Mental health and dachshund sitting

Saturday ended up being pretty busy. I had the meet up for the depression support group in the morning. I then went with two friends to buy groceries and toiletries for the patients at the mental health charity Tirivanhu in Ruwa. There are about sixteen patients in the rehabilitation centre there. Some of them have been diagnosed as mentally insane. They live in basic accommodation and raise cows, chickens, turkeys and rabbits that they sell or eat. It was quite an eye opener but they were very grateful for the groceries. Saturday evening I moved in to where I am house sitting and learnt the ropes before the lady I am housesitting for left for Turkey the next day.

I am enjoying the space and it is an interesting house - designed by a Norwegian architecture, it uses space in an aesthetic way. It is nice to also have a pool as it is still baking hot. There will be guests coming and going while I am here and I am enjoying getting to know the house owner's 80 year old aunt who lives at the back of the property. I am also getting to know the two dachshunds, Deeta and Lexi. They are definitely slightly comical dogs to observe. I have been warned to not leave chocolate unattended as it will be snaffled up by them.

Just finished lesson prep for tomorrow. Will be doing sponge painting with my four year old at the home school. With my Chinese five year old, I was requested to do a lesson on submarines after our lesson on pirates today. I have put together something with a very basic concept of upthrust. I have a new student tomorrow afternoon from the International School, whom I will be doing art and English as a second language with. Thinking of doing a story about a wishing tree and then getting her to play with chalk.

Pizza partying and house sitting

This week has been rather full. On Monday I went with my mum and friends to A Taste of the 80's at Reps produced by my friend Erin Sticklen. It was great escapism and definitely had a powerful feel good factor. A part of me wished I had been around to audition and get involved. Also made me want to learn how to play the drums again. I did have one drumming lesson when I was in Switzerland. Maybe something to pursue. I should maybe ask the Zimbabwe Craigslist - Zimvine on Facebook if anyone teaches how to play the drums. Had two more evenings out on Tuesday and Wednesday, with two quizzes. A friend was quiz master for the first and did a great job in compiling questions that were challenging but catered across the age range of those taking part. Went with friends who are here from the UK doing medical research to the Amanzi quiz last night and we came tie second.

Had my two personal training sessions despite the heat on Monday and today. I think I must have turned almost purple when asked to do jumping jacks (40 of them!) My face was still a radiant crimson when I finished and remained so for a good 20 minutes after. Monday was particularly challenging with the cardio as I had to skip, jumping jack, do my favourite mountain climbers (I think my trainer knows how much I dread them) and then do burpees. With the hot weather (it was supposed to have been 37 degrees yesterday) my trainer has said we can do a session in the pool where I'll be house sitting from Sunday. She did say though it will be a tough workout - I don't mind if it's wet. I have been going swimming at Polish friends' as they are away and have asked me to pop by and see their staffie.

I think it's the heat, but my students have been staging mini rebellions this week and going on go slows. My one student this afternoon felt he knew his times tables and couldn't understand why he needed to do multiplication work. When I pointed out his answers were wrong he replied well they were close - hmmmm. Need to think of ways to make it fun. We had started with a board game where you could add, subtract or multiply the die figures. When my student was not winning though he decided he'd had enough.

Tomorrow night I'm going to a pizza party for Sorellas Pizzeria and Cafe's 5th birthday. They do great pizza and pizza cake and it should be a fun evening. Will try go from there to Half Bar on Aintree Rd to a friend's birthday drinks.

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Under an October Sun

The temperatures rise
as do the prices in the aisles.
Hot, dusty days,
a tangerine sun in the haze.
My mind is in many places
but in between you're in the spaces.
Am I being blind
and is it all in my mind?
Do I dare dream
or is it as it seems?
An end which sets
with the October sun?

Sez She, Reps and baby fairs

On Friday I went with friends to the very entertaining play Sez She at Theatre Upstairs. Chipo Chikara and Jamie McLaren excelled in their many roles and the play was both hilarious and full of pathos in its many cameos. I loved the green protester who would remain painted green forever and who wanted to start a new demographic group. My Borrowdale residing friend's absence was felt when there was reference to the Borrowdale housewife and the dodgy Monavale hippies. I realised I had seen the precursor to this play - Vital Signs, when Under the Affluence staged it in Chisipite in the "house" that was a set in the film The Power of One when it was filmed in South Africa but which was shipped up to Zimbabwe and re-assembled here in Harare. This was incidentally one of Daniel Craig of James Bond fame's first film appearances in the 90's.

After teaching my form 3 yesterday morning I went to The Christian Counselling Centre and helped two friends who were selling things at the baby fair. They did fairly well and we saw a few people we knew. Amazing how many people are having babies in the near future. It was baking hot though and when I got home I crashed on my bed for a few hours. Today I went to the quiz at Reps and then this afternoon we had a committee meeting for the Convent old girls as we are to organise our annual reunion lunch. It is going to be a challenge with people not having cash but we're making a plan, as good Zimbabweans do.

Tomorrow I'm going to Taste of the 80's - a music show at Reps. My mum thought she had to dress up - well I guess she could, but I might disown her.

I have a 5 year old & messing around with charcoal and paint

Well my Chinese student turned 5 yesterday and I made him a dinosaur and rocket card. When he opened his present he informed me that I had not given it a bow tie (ribbon) and he did say his card should be addressed to him on the front and not simply say happy birthday - I will know for next time, only he is going to sadly have moved back to China by then. After my lesson on space he announced he wanted to watch a video on how to make a space rocket. Today he wanted to see one on how an aeroplane is built. He may well design these one day, you never know. He definitely has an enquiring mind.

Yesterday I had a really fun art lesson with Sarah Fynn. We looked at portraits done by Emily Ball and Sarah read an interesting quote from her book which said drawing should be like bungee jumping - you should be full of adrenaline and it should be demanding. We doodled with charcoal, playing around with mark making and tone, before smashing up some sticks with chalk and them using the ball of our hands to create form out of the powder. We then used a gum rubber to create light areas and another stick of charcoal to make even darker parts. Oh, before this we also did an interesting experiment where we had to feel our face with our eyes closed and convey what we felt onto paper. Finally we slapped paint onto primed card and worked into it, doing a portrait of a lovely old lady called Pebbles. I think I get more adrenaline when trying to use colour than from charcoal. Always hard to decide what colour to go with and what background to use.

Self portrait from feeling my face blind

Portrait of Pebbles - still in progress

I've been contacted again to meet some more French people at the airport and assist them in French with car hire. I apparently got a good review from last time which is nice to know, but I will have to work on my French again - Duolingo here I come. I am also busy applying for a few more possible teaching posts for next year. As I will lose my Chinese student I need to find some more. I will be very sad to see him go.

Suicide Month

Saying goodbye to people is affecting me more than I thought it would. Think it's a bit unsettling seeing people leaving en masse from Zim again and makes you look at why you are still staying. Yesterday I went to get some presents and quite a few of the gift shops were charging different rates depending on whether you swiped, paid in bond notes or had US dollars (haha who has US dollars?) Swipe was the most expensive. Technically according to the government it is illegal to have a parallel market but it is a reflection of the value of what we're trading in.

Am feeling a little sensitive to things as I'm fighting an infected tonsil and inflamed trachea. On a strong dose of antibiotics. It's similar to what I had earlier in the year which was the beginnings of bronchitis. Hopefully have caught it in time to prevent it spreading. Any way to cut a long story short, the topic of suicide has come up a few times this week. In Zim we often refer to October as suicide month because it is so hot and also as there are quite a few suicides at this time of year. I always think back to my first year of high school when a girl in our class of thirteen year olds came to school but went out the side gate, caught a taxi home and took the gun from her step father's safe and shot herself. As usual I arrived at school late the next day and was greeted by all of my class filing out the classroom ashen faced and crying. I tried to find out what was going on and was told Lisa had shot herself. I was misled to believe she had done it right there in the classroom. I remember trying to grasp what had happened and how I had to look at the bunches of roses placed on the empty desk in front of me in class for the next couple of weeks until our class teacher told the class we needed to move on. Little did I know then that I would reach the point of being suicidal myself in my twenties.

On Friday a friend was describing her ordeal of being admitted to ER to myself and a doctor. When she said casualty was full of people at 4 am the doctor replied that it would probably be lots of failed suicide attempts who were wasting everyone's time. The discussion then turned to pain and they said there was real pain and then imaginary. This stung as it is hard for someone who has never experienced mental pain to know how intense and tormenting it can be. At the braai last night the conversation briefly turned to suicides and one of the others did at least say the pain that drives you to that point must be unimaginable.

I am doing much better on the high dose of lithium I am on but it has been a long journey to this point and at times you are left helpless to the chemical imbalances in your brain. I have to go for blood tests this week to check that I don't have a toxic level of lithium in me as this can stuff up my kidneys and thyroid. It's a fine tightrope one walks and you are envious of those who don't have to battle to be stable and function mentally at an even keel continuously without being dependent on strong medication which makes you gain weight, messes with your metabolism and is possibly not a permanent solution. There is still so much unknown about mental illness and its treatment and the stigma of it all just adds to this.

Space and farewells

After his obsession with dinosaurs, my soon to be five year old Chinese student is now fixated on space and astronauts. For tomorrow's lesson we're going to look at the first people in space and the first woman - Valentina Tereshkova (I learnt something new). There is also the first dog, shame. Will also do a virtual visit to the Kennedy Space Centre. Turns out my student's grandfather designed space rockets in China. I guess I have my work cut out in educating his grandson. With my other home schoolers we've been looking at the planets and earth. The grade two got quite bolshy on Tuesday and announced she wished she had another teacher. I'm afraid I replied that at that precise moment I wouldn't mind another student. She was in a more cooperative mood today and actually apologised.

Valentina Tereshkova

I pack up my current house sitting stint and go back home tomorrow. Look forward to seeing more of my dogs (I have been popping home to see them when I can). I will be house sitting again for someone else end of the month and looking after two dachunds and overseeing a guest lodge.

Have two farewells this weekend for friends leaving to go to Germany and England. It's a sign of the times in Zim. Was chatting to a friend last night and we were saying Zim is not a place to grow old in and the problem is when one's parents reach an age when they can no longer work or fall ill, we can't afford to support them and none of our parents have decent pensions as they lost them when the Zim dollar went down the creek. At the same time though Zim is still home and one doesn't want to leave.

My sister and her husband will be coming to Zim for Christmas this year. It will be my brother-in-law's first time in Africa.