April 27

The council water is on and it tastes disgusting.  I wonder if they don't deliberately put so many chemicals in it that no one will drink it.

Today we have to face the strong possibility that schools will not open next week as they are due to and that we will be teaching, and learning, online.

For us, as a family, this presents numerous challenges.  The obvious one is the Internet which is not only erratic at times, but also very costly.  If Sian, Ellie and I are all online for hours at a time, we are going to eat up a lot of megabytes.  I will also have to divide my time between teaching my pupils and helping to teach my children.  Sian will be OK, but Ellie will need some supervision.  The thought of spending hours on the net is not an inviting one.

Home-schooling accentuates the divides between people quite considerably.  For the majority of children in Zimbabwe, the idea of using even Whatsapp for communicating with their teacher is far beyond their families' capabilities to provide.  It is more than likely that they will miss valuable months of learning and do nothing besides sit at home.  Even those children at private schools will struggle.  Not everyone has wi-fi at home and not everyone has access to their own laptop or ipad.

At Ellie's school, competition has already begun to see who is most prepared for online learning.  Some parents are rushing out and buying each of their children a laptop.  No doubt they will soon be launching their own satellite in space and connecting to NASA. Some have set up special rooms in their houses, constructed rigid timetables that WILL be followed and even devised a system of merits and demerits that will be announced at the once a week 'home assembly'.  It is, of course, very necessary to keep that competitive spirit alive whilst rugby is out of the question.

I wonder what will happen to all the carpark mothers who gather every morning in their spandex and gold jewellery to discuss all the things the teachers are not doing to help their children's learning difficulties, behavioural problems or inability to pay attention for more than half a second.  Perhaps they'll form their own Zoom group.  I'm glad I'll have other things to do.