23/12/2010 Work today consisted of a variety of pool-cleaning (of which I found a Red Roman - an evil looking arachnid that is basically a spider with two eyes and fangs), lifting heavy metal, sweeping, tidying,cleaning the deck next to the pooloverlooking the bay, re-arranging a wood pile out of sight (where we found a tailless whip scorpion, lizards, a hermit crab that pinched me, three mice in a nest and an eastern vine snake that Jack picked up by the tail t...

22/12/2010 Later start today and me and Martijn finished the linseed oiling whilst Captain Jack had to fix the toilet, only to inhabit a baby scorpion on his leg. Then Jacko and I spent the majority of the day painting a toilet red-right to the roof. Bad news for me was that the roof was about 15 feet high and made of tin. With the temperature about 42oC, stood on a ladder painting and my head at the roof, I dripped with sweat. Weirdly, I wasn't uncomfortable ...

21/12/2010 6.30am rise to begin work. We spent the day cleaning the empty pool, scrubbing the walls, cleaning the floor, unblocking the pipe and just tidying up the area in time for the Christmas custom. French eggy bread with golden syrup was delicious for our breakfast and they then provided us with chicken burger and chips for lunch! A local woman we learnt, had made cashew juice and being a big fan of the nut (but having never tried the fruit) I gave it a ...

20/12/2010 Jack was up at crazy o'clock whereas I was up at 8 following a monster rest! Only downer was, no mosquito nets here meant that I got completely demolished by Nampula's resident biters! The doors and windows had nets but you really do have to have a net over your bed to limit the b*****s as much as possible. It seemed like we had brought the rain with us from Malawi as we witnessed torrential downpours whilst eating egg, chips and cheese on toast a...

19/12/2010 Surprisingly, we weren't being hoarded into metal boxes like we had originally thought. Instead, it was hard wooden seats and jam-packed with locals and their gear. I was on-off sleeping from 4am until half 5 when we actually set off. And then came the most horrible, filthy, sweaty, greasy experience we have had yet, cramped in with REALLY bad-smelling locals. Really bad....and often you'd be able to get brushed by some of the sweaty bodies around yo...