Country Living in Southern Africa

Just over 5 months ago we moved from South Africa to the Govuro district in Mozambique. If you haven’t read the story read it here. >> The Move

You can also read some of my other Mozambique stories over here >> Mozambique.

I can’t believe it is over 5 months already. What am I missing most? Firstly, definitely my family and friends and secondly my espresso machine. I left my machine in the Free State because I was scared it wouldn’t run on our solar power, but I am seriously contemplating bringing it here. I think I will just make coffee in the middle of the day :).

In my vegetable garden, we have had some ups and downs. During a week of heavy rains, we lost all our swiss chard and shortly after that all our tomatoes to a bad batch of rust. We have replanted them and will take care of them a little bit better and hopefully, they will do better next time around. I am trying my best to garden organic, but it is like all that is an insect or pest got notified and arrived at the same time, especially in the shade netted area, where there has been a vegetable garden for several years. See a post that I made about it on my Instagram over here >> My organic vegetable garden. Currently, when I see pests, I remove them by hand if possible or spray them with an organic homemade spray. We are also adding plenty of organic material and planting things like marigold to help deter harmful bugs. Hopefully, things will soon start balancing out. We have been eating loads of yard beans (heirloom seeds from a friend), butternuts and pumpkin from the garden. My peppadews are coming along well and eat seems I am having success with aubergines in containers.

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I have also been making some cheese and I am so excited to say, it went really well. I have made Ricotta, Haloumi and Feta so far and even more Ricotta from recooked whey!

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Other than that, my chickens are still doing fine, although I have lost an entire clutch of chicks as they were hatching. It was one of our local hens who made herself a nest outside. I coup the hens up at night, but missed this one and then I left her on the nest because I thought it looked well hidden. Big Mistake! Something ate every single chick, 12 of them to be exact and my first guess will be that it was a genet. Luckily another hen hid better and I placed some nests inside the coup. We are happy to have some fluffballs in the yard. Below is a picture of one of our local Mozambican chicken’s chicks, what a cutie!

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On the social side, it has been fairly quiet besides a farmers-meeting in Inhassoro, the expats that we met have all been busy with their own things. As a family, we have more time for each other here and we really treasure our little breakaway weekends. Here are some pictures from a recent trip to Captain Lee Lodge in Inhassoro.

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We have had quite a bit of rain, but not as much as is to be expected of the area, so hopefully, the right amounts will still fall before the end of the rainy season.

I am really enjoying the birds at the moment and also to see how the garden bird activity changes as the season move along. I am also trailcamming quite a bit and you can look forward to weekly updates of my trailcam-finds, to see what still wanders in the bush in Mozambique when we aren’t looking. >>Trailcamming in Mozambique 

Other than that I am happy to report that life has been pretty normal and we are definitely finding our feet (and maybe even a part of our hearts) here in the Govuro district of Mozambique.