The Cost of Living Keeps Rising

Arundel Village shopping centre.

The exchange rate of dollars to bond currency has been rising exponentially this week. The official bank rate doesn't really budge but the black market is sky rocketing and this is reflected in retail. A modest basket of groceries now costs a couple of thousand in bond and it is a bit scary. Your salary, if you have one doesn't really keep its value to the end of the month. Some people immediately convert to US which is quite a good idea. I know people in the catering industry are struggling to budget and cover costs. I am very grateful to earn a teeny bit of US for my online French lessons. Life in Zim!

Yesterday I was pretty knackered when I got home. I worked non-stop from getting to school just after 7 in the morning, through until just before 6 pm. Lots of marking and then some prep for the coming week. I had been asked with my French lesson to make it more conversational and for future lessons to do some reading, so I will have to try find some simple French books online. While marking I listened to an hour's webinar on Zoom about online education and in relation to disadvantaged students in South Africa. It was interesting to hear how online can be a benefit but there are some things in traditional face to face teaching that cannot easily be replaced.

Winter is creeping in slowly. Although there is some sunshine today, when it gets cloudy there is a definite chill. I sat and did some of my marking in the sunshine yesterday. Some of my students are still far behind and one is not coping with things very well. Ostensibly my grade 7's write their entrance exams on the first Saturday of July so the pressure is on and at the end of my Zoom class today they all were a little apprehensive. Some are applying to schools that do offer learning support but whether they would be able to fully support some of my lot is questionable. There is still a great need for high schooling for children with extreme learning challenges and offering other skills that can be taught to those students who will not cope with IGCSE exams.

I might do some more Les Mills with my sister in a bit. Possibly Body Balance or core work. Had been invited to two social gatherings tomorrow but both are for fairly large groups and I think it's a bit risky. Not just for Corona, but also if the police get wind of it, you could face a 35,000 ZWL bond fine (still a fairly hefty amount). Looks like we might play another round of Jackbox.tv games with my friends and Beth and Andrew online on Sunday.

Inspired by Lindsay Ford

Lindsay Ford painting

Lindsay Ford painting

Painting exhibited at Gallery Delta by Lindsay Ford

I did art again this morning guided by Sarah Fynn. Today the inspiration came from the work of Lindsay Ford, a well known Zimbabwean artist. As a warm up I did figure silhouettes where you had to fill your paintbrush with paint and make the pigment flow to create your figure form. To begin with I was trying to create shape by wriggling my brush around but gradually got it to be more of a fluid movement.

I then selected a picture of a Mana Pools landscape and first did a sketch in charcoal, drawing by pulling out the dark areas (this was way more effective than trying to do line and texture). I then got out the same water colours I used last week - cadmium yellow, viridian, burnt sienna and ultramarine and again created a painting focusing on the dark and light and then shape rather than line. Wouldn't have been the colours I might ordinarily have chosen but they worked. If I am not teaching next week we are hoping to do a socially distanced painting en plein air at Jam Tree on the golf course.

The rest of today included queueing for petrol, teaching a student online (we battled on with trying to get him to grasp conjunctions, prepositions and direct speech), laminating pictures of fractions to stick up in my classroom for when we return and then getting home to do a Pilates class with my sister. I tried a Les Mills grit class last night. Oh my goodness gracious me, it was an introductory class but it was insane. One routine involved going from a burpee into a knee tuck jump. I just did normal burpees and that was killing. Tomorrow will try do a body balance class with my sister before Zumba.

Police presence

After going through a laid back police roadblock yesterday, apparently the police were out in force today and not letting people into town readily. This was supposedly due to the court case for the MDC Advocate Mpofu's trial happening. We have been at home all day and so were unaware.

I had a long Zoom session with my grade 7's this morning and they did concentrate fairly well. I gave them a break halfway through. A few managed to get themselves logged out of the meeting so I have to keep track of who is still on. One of my grade 6 mothers wants me to give their child one on one. I can't really give them all one on one, but her child does struggle. Remote learning suits some of the students well and they are conscientious and keep up, but for some it is a bit of a nightmare and I don't think they are following what we are doing.

I don't know about getting back on track easily. I think we're going to have to do a lot of revision when we get back.

I have more than two working, the grades sadly do matter and the parents and I care.

Tomorrow for art will try do a landscape in a Lindsay Ford style with oil pastel and water colour. I don't do Zoom sessions with my class on Wednesday but may have to take this one child. On Thursday I go into school to swop books and will do two Zoom sessions, so I would rather do the extra Zoom tomorrow as on Thursday I will also have marking.

Lindsay Ford landscape

Had a lovely chat again with my dear friend Heather and saw her little boy who is growing well. Sat chatting online on the verandah in the afternoon sunshine with my dogs Jasper and Elsie. Keeping our exterior doors locked when we're not in the room as we are getting a lot of beggars coming to the gate. A lot of them want US dollars but we only offer them a sandwich and some tea. There are a lot of desperate people about and lock down is causing some people to starve.

Pilates for the win!

True story, except number 7. Hopefully we are back to some normality by December.

It has been another full on day of remote teaching. Have been on the go again since I got to school just after 7. Not all my parents came to pick and drop off work which was a bit irritating as it means the children are behind and I don't get all my marking done. Two students who were behind have caught up in some subjects but are still behind in maths and have been doing their work in the wrong books. Gets frustrating and I am now tired. Got home and finished my marking on the veranda with my dogs and then did an hour's Pilates with my sister and another friend Stephan in Scotland. We did a lot of breathing exercises and it helped me relax after today. My sister was keen to do a Les Mills On Demand session after Pilates but I am knackered after today and am opting out. Beth has signed me up for a two week trial of Les Mills. You can do body balance (like yoga and Pilates), more cardio or strength with weights (I don't have weights at home, so can't really do those unless I fill water bottles). I think I still prefer doing my work outs from my personal trainer for cardio as I know what I am doing more with those and I really get a proper work out rather than trying to follow on my computer screen.

Had two Zoom sessions today, one with my class to go over the maths and English for the week and the other with my two Chinese five year olds in China. The Chinese parents have asked for more conversation rather than drawing and chat. I was getting them to draw their family and things and giving the French vocab but it will be a challenge to keep their attention for a full hour with just conversation but will have to try. It really is tricky not being able to share a screen with them over WeChat. With my class the shared screen is still a distraction. Someone managed to wipe off what I had written today and I really got cross. I give them free reign of the screen for a five minute break but am trying to get them to refrain from doodles while I am teaching. Tomorrow is past paper day.

Maybe that's why one of my students cleared my shared screen, I don't know.

South Africa had exam classes at schools return to the classroom today. We still have no indication of when we might but people are saying we have to have the school sanitised and all the teachers being tested before we can open. There didn't seem to be an official update statement this weekend from ED on what the plan is. We passed through our first police road block today on the way home on the Borrowdale Road. The police lady just waved us all through. I guess if we weren't wearing a mask she might have stopped us but there was no questioning where we were going to and from. There was an army guy on the pavement and there was a police tent next to the traffic lights. Our gardner is sending his children for private lessons in Epworth as the schools there are all closed.

Took two art works by Mercy Moyo and then my cosmos picture to be framed by Mr Macfaydean. My cosmos can join my other cosmos picture by Karen Seager. As we're still in lock down I can do some more art on Wednesday.

My cosmos picture

Mercy Moyo

Mercy Moyo

Karen Seager

Crash course on iMovie

So I managed to film my friend Lucy shaving her hair off for SPCA yesterday, but the challenge was turning it into a short video clip. I have only once played around with iMovie briefly but I had a baptism by fire last night trying to assemble something for today for SPCA and Lucy to post. I got the basics and managed to put in music and fast forward, all seemed to go OK, although cutting sections and choosing the exact point to add music were a little fiddly. All good, but then trying to export the jolly video from iMovie, oh my hat! What a mission. When I converted it to a file it produced this massive document that was way too big to email or whatsapp. I tried to Zip the file but it didn't seem to do anything. Tried Dropbox but it took all evening and still hadn't loaded. I then tried uploading to Facebook directly from iMovie. This wouldn't accept my password. I was really tearing my hair out by this point and wondering if a whole evening of editing had been wasted. Eventually gave up and went to bed, and this morning as a last resort tried uploading the humongous file directly on Facebook. Blow me over, this actually worked - I couldn't believe it. So, thankfully, the video was shared. Oh, but the snag - Facebook won't allow you to share copyrighted music, so alas the video may not have sound on Facebook.

If you would like to make a donation towards Lucy's head shaving for SPCA and are in Zim, the Ecocash number is *151*2*1*06326*amt*5555# 

The online board games yesterday with my friends and sister and brother-in-law were a lot of fun. Went for a lovely walk around Ballantyne Park this morning and then headed to school for a couple of hours work. Done all my photocopying for next week now - oh yeah. On the way home we passed by a friend's gate. They are doing take away meals from home and as a birthday present for my mum gave us a free pizza and some butternut soup - Tenji Mutiti, it was delicious. Can highly recommend.

To see more about Ballantyne Park go to https://www.facebook.com/bibi.eastwood/videos/10162149107200051/

Online games and head shaving

Had my Friday past paper Zoom session this morning with my class. Still have someone annotating my maths explanations, which is really annoying, but I threatened to stop the session and not offer any further help to anyone if it continued and it promptly ceased. Mid explanation though my one student suddenly leaped up and charged through their house with their lap top as they wanted to show me a horse at their back door. I didn't catch that this was what they were doing and wondered what on earth was happening. Thought they maybe needed a loo break and were taking their lap top with - oh my! It ended up being a long session so I need to break it up in future. One mum has suggested that instead of giving the class a social interaction time at the end of the lesson, like I started doing yesterday, I could give them a brief break and social half way through. I am just worried the social may continue afterwards. I give them free reign of my shared screen in this time and they seem to want to see who can cover the screen with the most writing and squiggles in one colour compared to each other.

I need to just do a bit of prep for next week but otherwise have a relatively free weekend. I have been asked to help record a friend shaving her head for SPCA tomorrow lunch time and then am scheduled to play some more Jackbox.tv games with my sister and friends in England and here, which I am looking forward to. My sister wants to do a Zoom work out later. We did a Zumba intense cardio yesterday. I want to do a bit more art and finish reading The Last Resort and Three Sisters, Three Queens.

My mum has just got back from trying to get some groceries. She queued to get in to Bon Marche and queued at the till, only to get to the end and find out that First Capital, our bank, is offline.

Anniversaries

Today has been long and a lot of work. Got to school just after seven this morning and have been working pretty much non-stop since. I had to do all the marking of work returned by the parents and then assessed a new student who it looks like will be joining my class. Was trying to do the Schonell reading and spelling age test at a distance and with a mask on, but it was tricky. From my marking, one student made me chuckle, they were asked what shape was at the bottom of a pyramid. The answer should have been a square, but my student replies, "Eygpt!" I guess the original pyramids had Egypt as their base but, no.

I did my French WeChat lesson to China from school and today we did la maison. The little girl was very chatty and good at repeating things but it was harder trying to extract things from the little boy, although he is a very good little artist. Am quite enjoying it but wish we could use Zoom rather than WeChat but it's blocked in China.

Today is a little bit of a hard one, as it is the anniversary of when Matt first asked me out after we got back from an Nyanga trip. Am trying not to dwell on it but at the back of my mind there are always the what could have beens and why's.