No internet in Harare most of today

There are some things that you really do need it for though.

It's been an interesting day today. Started off with craft for the home schoolers. Told my 7 year old baby Jesus was born 2000 years ago and would have had a donkey, not a push chair. She misheard me and said, 2 million years ago? Er no, that would make him Australopithecus. We listened to French children songs (I've never heard Disney in French before, we didn't just listen to Disney though) and some Piano Guys and Lindsey Stirling on violin (this was inspiration for my older student as she's learning violin). At one point her little brother interrupted and said was the French song in Shona? I thought it rather funny as it was a particularly classical piece.

KIDS UNITED - Tout Le Bonheur Du Monde

Not the song my four year old thought was in Shona but close :P

Well I'd just quickly tried to make an online payment which miraculously went through this time straight away (only to be told my previous payment had also gone through when I thought my bank was returning it to my account). Had just done this when it seems the internet in the whole of Harare, if not the whole country? went down. This meant whatsapp didn't work (not a humungous train smash as you could still text or if needed call) but more crucial no POS swipe machines were running as they need to be online. This proved a nightmare later as I was trying to do final gift shopping for family in Cape Town and I had to pay in cherished cash. One shop actually said since I was a regular customer they would let me pay tomorrow and swipe - I don't know I would be that trusting but I do go there very regularly so they know who I am :P The other issue for me was that I use the internet for some things in my lessons. Luckily was able to improvise and make do with the materials I had on hand but am going to make sure my lessons for tomorrow are no-internet-proof. Hoping things are back to normal now it's come back. Apparently they were booting out the poor pavement vendors in town. I don't know if the internet outage had anything to do with that. There is also apparently a parade into town by the defence forces tomorrow. I don't know if that was why Borrowdale Road was teeming with army personnel yesterday. The shop assistant in one gift shop I went into this afternoon asked me as I was leaving if I thought we had a future under the new government. It caught me on the hop and I said I was a little pessimistic and didn't know if we necessarily had a "new" government. He said he thought everything was going to come right and that we have got rid of the bad - I hope he's right.

My Chinese five year is now definitely set to leave Zim in March. He won't go back to Sharon School and there is a chance he may join my home schoolers in the mornings. We'll see. The good news (I am going to miss him terribly so yes there needs to be good news!) is that it looks like we will continue our lessons via Skype. In China they only start junior school at 7 years old but from the sounds of it nursery school is gruelling. Poor boy will then have me for an hour each evening when he gets home after 4.30 pm. I got to see his school report from this term and it was pleasing to see the teacher thought his vocab had come on a long way. But yes, I am going to miss him dreadfully - he is the high point of my day and I  always leave a lesson with him with a smile.

Need to keep reminding myself of this.

On a final note, my dear mother asks me this evening, "It's this Thursday you're going to Cape Town?" Um yes mother, which Thursday were you thinking it was, it is two days away.