At Dovela village:

Peaceful, serene and endearing are the adjectives that come randomly to one’s mind while walking through Dovela’s village. Over the years, we have built strong relationships with the surrounding communities, creating the most favorable conditions to discover simple moments of daily life in rural Mozambique. Walking through the villages can give you the opportunity to see cassava, beans or peanut crops and harvesting. Depending on the season or on the time of the day, you may be able to witness the process of cassava flour or maybe the famous « tontonte » (local alcohol) making. Going along the south point of the lake in a late afternoon will allow you to hear the kids’ laughters as they take their bath or the noise of the clothes being beaten on some pieces of wood set on the floor by their mothers after being washed.

Rogerio and Nelson, our guides both grew up in these villages, and they will accompany you with a great pleasure on this very special walk.

The school, the borehole:

You can keep on strolling up to Dovela school.  The EPC (Escola Primària Completa) hosts 490 kids and 8 teachers including the director. Like many rural areas, the school is organized in two shifts of 5 hours. This schedule allows the school maximise its capacity and teach as many children as possible. Therefore, at all hours of the day, the school is alive….. Kids may hang around after their morning lessons, they may arrive before the afternoon classroom to play or … the teacher has never appeared and they are taken in charge by Tionilda that we have recently employed to assist the pedagogical team of the school.

Leaving the school, you will pass by the manual borehole pump we help to build in 2016. On this land belonging to the school, the school council choses to grow cassava in order to take advantage ot the rest of the water.

From The Dunes to the school, it is about 5 kms. Without any added fees, we can come to pick you up there and drive you back to the lodge.

Lunch at a family:

If you’d like to get to know our local community better, you can have lunch with a family in Dovela village. Criss-crossing the village will take you to see several households distant one from the other. The majority of these houses are built from thatch and others natural material. Each family home normally accomodates 3 or 4 generations. Without being invited, it is sensitive to enter these « compounds » but Dona Luisa is always happy to welcome foreigner guests with a nice traditional meal : cassava, beans or pumpkin leaves cooked in coconut milk and peanut  flour for instance. Those lunches at a family are always the best opportunities to soak a family atmosphere up … you will see, kids are the kings !