Mozambique: First impressions

Blog 1: First Impressions!

 by SERVE Volunteers Rachel Bourke and Megan Porter

We’ve only been here in Beira a couple of days and so far we’ve already had so many new experiences. It began with introducing ourselves to local children and students through an extremely competitive game of football which eventually led to having a puck around with other local children. Kilkenny hurling team should watch out because there is some serious talent over here! We dived right into the culture by sampling some local cuisine – “Xima” (pronounced ‘sheema’) and beans which is fab, but most of us haven’t quite mastered the art of eating it with our hands without looking like a clumsy toddler! Fending for ourselves has been a really cool experience-from hand washing our own clothes, to starting fires from scratch and creating our own mosquito net canopies, it has been a steep learning curve for everyone! Our training days in Dublin prepared us well for these new experiences however nothing could prepare us for the strange effects of the malaria tablets; which have seen people have full conversations in their sleep as well as having some very vivid “trippy” dreams.

Finally, some of the hostel girls brought us on a tour around the streets of Manga, so named because of the mango trees which come to fruition in the summer time. As you can imagine we attracted some attention walking through the streets, and soon had a swarm of curious, smiling children join us as we walked all around the village.

We’re all really enjoying the rest now as we get to know our new home and each other before the hard work starts tomorrow. We’re itching to start the construction of the kitchen in the crèche in Beira as well as renovating the computer room in Dondo; projects which are only possible due to the generous donations of our friends and family back home!

We’ll keep you updated on our progress in our next blog which is coming soon! Let the hard work begin!

Mozambique Team 2015