Bittersweet

It has ended up being rather a hard week to get through and I won't lie, I am feeling a bit emotionally and physically jaded. Went for coffee with the past Convent staff this morning. Cappy had specifically requested to meet at Cafe Guru today last week. More teachers than normal came but there was the hollow feeling that Cappy should be there drinking her cappuccino with us. A few of us teared up at certain moments and we tried to cover some logistics for the memorial and funeral tomorrow. I had offered to read tributes from old girls around the world at Convent but wasn't sure if I was definitely doing so. I whatsapped Mr Mapaya at lunch time to check and just as well I did as he said he was expecting me to - eeek. I am feeling a tinge of stage fright at the thought of having to make my voice heard up at the balcony at the back of the school hall and it suddenly seems like an awfully big hall in my mind. My friend Nina pointed out I can be very loud at times - gee thanks Neens (love you!) Just hoping I don't break down and cry. From Convent I will make my way out to Warren Hills cemetery and need to try find the Jewish section. I know from going to synagogue with my friend Cara I should dress frum i.e. wear a long skirt or dress and I have dug out a black dress from home. I am looking forward to the end of tomorrow when I have finished teaching my two afternoon students and made it through what is going to be a rather difficult day.

Before the Convent tea I met another friend who is back from England to do their PhD research. I had forgotten he was here last just before the coup. He is looking at NGOs involved in human rights projects and democracy and their relation to government so it is an extremely interesting time to be looking at this in Zimbabwe I must say. It is nice to hear about research and academia. Had personal training at lunchtime and my trainer started by saying "Who says you can't get a good cardio session with just an upper body work out and without using your legs and ankle?" She was right, I did break a sweat quite early on but it was good.

Am going to miss the whole family of my Chinese student. His mum is like a good friend to me too and I enjoy our chats. At the end of the lesson she was telling me how in Chinese all forms of fuel have the same ending, qì yóu (petrol), shí yóu (oil), chái yóu (diesel) and how she finds it hard to remember completely different words for them in English - so interesting. She said it's the same for describing an adult dog or puppy - you just say big dog chǒng wù gǒu or small dog xiǎo gǒu. My student blurted out the word bacteria today which was amazing. We were discussing things that are poisonous and I found some cool videos on fungi. I showed him the launch of Elon Musk's giant SpaceX rocket which he did think was fairly cool but when he was designing a robot with shapes he said he wouldn't send it on a rocket to Mars but rather to a black hole. His robot had a computer apparently and a place to put a disk to record information - he is a very thoughtful five year old or maybe a lot of kids think about these things these days. Finally have the city in China where my student is from - X'ian which is south west of Beijing. They said I must come visit one day.