrectly labelled, we were able to check-in & go through customs relatively painlessly. We’d only got our passports back with our up-to-date visas about 2 weeks earlier (we’d started to get quite stressed) but some teachers weren’t so lucky – we’d supposed to have shared our bus to the airport with Joel and Mara, but Mara’s passport still hadn’t come back! So it was thrilling to suddenly see them in the departures lounge – they’d been able to pick up her passport (with visa) that morning & still make it to the airport in time for their flight! Some other teachers got their passports at the same time, but they had cancelled their flights thinking it wouldn’t happen in time! The whole visa renewal process has been a disaster this year – for the first time, some of the teachers (and administrators) who were renewing for their third (or more) year got “blue stamps” meaning they wouldn’t be renewed for the following year. But these were random – some people renewing for 5th year didn’t get them, others have just one out of a couple getting them & even one teacher just renewing for the second time got one! School is going to try to sort it out as the current situation is about 25 people who theoretically can’t come back next year!

Anyway – the boys arrived at our hotel in time for breakfast. We’d asked them what they wanted to do for the holiday – go to the beach in Zanzibar (like last year), or go on safari. Despite the numerous safaris’ they have been on (they are very lucky boys), they were adamant that’s what they wanted to do with us. They also told us they hadn’t been very impressed with the northern safaris they’d been on, so we decided to take them somewhere closer to Dar. Their mother recommended Selous as being a good park relatively close by, so after investigating a variety of places, we’d booked 3 nights at Rufiji River Camp (http://www.rufijirivercamp.com/)
– it caters for children (which a lot of places don’t) and it had the most reasonable packages (but still expensive – safari doesn’t come cheap!). We’d booked flights to get there & on our second day with the boys we headed off to the airport. The airplane that we were flying with had warned us that only small soft bags would be taken, so we left the bigger & harder bags at the hotel. The check-in was very informal & pleasant & then we were getting on our plane! It was about a 14 seater – and almost every seat was full. Bill doesn’t like such little planes, but it was exciting sitting in the same space as the pilot & we had good seats next to the windows. What I love about small planes is that you fly low – so you get great aerial views. The flight itself was about 35 minutes – long enough to be exciting without getting boring. The best part was as we got close to landing – we flew over the Rufiji River, and as we got lower, Enzo and I spotted a group of elephants getting shade under a tree & we could see heaps of hippos in the river. The airstrip was just dirt amongst the trees and as we were landing we saw a giraffe along the runway! And as we turned to taxi back to the “arrivals hut” we saw baboons casually making their way across the runway. How cool!

We were the only ones getting off at this camp – the others were flying onto to another place. We were met by a very friendly man from the camp, and the arrival formalities only took about 15 minutes. Then we were loaded into a jeep and as we were driven to our accommodation we saw impalas, a ground hornbill, a glossy ibis – not bad for just a 5 minute trip!

At the resort we checked in, shown around the place and taken to our “tents”. It was obvious that we would need to have a child each in each tent as hippos walked around the grounds at night, as well as the occasional elephant. We couldn’t risk the boys sleeping by themselves & forgetting that it was dangerous to go outside. As it was, to go to dinner at night, we needed to signal to one of the Maasai guards to come & get us to escort us from our tents to dinner and back again!

The resort was all inclusive – the cost included 2 safaris’ a day as well as all our meals. The people running the place were fantastic – we’d let them know that Bill & I were vegetarians so they made separate food for us for each meal, and they asked us every day what the boys wanted to eat for dinner, and made special meals for them as well. They also let us eat slightly earlier at night as their regular time for dinner was just a bit late for the boys after a full day.

Our first “safari” was a boat trip the afternoon we arrived – the resort is built on a narrow projection of land out into the river, so it was essentially surrounded by water except at the “back” of the resort. Our tents were right on the edge of a cliff (just a bit scary) overlooking the river and the hippos basking in it. The boat trip was a couple of hours – we went past lots of hippos and over 20 crocodiles – they were all out basking in the late afternoon sun. We saw waterbuck and buffalo on the banks at the side of the river, as well as lots of wading birds. On our way back we saw a lone bull elephant right by the cliff edge – a very exciting end to our trip.

The next day we met our driver and our tracker/guide Oscar who would be with us for the rest of our time. The guys were great with the boys – especially Oscar who made a real point of talking to them directly and taught them so much about what we were seeing. The boys had a short wish list (they had already seen so much) – they wanted to see wild dogs (they hadn’t seen any before & Selous is famous for having half of all the wild dogs in Africa) and also a leopard (which they had seen before, but not up close). We were in a jeep to ourselves & within half an hour we’d seen our first wild dogs and a herd of elephants crossing the road in front of us! It was a great day – a bit later we were along the river’s edge and happened to be in time to see the same herd of elephants we’d seen earlier come down to the river to drink & meet up with another herd of elephants. We were able to get out of our jeep & go down to the water’s edge to see them cross the water & then push each other up the bank on the far side. We saw lots of birds – raptors & lots of different types of bee-eaters as well as water birds. On the afternoon game drive after lunch we found a hippo skull & Oscar very kindly helped the boys remove the gigantic tusks still in place. He said the boys could keep them – they got a long & short tusk each – definitely one of the trip’s highlights for the boys!

The campsite had lots of birds as well – more bee-eaters, kingfishers, hornbills and smaller birds such as weavers. There was also a troop of vervet monkeys that walked though the grounds in the afternoon & again first thing in the morning. They had lots of females with young monkeys and the second morning when Lucca & I tried to walk to Bill’s tent next door, we were attacked by some very aggressive males as we came out of our tent. I managed to scare them away & get Lucca safely into Bill’s tent without either of us being bitten but it scared us both - & I think we must have scared them when we came out of our tent just while they were passing by a bit close.

The second full day we choose to take a picnic lunch & drive out a bit further. This paid off, as we came across a leopard in a tree. We parked right under the tree – we could see the leopard panting we were so close. We’d only been there a few minutes when the leopard suddenly got up & ran down the tree & walked around between it & our jeep – we were so close that it was a bit scary – we were in an open jeep with two little boys & that leopard sure was big and powerful! It just ignored us however, & soon moved off. We followed it for a bit & then lost it – you’d think it would be impossible to “lose” a big cat you knew was close by, but their camouflage is so effective that even experienced trackers like Oscar couldn’t find it again. We gave up on the leopard & not very much later found a group of lions – one male & several lionesses sleeping under a palm tree. Once again we able to get very close – the lion watched us for a bit but then just put his head down – the lionesses never looked up once! As if a leopard & a group of lions wasn’t enough, we then found a big group of wild dogs & watched them for a while. Like the lions, they were mostly lying in the shade resting – a whole mob of them. We also saw a monitor lizard, which Lucca enjoyed (& me – monitors are a favourite of mine). As well as lots of zebra, wildebeest, giraffes and impala, we also saw lots of kudu – which the boys also hadn’t seen before. We saw a black heron using its wings as an umbrella so it could see the fish against the glare – something I’d only seen on TV, so that was another treat for me too. Our picnic was wonderful – a table & chairs complete with tablecloth, glasses for our drinks & lots of tasty food. We’d had such a good day. We came back to camp after lunch & the boys swam in the pool (despite its rather cold temperature).

Our last day we choose to take an early safari - & we saw lots of waterbuck – a rather unfortunate animal with a big white bull’s eye that seems to be painted on its bottom! We also saw an immature bateleur (a type of raptor) playing with what I think was a piece of twig. We saw a spotted hyena – it literally came out of a ditch right in front of us, and more giraffes than you’d think possible. Our flight back to Dar had been delayed until after lunch – mainly so the pilot could have lunch at our resort! We were driven out to the airstrip ( with the pilot) after lunch & much to our amazement, we were shown to a tiny 6-seater plane – the boys had to flip a coin to see who was going to sit in the co-pilot’s seat! Enzo won & sat in the front, Bill & I were behind & Lucca had the back seat to himself – a bit like the back seat of a car. The 35 minute trip went really fast – the pilot even let Enzo steer the plane for a bit!

We had another full day with the boys – Bill went with them to the beach to have some time with them alone while I did some (mostly window) shopping in a tourist complex. Our holiday was over in what seemed like no time at all, but when we stopped & thought back on all we’d seen and done, it also seemed impossible that had been so short!

Bill & I had an early flight back to Jo’burg & once again needed to overnight before we could fly back to Luanda. We stayed in a hotel close to a shopping mall & bought a heap of food & other stuff (lots of cheese) to take back with us. The flight back was uneventful but as always we had a very long wait at immigration & then still had to wait longer for our bags (how they can take 3 hours to unload one planes luggage is more than I can understand). However, the bags did show up (always a relief after losing our bags at Christmas) & we were back home again in good time. We’d had a wonderful holiday with the boys that everyone had enjoyed – you couldn’t ask for more!

Mussulu, Finally

We were invited to have a picnic on Mussulu by Kim and Tomi & as we’d never actually been there, eagerly accepted. We’d read and heard about Mussulu long before we’d first arrived – how teachers would get a boat across to the beach & spend the day away from school. It had sounded idyllic. But once we arrived, we’d been tempted by beaches much further afield and had never got around to checking Mussulu out. Mussulu is a very long sand-spit connected to the main coast a bit south of the slavery museum, but by a very bad road. Most people take boats across. It is very long and runs north parallel to the coast for about 30 – 40 kms. The Ilha in the city is similar, just much shorter.

It is very easy to get to from Luanda Sol, as one of the main “ferry” departure points is less than 15 minutes from school. (The other main place to get boats across to Mussulu is by the slavery museum). Kim and family arrived with Bora and Tina and Tari’s family as well. Also there were some other friends of Tomi and Tari who were coming too. Eventually everyone arrived with all the barbeques and chilly bins (cool boxes) and drinks etc. We needed 2 boats to get us & our gear across – but fortunately, once we landed we only had to carry stuff a few minutes up the beach into the shade.

We set up our “stake” and the guys got the barbeques up & lit. There was a “fish” barbeque and a “vegetarian” barbeque as well. The kids got coated in sunscreen & then they hit the beach. The section of Mussulu that we were on was quite narrow – we headed away from the city side to the other side which was actually facing a lagoon – just a few minutes walk. Unfortunately there was a lot of broken glass lying around in the sand & you had to be very careful where you walked. But the sea was very gentle and ideal for the kids to play in – even Sami.

Bill & I walked around the edge of the lagoon towards a large flock of sea birds. We couldn’t get very close to them without walking a long way around, so we contented ourselves with standing on the beach opposite them, taking photos as they spooked themselves into the air occasionally. There were egrets, herons, sea gulls and lots of smaller sea birds as well. Each species seemed to have their own piece of territory along the stretch of beach they were sitting on.

The barbeque was great – a local man came along & insisted on helping with the barbeque – we rewarded him with a big plate of cooked fish and salad for him & his friends. The kids had a great time & it was relaxing for the adults as well. After lunch Bill & I walked in the opposite direction – away from the lagoon & to a wider stretch of sand where more birds were nesting. The view of the city in the immediate background made the beach scene a bit surreal.

At the time we’d asked, one boat showed up to take us back – we caught that along with some of the other friends who’d come along & before we knew it we were back in our apartment. Although the beach was by far the dirtiest we’d been to, the sheer convenience of getting there & home again was a big factor in its favour. The nicest part really was the getting together with friends and having such a nice day!

Beaches North and South

After a winter holiday in NZ, hitting the beach in Angola seemed very attractive. The last weekend of August we joined a group of others going to Cabo Ledo for the day. At the last minute Bill decided he would go by bike – with me in the van along with our picnic and beach chair etc. We made sure our phones were working (always an issue as they expire in only 2 weeks regardless of how much credit you have) and he set off just after I left. He caught us up just as we started to emerge from the traffic around the slavery museum & he followed us for a while. Then he went ahead as he wanted us behind him in case anything went wrong while he was crossing the bridge (with all the security checks there). However he wasn’t stopped so the next time we saw him was taking a photo of the Kissama National Park sign. He arrived at the beach about 10 minutes after we did – quite exhausted from the long trip. I was very glad to see him as I’d been quite worried about the traffic & how they tend to ignore motorcycles as if they don’t exist.

The beach was great – still not too hot to sit out in the sun during the day, but the water was freezing cold. The surfers were undeterred though – they had headed out several hours earlier than us beach bunnies. Around lunch time a group of dolphins came past – very close to shore. It was very cool! The surfers (who go almost every weekend) had never seen them so close. We went for a walk under the cliffs and saw lots of fossils. Bill left about 2 so that he wouldn’t hit bad traffic back in Luanda & we left about an hour later. Bill got home safely with minimal traffic jams, although we weren’t so lucky. He enjoyed taking the bike for a long run, but felt it was really just a bit too far in total.

The following weekend the two of us went to Shipwreck beach by ourselves. Despite leaving early, the driver took us through Luanda a different way – right through the middle of a market – and it took forever. The beach itself is always great – we decided to walk left instead of right as we usually do, although we had to back-track to find a nice place to sit and eat our picnic. We stopped by the war memorial on our way back – it is just as impressive the second time around. We noticed that bats are living behind the wall panels – they must be very small as we could only see small gaps. We returned the same way we’d come (we thought that maybe roadworks had closed the usual route) and it was terribly slow getting back. Slow enough even for me to read – something I can’t normally do in a moving car due to motion sickness. However, it had been a nice day out.

Our NZ Winter Holiday

July 09
We spent the first 5 days of our holiday in the North Island - visiting friends and family in Auckland and Leigh (north of Auckland). Then we flew to Blenheim in the South Island to visit my mum. She had organised a campervan for us, so we did a 10 day trip around the highlights of the South Island - whale watching, hiking in Mt Cook National Park, checking out lots of stunning NZ lakes & climbing on Fox Glacier. It was simply a fantastic holiday & the weather was good to us to (amazing considering it is winter & the weather had been dreadful before we arrived. We'll definately be back.

Back to School – Lots of Changes

August 09
View from our Balcony

Well, after a truly great holiday that just seemed to last forever (nearly 4 weeks with the boys & Bill’s family in Manchester followed by about 3 weeks in NZ with my family), we checked into Manchester Airport last Friday and started the trip back to Luanda.

Bill bought 20 soccer balls for his football team & we went mad in the supermarket the day before we left, so we had 4 checked bags + Bills bicycle. Check-in at British Airways is always so easy – no hassles & the bike went free as an added bonus. Even better, we didn’t need to change terminals at Heathrow so that was a smooth turn-around too.

The flight had many more women & children on it than the flight we made just more than a year ago – an indication of how the country is changing I guess. When we arrived (3am, 4am?) we were very surprised to see that the arrivals hall has been made much larger so the queuing seemed more orderly. Also the air conditioning was working as well. The best part of flying BA is that it is the only flight to arrive at that time, so there are no back-logs of people and even the luggage came out reasonably fast.

Bill was concerned about being hit with import tax for the soccer balls & that his bicycle would make customs more likely to stop him. So when we had all our bags together, he went out first with a bag of clothes and the bike, while I followed him out 5 minutes later with the other three bags. Of course they opened the bag with the balls in it (all bags were x-rayed as a matter of course – another first for our Luanda airport experiences) but when they found out I didn’t speak Portuguese and didn’t have the receipt for the balls on me (a lesson for future packing to put receipts into relevant suitcases), they gave up and let me go. Outside was Tony B (there to pick up his wife, but still good to see him) and an empty carpark. The car park expansion had just been recently finished and the barrier arm that let cars into the park had broken earlier in the night – so no one had been able to get into the airport to pick up relatives etc, and traffic was backed-up at the entrance of the airport for ages. Fortunately, we were able to just push our luggage trolleys out of the car-park & the school buses were there on the outside to pick us up. We were on our way back to the school in really a very quick time. Another big advantage of the BA flight is that there is no traffic on the roads so early in the morning, so the trip to school only takes 20 minutes or so – much faster than the hour or more it takes during the day.

We got back to school & our “house” – it had been cleaned during the holidays & it surprised us how much it felt like “home”. It was good to be back in our own place instead of staying with others – no matter how comfortable and welcome we had felt there. There is no time difference between the UK and Angola at the moment, but we’d only arrived in the UK from NZ two days before we flew out again and we were still feeling a bit jet-lagged & tired from all the flying we had done over the previous few days.

We spent the weekend sorting out the house (all our electrical and music stuff had been locked into the bedroom) and getting the basics restocked again. (The fridge and freezer had to be emptied out over the holidays, so we had no milk etc waiting for us). We unpacked the bags, Bill re-constructed his bicycle and despite the fact that it didn’t go first time, got the motorcycle working as well.

Monday was back to school – meeting the new teachers & getting keys for classrooms to get them ready. However, Monday was a day of meetings & we were both booked onto a first aid training course all day Thursday & Friday, so the actual amount of preparation time didn’t feel quite adequate.

Bill was made Head of Science (he’d applied right at the end of last year), which meant he had more to organise than usual. I was putting together a booklet for the MYP math classes, so we were both busy with departmental stuff.

The first aid course was busy – it totally ate up all of Thursday & Friday and everyone found the exam at the end confusing (it had been translated from Portuguese & the questions were poorly worded), but in the end we both passed. I haven’t done first aid training since I left Japan, so I was pleased to be current again. However the time we lost meant that we had to go back to school on Sunday afternoon to get our rooms ready.

The biggest surprise of the week was Di telling us early on Wednesday morning that one of the apartments was available because the teacher who was in it had decided he didn’t like it and wanted to move back to campus. Of course there was another couple we needed to go into a draw for the apartment – we’d lost out in all the previous draws, so weren’t feeling particularly optimistic. We had the draw at lunch time – Bill sent me as he’d been unlucky in previous draws & much to my amazement we won!!!!

We had to shift on Saturday so we booked a bus for 9am, borrowed lots of plastic storage bins to move with & we managed to have most of it packed up by 9am Saturday morning (we did have to get up early to achieve it). Friday night had been the staff barbeque with the board members and to everyone’s horror, the empty field across the road from the school was converted into a temporary church meeting – hundreds of people arrived and some sort of sermon was broadcast at maximum volume – it was impossible to sleep even though we were dead tired & had gone to bed early. Fortunately they turned the speakers off before midnight so we did get some sleep – but it was an ironic last night on campus – the normal peace & quiet well & truly shattered.

The shift went almost effortlessly – Tomi came to help & the driver was a huge help as well – the whole move took less than 2 hours. I’d been at home packing, so my first look at our new apartment was with it filled with boxes, but what a treat – 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and so much space……

We spent the rest of Saturday unpacking and organising. We don’t get a cleaner come to the flats the way we did on campus, but instead we get an extra $400 a month to cover the cost of supplies & a cleaner if we want one. We decided to try to clean ourselves & save the money – but also decided that buying a vacuum cleaner for $100 would be a good investment. We headed off to Shoprite on Saturday afternoon, not sure how busy it would be, but knowing that we had a ton of cleaning stuff we needed to buy. It was our first Shoprite visit since returning (Bill had been buying bits and pieces on his forays on the motorbike, so we’d been able to put it off), and I have to say, we were pleasantly surprised – Shoprite had the best selection of stuff we’ve ever seen there, the crowds weren’t too bad & the whole experience was quite painless. We even got our vacuum cleaner there!

One of our buys was a bottle of champagne – we’ve been celebrating our Angolan milestones with champagne since our champagne picnic lunch in Regents Park, London the day we got our visa – with a follow-up bottle the dawn we arrived a year ago. We haven’t had one since – coming back for our second year hadn’t seemed momentous enough, but without doubt, moving into our new 3rd floor apartment (with a view out over Luanda Sol) certainly was!

The weekend passed at record speed & to be honest I didn’t feel as organised for classes as I normally like to be. However, this last week with the kids back has gone by remarkably quickly, and it has been great to see the kids again & to meet new students. The week was pretty uneventful – we had a productive MYP meeting on Thursday after school organising linkages between different departments. The admin are also determined to crack down on dress code “abuse”, which certainly led to some interesting discussions in my homeroom on Friday afternoon. The whiff of a uniform is in the air….

This weekend has been more of the same – final unpacking of bags & organising the flat – we moved our dining room table into one of the spare bedrooms so we could use it as a study big enough for the two of us (the apartment does have a little office/study but it just isn’t big enough for both of us to work in at the same time). We needed to take some legs off the table to get it into the room we wanted, but we are thrilled with the end result – we have a huge table to do our work on & the living room is wide open with lots of space.

Other delights of the apartment include our own washing machine – no more using the shared laundry – and (a real treat) a dishwasher! We have a balcony that looks out over the street, & although it is a bit noisy and dusty, it is fine for drying clothes and we are thinking about getting a small barbeque for out there. We’ll buy some pots & potting mix (if we can) and see if we can’t grow some of the seeds we have too. We are still pinching ourselves about being here – it’s been a week but it still feels slightly unreal.