Last day of school. What a relief!
Tonight is the first night of the pantomime. It is affectionately called 'Grannies Night' as all the residents of various homes for the elderly are invited. It is also free for anyone over 65 so a number of people who are not in homes take advantage of the offer. The economic situation we are in makes the tickets prohibitively expensive for many people, especially those struggling to survive on tiny pensions. Apparently, if you can impress this age group, you will get a good response from the rest of Bulawayo. News travels fast in a small town.
In Zimbabwe, we have a unique form of payment which is called Ecocash. To try and put it simply, it is an account you have on your mobile phone. If you want to pay someone, you send it to their phone number. Businesses often have a merchant code rather than a phone number. I don't really know how we would have survived without Ecocash over the last few years. It is almost impossible to get hold of cash and not everywhere has a swipe machine.
Two weeks ago, Econet decided to upgrade the Ecocash system - with the result that it has had numerous problems ever since. The biggest one is that we are not able to put money into our accounts using swipe. This means that there are various people we cannot pay or certain things we can't buy.
Tonight, while I am working, we run out of Internet. Usually, I can recharge using Ecocash, but this time, I only have enough money to buy the most basic package that will not last more than a couple of days.
John and Ellie say the first night of the pantomime went well. Let's hope tomorrow the phones are abuzz with the elderly urging younger members of the family to go and watch it.
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