Tsunami...

We were in the middle of a 'goodbye' Travis party, all just chilling, listening to him play guitar, soaking - when suddenly Musy burst into the room, her face white. I thought that something had happened to her week old baby, Bella. But instead the most unexpected words came out of her mouth: "A tsunami is going to hit Pemba in 2 hours, we have to evacuate NOW!!"

There was a silence, and then suddenly everyone is up, outside. I text my parents to get more info. All 120 of the bible school students had to be told, all our staff. People were already in bed. Very quickly everyone is home, packing the essentials - wondering if its really going to happen, and at the same time not quite grasping the concept of a wave splashing down on our houses.

My housie is in South Africa at the moment, so I text her and asked what I should get out of her room. Finally I have everything in the car, dog included.

By that time the 'HUGE' tsunami had hit the Seychelles, and it had been a whole 15cm higher tide than usual. So we started relaxing at bit, but we still had to evacuate. Some of the Mozambican staff didnt want to leave their houses. The men said "We'll just go to the beach, and when we see the wave coming we'll get our families and go to higher ground" *... yes, great idea...*

All the kids were sent up to the school at the top of the hill, and they even took the drum kit! It was quite noisy to say the least, but finally around 22:50pm when it was clear that nothing of significance was going to happen we finally decided to let everyone go back home.

I wanted to go see what this 15cm wave would look like, and 2 of my friends were keen too. So we headed for the beach, and at 23:39pm (the given time of arrival) we stood looking out to sea. We were sorely disapointed... the tide was out very far (which is usual) and we could not even see where the waves were! So at midnight we decided to head back home.

So some excitement, some scares, but after a good night's sleep we are back at work today!