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.