Moving On...

I thought I’d have lots of emotions to write eloquently, or not, about in this post, but the truth is I’m feeling quite emotionless at the moment with 1.5 days to go.

It’s been busy busy this week with 16 adeptos (field workers) here. I managed to give most of my teaching session on pumps in Portuguese and I think they understood! I was also interviewed/grilled as an example in a session on marriage and dating which I decided would be handled more delicately if I spoke English and Rebecca translated! It was an eye opening session, with so many issues coming up!

I am so in awe of the work that the Vida team have done in the Diocese. It’s been a real inspiration to me and so encouraging seeing how much is possible with a team of enthusiastic and community-centred people. The adeptos have spent the last 4 days solid filling in forms listing all the work that has been done in the last year in areas of agriculture, small animal farming, caring for orphaned children, advocacy, HIV prevention, wells, financial management and care of vulnerable people and more besides. These extraordinary people are improving hundreds of lives in Mozambique, though they don’t appear to realise it! The equipas de vida which exist to implement most of this work in the communities are volunteers giving up their free time to improve life in their village. It’s incredible and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of any other organisation which has 4 people in the office, reaching this number of people on such a level. It’s been a real privilege to work with Rebecca over the last 3 months and gain an appreciation of her endless dedication to her work and I have so much admiration for her.

Before I arrived current work on water supply was restricted to advising communities to hand dig wells if they needed water. In the last three months we’ve run a pilot project for digging boreholes and have trained a number of communities in the maintenance of existing pumps a number of which are now working after long periods of being dry, but all this has really come to fruition in the last few weeks so it’s hard for me to leave just as the project is taking off and I’m just praying that there will be someone who will run with it and build on the foundations of the last 3 months. It would be great for example if the maintenance work could be rolled out in many more communities and with a little more experience and some decent funding, boreholes could be dug in places where they currently have no clean water supply. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

It’s also strange for me to be leaving but not going home, and although I’m excited about doing some travelling and seeing South Africa, it does feel like I should be going home, so I feel a bit unsettled about it all. On the other hand, it will hopefully be a good opportunity to have closure on my time in Mozambique before being hit with the realities of London! There’s also the preoccupation that I don’t actually know what I’m going to do once I get home and I’m currently struggling with what I want to do vs. what’s actually available as a job and not finding much of a correlation between the two.

My vague plans for the next month and a bit involve just over a week travelling to and spending time in Lesotho with Rebecca and Erin, a week of yet unknown travelling with Erin in South Africa, a week along the south coast with Erin and Andy and then spending the last week of February in Cape Town where we’ll be joined by Emily!

I’ve learnt so much over the last few months technically, spiritually, personally and culturally and I’ve been so grateful for the experience and the support from everyone back home. So, thank you!