Life and death

 Life continues under lockdown. I finally have the maths books for Form 1 and 2 for Chisi next term. They follow the IGCSE Core Maths for those classes, fairly straight forward but harder than standard Form 1 and 2. I still don't know if I'm taking Form 3 or Form 1 and 2 geography. Be nice to know. Form 3 is going to be a lot more work in preparation as I have to create loads of case studies. It would also be nice to get an indication for maths and geo where I am likely to pick up from next term. All of this would help me get on top of things while I have the extra time. I understand they're all busy with online school though.

Have caught up with a few friends I haven't heard from in a while online. The one, I did ecology and botany with at UCT and we worked together a lot and did things like preparing our bug collections for entomology, going after the elusive cicadas together and then mounting them to hand in. We also spent a month doing fieldwork together in Kruger Park with some others. Good memories. Another friend I've been in touch with a bit more recently, but found out her film, Ava From My Class, has just been selected for the Sundance Film Festival. We had a lovely catch up yesterday.

Sadly heard that a friend who was only two years ahead of me at school, died yesterday after a long hard fight with cancer. Very very sad as last year it sounded as though she was winning. Thinking of her family and loved ones.

Today was my last day of having physio. If it gets sore or inflamed again I can go back, but for now I am good and must keep doing gentle exercise to build up strength. No running or jumping yet, but will get there. Might do a month's fitness classes with my friend Lucy under my trainer Demi.

Quite a lot of people I know are saying they have COVID. I'm not sure what government plans from next week. I some how don't see us going back to school, but who knows what they will decide. We're still keeping a low profile and not socialising much and wearing masks. Ivermectin seem to be getting the go ahead overseas as the go to drug.

Getting back to getting fit

 Had physio this morning and we worked on balancing on my dodgy ankle (although the physio said not to call it that). She had me wobbling on a balance ball, a trampoline and then ... a balance board (definitely the hardest). Although I didn't feel I mastered balancing too well, she said she thinks she only needs to see me for one more session next week. She also gave me the go ahead to start doing things like squats, but not running just yet. I therefore did a core and tummy session at home in the shade area after my Zoom lesson this morning. I had Jasper and Elsie come to inspect what on Earth I was doing. Might try do a Body Balance or Pilates/Yoga work out with my sister later. Will see.

Have been asked to help tie up a friend who has moved to England's personal estate here and would get paid out the country for it. Just depends on how long lockdown lasts for but might be able to next week. Am honoured they trust me enough to ask me.

Stayed up late last night watching The Handle Bards production in India of Twelfth Night. I know the basic gist of the story but am afraid both my mum and I got lost as to who was who, as the play only had four actors who doubled up in roles. Recognised the opening lines "

If music be the food of love, play on;
	Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
	The appetite may sicken, and so die.
	That strain again! it had a dying fall:
	O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
	That breathes upon a bank of violets,
	Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
	'Tis not so sweet now as it was before."

Thoroughly confused about halfway, we decided to call it quits and go to bed.

I attempted a self portrait out in the garden. I'm not that happy with the product and don't think it looks like me. May try again. So far was just using water colour, but may try add some oil pastels, maybe.

Aspiring to Hussein Salim ... well trying!

Today I took a break from preparing to teach geography next term and got out my art supplies. Sarah Fynn has set the art group two projects for lockdown. The first is a selfie self portrait, in which you exaggerate and emphasize one of your features. Haven't done this yet. The second is to chose a cluttered surface in your house (lots of choices in ours) and do a still life. Then ... and in this here lies the challenge, you use a section of your still life to etch and print from, rolling out black oil paint and printing off this. You then work colour into your print and try take your inspiration from the work of Hussein Salim. As one person in the art group put it, "Love his work, but oh God help!"

So I finished my still life, but have yet to try printing and experimenting. Might be fun to try more still lives along this process. Bathroom shelf, dressing table, art counter. The still life was harder than I thought to draw but got me going with ellipses. 

Enjoying having time with my dogs. They both are snouting out mangoes and a blind worm! There are lots of purple-glossed snakes in Monavale. There is a plan to make a bird, snake and insect book for the area. 

Internet, wherefore art thou

 Yesterday was a bit of a frustrating Monday. The night before, something went pop and flashed at home and most of the lights and internet went. On the way to school on Monday morning, I got a phone call from the deputy head, to say the internet at school was also not working but they were trying to get it fixed. Since there was no wifi at home we continued on to school. When it was time for my online Zoom call with the class, I set up a hotspot off my phone. This worked for 15 minutes but we were waiting for some of the students to join. I then ran out of data and when I topped up and tried to reconnect on the hotspot, it no longer worked - arrrgh! I told my students to get on with the stuff they could do on their own and then got busy with photocopying while waiting for the internet to be fixed.

I was supposed to also have my first online English lesson with a Form 3 boy I'm coaching. That in the end had to be postponed to today and in the end so did a Zoom session with my class. We contacted an electrician to try sort out our home internet and power situation but he hadn't arrived yet when I left for physio this morning, so I went to a friend's and used the vacant flat next door to conduct my lesson (social distancing observed). Managed to have a fairly successful lesson with my class and a first language lesson with the Form 3. When the electrician eventually made it to our house, I could have kicked myself for not figuring out what the problem was. All the points that had tripped around the house were connected to our solar inverter, and as I had suddenly thought, just before the electrician arrived ... it was the fuse in the solar inverter, that I have already been shown how to change! We had thought the flash came from the lounge socket but it must have been the kitchen. Well now we know!

In other news, there seems to be a shortage of milk in Harare. It's gone up in price quite a bit, and is very scarce. I was delighted to discover though, they have started a recycling spot outside Avondale Food Lover's Market, under Refuse Collection Services. Was able to empty our collection of cans and bottles there and it is much closer to home.

Felling of an alien

 Seeing your hewn and dismembered limbs,

I find myself a little emotional

even though you are but an alien.

The massive storm last Tuesday

injured you, and there was nothing else we could do.

I will miss your purple hue

and your bulk has been removed.

A paradise flycatcher's nest is gone.

Oh jacaranda, who knew

that I would lament the death of you.

Giving my first ballet class

 We heard the Madagascar cuckoo in our garden today which was very exciting. It was bucketing with rain though so I didn't go out and try catch a glimpse of it. Hopefully it will be back. A friend suggested we record the time we hear it and where on the Monavale Nature WhatsApp group so we can try tell if there's more than one. Be nice if it wasn't all on it's lonesome blown across from Madagascar by Cyclone Chalane.

I signed my contract with Chisi today. Deep breath. It is going to be a lot of work. Still unclear which forms I am taking. Be nice to be preparing now. Am carrying on with my online course on inquiry-based learning and getting useful online tools, in case we're still in lock down, heaven forbid.

Spent this afternoon assembling my class's work packs. Last year my students tended to not bother to stick in their worksheets which resulted in them having a discombobulated, amorphous mass of floating papers that never saw the inside of their exercise books and very little to show for all the effort I'd put in to making their work material. SO ... I have painstakingly cut out and stuck in EVERY sheet into this year's students' books for them. My what a time consuming exercise! Here's hoping it pays off (although I have my doubts still). Am done now and everything is boxed for Monday's collection. I think I will make a start at preparing the next two weeks' work next week as it is so labour intensive. Everything hinges on dear E.D. and what he says for the end of January, but it won't hurt to print out two week's work ahead of time so it's not a rush after his announcement (which we know not when will be).

Tomorrow I have said I will teach a friend's little girl, Emmy, some ballet over Zoom. Have already picked out the Sugar-Plum Fairy and have some ideas up my sleeve. It will have to be demonstrated on my better ankle but should be fun. Hope the music plays OK over Zoom. 

Balancing balls and floating across the Limpopo

 Had an early physio session at Hands On with Maud this morning. She got me to do calf raises and then try balance on a balancing ball ... well that was interesting! Still some way to go and it is still quite painful. Am keeping up my exercises for my achilles at home.

Got back home to tree fellers in the garden. A jacaranda was damaged in Tuesday's storm and is threatening to keel over. It leaves quite a hole in the garden though and the tree fellers just missed my tibouchina, narrow miss. 

One of my best friends from university days, Warren, got in touch yesterday and we had a lovely catch up this morning. Had to laugh, he suggested that if things become dire here Corona-wise, he would meet me at the South African border by the Limpopo River with a queen size mattress, and my mum and I can float across to the other side. I pointed out, the problem would be that he had the mattress! I would need to bring it. But hey, that's the plan, crocodiles and all.

I go in to Chisi tomorrow to go and sign my contract. It is looking like I might teach Form one and two geography rather than Form three, but will see. I have been going through the IGCSE text book and putting together resources already. Form one and two would be easier though and would help me adjust in a bit more gradually rather than jumping off at the deep end.

Of rare birds and work packs

 We are resuming with work packs and then online lessons. Was in yesterday sorting things out and still have a bit more to do before the work goes out on Monday. We're doing it for two weeks and will then assess what ED says from there. I have a sneaky feeling though that we are going to be at this for a while. The death rates for COVID do keep rising. At this rate I might be teaching online when I start at CHISI. Am doing an online course on inquiry-based learning and online tools you can use for it. Am a bit new to student-led learning.

Tomorrow I go for more physio on my achilles tendon. It's still a bit tender. I am not entirely sure what I did to it. Might have been while I was training last year, but it flared up over Christmas and at one point I was hobbling around, not able to walk properly. Have been given exercises to do for it at home by the physio and going to try do Pilates with my sister online tonight. Don't think it's up to Zumba just yet. Would be nice to exercise though, I miss the endorphins.

So today there was a flurry of activity on the Monavale Nature WhatsApp group. Several people had recorded what we thought to be a variant of a red chested cuckoo. It didn't seem quite right though, so I asked friends who are avid members of BirdLife. Long and the short of it was it turned out to be a far rarer Madagascar cuckoo, which was last recorded in Zimbabwe in 1998 and which has never been photographed here before. Everyone in the group is very excited and chuffed it decided to visit Monavale and it was photographed!

New year, back to school in the time of Corona

 Well yet again the rules have all changed with increasing cases of Corona here in Zim. Hopewell Chin'ono has reported that there is a bad outbreak in the high density suburb of Harare, Kuwadzana. Wondering what the situation is like in Epworth, where our gardner Given lives. The government has imposed stricter lockdown again and we are back to square one with trying to teach. Our head and deputy head are going to decide tomorrow what we do as a school. The deputy head said my grade 7's aren't a ZIMSEC exam class so don't really qualify to return. (Government has said only ZIMSEC grade 7s and then O and A Level classes will resume next week). It is also debatable whether we can do work packs as it is non-essential work. This means we might not get paid. The family I worked for in Borrowdale Brooke are keen for me to be a tutor if schools don't go back. Trouble is would mean I have to get across town everyday. A friend said maybe I can live there for the next month - I don't know about that.

I could do with the extra time to try get on top of preparation for teaching geography in the second term. I have made a start but it is vast and I am going to have to put in a lot of time on this. The style of teaching has changed since I last taught a class. It is very much more student driven and enquiry based learning. I am balking a bit at how to get across so much detail, whilst still letting the students take charge. I also need to find out where I will pick up from next term, to help me with developing my plans. Although I will need to be familiar with all the first term stuff I didn't teach too. Think I would find it a little easier if it was my own subject, biology, but it is what it is. I will also be taking form one and two maths, need to check if we're following Cambridge for that.

I have a physio appointment tomorrow but otherwise keeping excursions to only the essentials. Supposed to be playing family online games tonight with family in the UK and Cape Town.

Black mark on my house sitting career

 When I went to bed last night, Oscar was still on her side, but there was a lot more oxygen circulating and I think I had done all that I could. I was reluctant to go to bed though and deep down didn't know if she was going to make it to morning. I'm afraid I went through first thing this morning and she was lying still at the bottom of the tank, no gill movement and starting to turn black. I knew she was gone, but couldn't bring myself to turn off the pump. I messaged the owners to tell them, but they didn't reply. When they got in just before lunchtime their son got out the car and headed to the lounge and I had to tell him. Was a horrible moment. I honestly don't know what else I could have done though and thinking on it, Oscar had stopped eating before the tank became murky due to the power cut. I do feel bad though, my first pet sit fatality to date.

Am back home now and sorting out my life and trying to think about school. My dogs are happy to have me back and have been reading emails from the great danes. I will miss the two great danes and in a way, poor old Oscar. I couldn't bear to sit in the lounge where her tank was when I waited for the owners to come back. I guess these things happen but I will not do fish in future, or snakes.

Isolation and keeping Oscar alive - just one more night Oscar!

 Although I personally didn't come into direct contact with the person who has COVID and only saw a person they were in contact with, the next day, I am still being careful. A friend is having a braai tomorrow and when I explained, she said she'd rather I didn't come tomorrow. I understand. Have been feeling a bit nauseous today, but think it's from too much rich food over Christmas. I went to bed early last night but woke up at what must have been midnight to fireworks and the dogs in distress. My medication usually makes me sleep through most things but I woke up. I couldn't rouse myself though to get up as I was barely awake. The dogs were in the kitchen, so couldn't run away or hurt themselves. I hate fireworks.

Spent the day at home, listening to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and clapping on an online app when prompted. On Wednesday, before I went into isolation, we were having coffee with Sr Paulette at Veldemeer's when I had the dress rehearsal trial run for applause. We must have looked funny as there were my mum, Sr Paulette and I, clapping into my phone and saying bravo in the middle of the restaurant. Today we had to turn the volume down of the concert when prompted and clap. It was being filmed but golly, a whole minute or more of clapping is quite something. I think we must have flagged halfway through and it probably is quite comical viewing. The concert was lovely, but I don't know that I am volunteering to clap online again!

I started looking at IGCSE geography and then stopped. I will contact the school and ask for the text book and access to online Cambridge resources next week. I did wake up this morning though and think I now have four months to get ready for the second term. We wait and see what happens about school for this term and whether it will have to be online again or not. I will have to adjust my lessons a bit if it is work packs and Zoom sessions again. I know one mother is not going to be happy at all if it is back to remote teaching, but there is nothing we can do if it is.

Made a ghost mobile for my godson instead, watched My Octopus Teacher again (highly recommend - made me think of friends and family in beautiful Cape Town, where the documentary was filmed) and then ... suddenly had to try revive Oscar, AGAIN!!! Had been noticing the pump wasn't churning up the water as much and Oscar started to flag this afternoon. I even got the whisk out again. Thinking I couldn't whisk all night and trying to think of a solution, I propped the pump up a bit with a rock. I had cleaned out the filters this morning. This still didn't do much so I phoned my friend William, the fish doctor!! He talked me through some things and eventually said I should try prop up the pump a bit more. This has made the air circulate better but Oscar is still looking pale and is not looking great. If she can just last until 12 midday tomorrow. I sincerely hope she doesn't peg on this my last night of fish-sitting.