It raining its pouring!

The lonley planet travel guide to Mozambique says that there are no major obstacles to visiting in the summer mmonths October to March, conveniently the months that I am here, however it goes on to say that you may wishj to take into consideration that almost all mof the annual rainfall falls at this time and the weather is extremely hot and humid. So no real obstacles. However what they fail to tell you is that as soon as it hits november the temperature increases drammatically without prior warning and a week later the rain joins in. From the first of november onwards you can expect to be wet all day everyday, half the time because of sweat and the rest because of the torrential downpour! We woke up this morning to the sound of rain, so we wonder, what do you do on your day off when the beach is not really an option and there is a thunderstorm, resulting in several powercuts so internet is hard? Answer: you put on your first paiur of proper shoes for five weeks, don a rain coat and walk into town hoping to find an empty chappa along the way and praying everytime you step off the pavement that the puddle isnt deep enough to go over the top of your shoes. And here we are! The internet is worjking yay, and Sophie Amber and I are probably making puddles on the floor, so wet. Earthquake Avenue, our route into town, so named because the tree roots have torn up the pavement, is flooded so I nhad to walk on the pavement for once, and crossing roads was fun, the puddles are too muddy to see the bottom, quite an adventure. It took my mind off the fact that it was the first time that I had walked into town on my own though.
Lizzie has been feeling unwell for over a week now and hasnt been able to leave the house much, so I am the first in our team to be allowed to go out on my own, it is really weird! But we dont live far from the others and only about 15 mins from town so its not that scary. She had a malaria test on wednesday which was negative, but over this weekend she felt a lot worse, its weird, but we spoke to a nurse at english speaking fellowship last night and she suggested parasites, strangely enough lizzie is not at all amused about that thought! So we are seeting an Oasis record, four weeks and we have all been ill at least once, Sophie and I twice, although the second time was just a mini thing that knocked us out for a day. Oh well.
Time is going so quickly here, over a month already its great though when we are getting annoyed about not being able to speak portuguese we just remind ourselves that we havent been here that long.
Work is going well, although last week I only went for one english lesson, and Sophie came to help, but they are fun, we love the youth at our church and they are really unusual for Mozambicans as the boys and girls are mates as well. They all take the micjk out of each others English, our overseer Valenbtin can't get the hang of saying "years old" so they all deliberately ask him his age and laugh. I think he is learning though. We hopefully start work at Lees house of blessing this week. It is an Orphanage run by this great american lady who juyst sold everything and moved out here for the rest of her life. At first she was planning on just taking in 12 boys, but now she has 13 girls and 23 boys! We are going along as a four on thursday afternoons to see the girls and just get to hang out and doi stuff withthem which is great. Lee syas that its great that we can go and be their friend as they all have horrible histories and just need attention.
There are exciting new developments in our house at the moment, the hole that appeard in the sitting room wall the day after we moved in, we have nopw discovered in where Rosa is getting an air conditioning unit installed, luxury! but just in case we forget that we are in africa, i was woken up the other night by a cockroach crawling around on my neck, I was not amused. I think that it is something to do with the weather but the bugs seem to be getting bigger! especially cockroaches. I , accidentally, drowned a huge one in the mop bucket the other day. There are also the most gigantic bees that i have ever seen before, and strange flying ants that look a bit like dragon flies, but bite. There was also a gecko in our room the other day, which I affectionately named 'Gecko' but I am not sure where he has gone, we would quite like him to stay though as he eats all the bug things, I have a lovely photo of him crawling on my clothes.
Now that we have all healed properly and not had any side affects i thinbk that it is safe to tell you about some of our lovely injuries, tehe, the first week we were here Sophie stepped on a bit of metal in the market that embedded itself in her foot, as they were being a bit harassed byu a guyy at the time she pulled it out and threw it away, the catch wa sit may ior mnay not have been a needle so we were a bit concewrned for obvious reason, soi we had our first visit to the avi cena clinic for a tetanus jab. The rest of us, actually Lizzie has been spared thism, have all got lovely chappa injuries, bruised knees and ankles being the most popular but Amber and Sophi got identical grazes on their legs and i magaeged to cut my foot on a random metal bit. We also have lovely feet, Sophie and mine in particular, hers are all red and scabbed from mozzie bites, they seem to like her best, and mine from blisters, so we are alll looking very attractive!