Mozambique and my last week at Project St Lucia

I have had the most amazing 9 days. last weekend myself and three friends from St lucia decided to go to Mozambique for the weekend - just because we could!! how fab is that. we were driven there by a surfer dude Peter, who arranged a turtle conservation tour on the Saturday evening - which i will come back to in a minute - two dolphin conservation tours on the Sunday which were unbelieveably amazing and the opportunity to watch England get absolutely slaughtered by the South Africans at rugby on the TV in the beach bar surrounded by 20 or so South AFricans!!!!! Mozambique and Pont du Oure was 3 hours from St Lucia - so about as long as it takes to get out of NOrfolk on a Saturday! the beach was superb with a really good surf although we decided we would just watch the surfers from our sunbathing position rather than join them and potentially die in the current! having been working hard in St Lucia, painting, building bricks, digging, and teaching all week, this was a real holiday! Katy was adamant we would watch the rugby and decided to declare her support for England very loudly despite severe looks and shouts of abuse from the SA's there! Thought it was going to get ugly at one point but we managed to give as good as we got abuse wise and that soon shut them up (some werent that bright!). We then ran after the final whistle with a reminder from me that its not really a proper game anyway and wait until 2010 when we shall show them what sport really is!!! The turtle tour was amazing, we were walking along the beach in the dark for several hours looking for loggerhead turtles coming ashore to lay eggs. they only do this for10-17 days of the year and they hate being disturbed before they lay the eggs, so we were creeping around. we then came across Joyce (we named her), i was too busy talking and nearly tripped over all 1metre square of her but thankfully didnt! , we waited patiently for over an hour whilst she made her way up to the top of the beach away from the sea to lay eggs, then saw her digg a massive hole and lay over 80 eggs. it was awesome. Although we had nearly all fallen asleep by then waiting, as we'd been up since 4.30am and that was off the back of going to bed after a bit of a party night at 2am! We also had to tag her as its part of the monitoring they are doing to try and save the species that are being poached for their shells! that was a struggle, she was strong and large but finally tagged and named Joyce. We got back to the beach hut at about 1 only to be awoken by crabs trying to get in to the hut, lizards running around and other things that I just didnt want to think about. we were up for 5.30am for the first dolphin boat trip. we had to identify their fins and help with the monitoring. it was fantastic. and yes i cried. i love dolphins. we saw loads including a baby dolphin learning to swim - quite literally! then we saw one just dive out of the water 3 or 4 metres high and back in! wow! i cried again! im such a girl! there was a hope we could swim with them but they werent in the mood due to the baby and I think they were feeding too so it wasnt good. We went back out at 9am and mum introduced us to the baby dolphin! but when the baby got to close to the boat mum gave her a massive whack! i could watch them for hours. they didnt seem to what us to swim with them so we moved on and then had a swim , but the dolphins - 10-15 i suppose, joined us within minutes! the water vis wasnt great 2-3m so was a bit nerve wracking wondering what the fin was coming towards you, but so awesome, they were monitoring us we think!!! within half a metre from me, swimming around and underneath us! what a feeling, absolutely the best thing ever! i obviously cried! to stop our cries of "ahhhh!" we returned to the beach for an afternoon of hectic sunbathing! quite exhausting!
Then back to work - it is quite literally hard work. ive missed a few lunches to get to the internet in town - as just no time otherwise. sadly the lack of lunches hasnt made any difference to weight as Katrina's evening cooking is superb - damn that good cooking! I carried on painting in the afternoons this week, we managed to totally paint the info building in Khula whihc was massive only to be told afterwards it wasnt that building, but heck it looks good! did the right building the day after! Dr Sarah was back for Wednesdays clinic with more blood pressure taking including her own which wasnt good! ah the stress of travelling! then finally Friday was probably the most memorable day ive ever had. only 46 children turned up to the daycare in the morning, so rather than dull teaching, we piled them into the truck and combi and headed to the estuary to see the hippos and crocs and then to the beach for a morning of getting absolutely soaked in teh sea! they live 6 or so miles away from the beach and estuary but most had never been! i have never seen or heard them soooooooo excited! they couldnt stop chattering and laughing! definitely the best moment ever! im so sad to have left today although pleased to now be with Sam in Durban, but i would have loved to have stayed. Andrew who runs the project wanted me to stay on to help work for a few more weeks as he was a few employees short due to ilness etc, but i just didnt have the time with the other project starting the 7th December and I still wanted to see more of SA. im going to go back sometime though. It was such a fantastic privilege to work with those children, the people of Khula and hopefully make a small difference to some of their lives! the people I was with on the project were just the best. its too hard to describe, but I would highly highly recommend it. Trying to work out if I can return in 2010 about June or July when the world cups on!!!!
So now off down the GArden Route to see some more of SA, including the Shark Diving!!! i shall keep you all posted. cant believe its been 5 weeks since I left!x

Mozambique and my last week at Project St Lucia

Durban, South Africa