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.