Warriorbern on the Move

The day started well! I awoke to pouring rain outside and thinking about it, this may be the first time it has rained in all my trips to Maputo. I really enjoyed listening to it and then seeing it when I went downstairs for breakfast. After that things seemed to go downhill. At five to ten I got hold of the institute director to ask her if she knew why her staff had not arrived! After that they trickled in and really did not want to work it seemed. The day was saved, however, when the boss herself arrived after lunch and took them all to task. They got on with the work but two of them are paying the price for not working earlier and are still here trying to finish off their work. It does mean no walk for me but this trip is about work after all. This will be my last blog from Maputo and there are no photos today. Tomorrow I will spend the morning finishing off the work here and then will go to the airport for my late afternoon flight. First to Jo'burg and then home to Dur

 I have to admit to feeling slightly panicked today because the work pace seemed to take a bit of a dive. In reality though it was just because I was sitting near the people doing the industrial and semi-industrial fisheries. These fisheries do take longer because there is so much more information available for them than for the artisanal and recreational fisheries. When I asked the others for their progress, they had finished quite a few so the total for the day overall was good. They all stayed later today too which gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling :-). With the later end to the day I thought I would go for a shorter walk but in the end it was longer than yesterday's walk. It is so relaxing to get out of the hotel at the end of the day and clear my head a bit. Just two photos tonight and not very good ones either. A fellow walker! Who would think to find a peacock on the pavements of Maputo :-)   Maputo Cathedral - I love the colour of the sky! So here I am h

Last night I was so tired that I skipped the movie and just read for a while but at 8pm my eyes could no longer stay open! I retired to bed thinking I would sleep the sleep of the dead but alas this was not to be. The bed is a three quarter bed and clearly quite well used. The side away from the wall has sort of collapsed so there is a downhill slope away from the wall. I kept on waking up thinking that I was sliding down and about to drop off onto the floor! The offending bed  The view from my window The workshop was supposed to start at 8:30 today but everyone only arrived at 9:00. I'm glad I told them 08:30 because they probably would have arrived at 09:30 if I had made the start 09:00. I'm not complaining too loudly though as they came prepared and have really done a lot. So I am quietly confident that they will finish before I have to leave on Thursday. It also really helps that half of the group have participated in the project before and are able to show th

It is quite strange that my last post was from Maputo and here I am back again! Of course in the 5 months (!) since my last blog blogspot have revamped the templates so now I have to figure it all out again. That will teach me for staying away for so long :-) Today has been really long for me. I woke up with a start at 3:30am thinking I had over slept my 4:00am alarm! I could not get back to sleep so just enjoyed the last half hour in my own bed. But the alarm soon went off and it was time to get up and get ready to go to the airport. Because there are no direct flights from Durban to Maputo on Sundays, I had to fly via Johannesburg. It really is quite annoying as the direct flight only takes about 45 minutes but flying through OR Tambo takes 4 hours! Anyway there was no choice in the matter so off I went. The first flight was in a brand new Airbus A320-200 that according to the captain had only flown 30 hours and only started in SAA's service this week. It was a nice change t