After countless delays and several days that passed with no particular reason for things not advancing, at long last I moved into the flat on Saturday. It happened in drips and drabs, being so close, but it was great to have the men just to do the big stuff for me. I keep on discovering things at the house that I need to bring over, though. The move spread out over almost the whole Saturday, and then late afternoon Allison suggested we have some people over and watch a movie – notice was a bit short and we just had Stephen and Arnie here, and in between Hennie was putting up my mosquito net, but we enjoyed the movie and had a good visit – a nice first evening in my new home.
On Sunday Angie also moved in, albeit only for a few days. She is an itinerant teacher with SIL, which means that she lives with families who are out in the villages and teaches their kids so that the couple can focus on their linguistic work, or she helps out at the SIL school in Nampula, which she will do for 6 months come November. She came back from Angoche sometime last week, but when we first had the key crisis and then the drain problem that was still being fixed, she ended up staying at SIL for a few days. So Sunday night was the first time all three of us were here and the first time I could get to know Angie a bit.
On Sunday I heard the pleasant news that we hadn’t seen the last of Scotty and Lau! Because of a problem with the ferry, combined with the very full river, they couldn’t cross that way into Tanzania (to be honest, not sure which river this involves). So they decided to drive back via Nampula and go up into Malawi and from there to Tanzania. They therefore spent another 2 nights with the guys at the house and were once again an enormous help moving yet more things to their respective new locations. On Monday evening we all went out to eat – a place I had never heard of, but with really good food. While we were all together, us girls took a photo:
I, who always pride myself on hardly ever getting sick, had to practically be helped back to the car, but other than that it was a lovely way to end our time together. In spite of the interruption to my routine and how emotional I often was the last 3 weeks, it was really a privilege to have these friends around and to be of a little use to them. Henri left by plane yesterday and Scotty, Lau, Hennie and Henri’s dad left on their road trip this morning. Now I actually need to start thinking about work again… 
