Goodbyes, welcomes, and a week of teaching to ‘care’ and ‘share’! Monday 30th July- Saturday 4th August

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I have had another great week here (although it’s pretty hard not to!)

Monday was an emotional day, as we had to say goodbye to a big group of volunteers. It’s amazing how quickly you form a bond with people here, even after only knowing them for a week or two, and there were lots of tears as we waved goodbye. On Monday afternoon we welcomed the next group of volunteers, and all had a lovely evening down at the river jetty where we had sunset drinks and started to form new bonds!

I started working at a Ndabenhle Crèche this week. It’s been great, but challenging and a very different experience from Inkanyezi Crèche last week! There’s a much greater range of ages at Ndabenhle, from babies to 5 and 6 year olds. Many of the children also need more care and attention, and they haven’t had much structure or behaviour management at the crèche. As you can imagine, I was very keen to get stuck in and use my teaching experience to make a difference!

The volunteers supporting me were great, too, and we had a successful week of modelling positive behaviour, sharing and looking after each other. It was brilliant, and there was definitely a change in many of the children. I was receiving a lot more hugs on Thursday and Friday than I had on Monday!

It was also interesting to see how the culture here has an unfortunate effect on the behaviour of some children- They have such a huge responsibility from a young age when they having to care for younger siblings, meaning that many children don’t receive individual attention and feel they have to fight for it. This, however, seems to contrast with the independence of many of the babies at the crèche- Most of them are not more than 18 months old, but are left to wander around the play area with the older children, perfectly content and amazingly resilient! Something you would never see in England…

I formed a particular bond with one little boy who was very quiet at the beginning of the week, but each day I spent time with him and gave him some individual attention, he became more confident and interacted much more. I would very happily take him away with me if I could! I have requested to work at Ndabenhle again in my final week, as I have become very attached to the children there and would like to support more of their progress before I leave.

I am really enjoying living at Papaya (the house that I share with a group of volunteers). We also share this area with a group of monkeys, which provides constant entertainment! It’s great to be working with African Impact again and after a relaxing weekend in St. Lucia this weekend, with some of my particular friends on the project, I’m looking forward to more challenges and successes next week.

It will be brilliant to be back in Mozambique in a couple of weeks, but I’m also really giving everything to the projects here, as I know I shall be very sad to leave St. Lucia when the time comes…

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