Desde el primer día

Am finally beginning to feel more like myself after having tick bite fever. This is the second time I've had it but it didn't make me feel any less ghastly. It really is not pleasant with a fever, light headedness, aching joints and feeling zapped of energy. Today being the first day of quarantine/lock down nationally, didn't feel too different to other days of me being sick, except my mum was home all day. I had to unfortunately leave it to her to do all the preparation. She had to queue for fuel, groceries and medication but she did get to go to the front of the supermarket queue due to her age.

I sent off more work to my class this morning and then have been trying to do some tidying up. My mum is very protective over her stuff but trying to slowly get to it. Washed my hair and feel a hundred times better and then pottered in the garden a bit with my dogs. Need to set out things to do each day so I keep occupied. Have a whole lot of books to read, including La Peste in French. It so far isn't too hard to follow. We are in contact with family in the UK and in South Africa. I need to start thinking about next term. I did almost finish a term plan a couple of weeks ago when I thought we were still going to England so have at least almost done that but it will be a question of planning for online work if that is what we are forced to do. So far only one of my ten students has returned work done via email. It is quite hard to mark things online.

Virtual classroom here we go

I still wasn't feeling very strong this morning, so didn't go into school and ended up sleeping. Woke up to start sending out work assignments to my class via email. I think we should switch to Google Classroom but need to discuss with the head. Got an email saying Twinkl is now available free of charge, which is fantastic as they have some great resources for maths, English, phonics and science.

I also got messages to say the first person has died from COVID-19 at a hospital not far from here. According to someone who knows the family, Wilkins didn't have oxygen or a ventilator for the patient and were having to ferry oxygen across every hour in the night. There was also a power cut so the ventilator didn't actually work for a couple of hours. Cheering. My sister, after saying it's just a flu virus is now putting pressure on my mum to think about using her ticket on Ethiopian Airways so that if she gets sick she would be in the UK rather than Zim. I'm not so sure about that but Ethiopian Airways is one of the only airways still flying out of here.

Theoretically it is now school holidays but I will have to send work for the next week and start making a plan for next term if we are completely virtual. So much can change so quickly. For the moment I've got to hurry up and get over jolly tick bite fever.

Just like that

I am a bit perkier today and did some marking. I do get tired quite quickly though and feel a bit unsteady on my feet. Tomorrow is now the last day of term and I am supposed to go in and sort my class out for what may now be correspondence school. I am trying to psych myself up to do it as I still don't feel great. We are to have our staff meeting on Tuesday to plan from here on out.

Over the weekend, Zimbabwe finally announced its first case of positively testing Corona. I still do think they have been under reporting on this. As schools we are lucky in that we can operate online. Well, at least private schools can. I am not sure what government schools are going to do. Perhaps mobile phone apps can be developed. For people who rely on going into public places for employment, self isolating and social distancing is harder and here in Zimbabwe there are no social welfare safety nets. If you don't work, you don't earn and most people here don't really have savings. It remains to be seen what the coming weeks have in store for us.

Tick bite in the time of Corona

I have an unplanned self-lockdown in the form of contracting tick bite fever. Think I got it from going through long grass on the Groombridge vlei in the quest to photograph the wild cosmos flowers. I did pull off a tick at the time and the incubation time fits. Now I know what it is I recognise the symptoms of light headedness and feeling icky. I have had it before but seems I have contracted it again. I am on a dose of doxycycline twice a day for the next ten days. Just to add to the fun I have allergies with itchy eyes and throat. My doctor says there are allergic reactions at the moment as well as a common cold. Not great though with all the paranoia over COVID-19.

When I went to see my doctor I did ask if she wanted to see me. It was very eerie in that there was absolutely no one else there which has never happened before. I usually have to wait for an hour. The receptionist was also off sick with a cold. It felt apocalyptic. My doctor does treat a lot of the elderly in old age homes so she needs to stay healthy. She did say she feels the testing facilities for Corona are good. It is at Harare Central Hospital not Wilkins.

I got back to school after seeing the doctor and my class immediately begged me to not ever go away again. They had had my mum watching them during my absence and they had been told off a lot for making noise. It was nice to feel appreciated, especially after their rubbish and rebellion last week. When I told them I had tick bite fever, one boy stepped back and went, "eish!" I promised him it is not contagious. I then had to tell them I wouldn't be at school today and they were distressed they were going to have my mum again. I think it will do them good.

So am home resting. Schools will close early this coming Tuesday, as will all Zim universities. We may have to start preparing online resources quickly. There are lots of educational sites on the internet though that have made their lesson plans freely available. The choir I belong to has decided to stop meeting for now. Most of the members are over 60 so it is a big risk. We've been learning the two pieces below.

Nearly the end of term

When I got to school this morning I was greeted with flyers to hand out about preventing the spread of Corona virus and was asked to stick up a poster in my classroom. We all had to get a squirt of hand sanitizer too for good measure. I did think how long is that going to last to both the control of the spread of it and the efficacy of the sanitizer. One little boy at break time has missed his calling as the town crier in a previous life as he loudly proclaimed children must be protected.

It has been a bit of a tough week with some of my boys being rebellious and difficult. They did pipe down a bit by the end of the morning today and we ended with making origami swans. One of the boys actually gave me his attempt as a present at the end. I have parent consultations next week. After that a week and a half to go til we close. Next term is 14 weeks compared to this term's 12, heaven help me. That's if we're not having school via correspondence by that point.

Going over to England in the school holidays is beginning to look a little shaky. Hard to know what is going to happen and if we will be able to travel. My sister is going to be devastated if we can't as she has gone to a lot of effort already for my mum's 70th. The thought of sitting on a plane with people who could be carriers makes you think a little though. Great way to curb people's flying habits with climate change.

I had my NILD session observed by the NILD coordinator yesterday. I got some good feedback and some points to work on. I was pretty nervous about being scrutinised and wondering what I wasn't doing right but it was OK in the end and Lorna was very nice about it. I have a new student from the International School now and had my first lesson with him yesterday. It wasn't supposed to be a lesson yesterday as I was originally just going to meet with his mum but my impromptu seemed to go fairly well.

Am glad it's the weekend and I can reassemble myself to deal with my class again next week.