Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?

[TheGreenGoblin]

return en masse to church

How else?

Indeed...

[1DC]

When i was a choir boy our local church was always about half full for Matins and full to the gunnals for Evensong. I understand that they consider twenty a reasonable attendance these days.I'm not one of them..

[G-CPTN]

When I was a youngster (I was also a choirboy), our Abbey regularly had congregations that filled the chairs in the transepts as well as the nave.
Now the chairs are removed (have been for many years), and services are held in the 'choir stalls' - or if a special occasion, in the nave with a mobile altar at the crossing and the choir seated either side of the 'altar'.

[larsssnowpharter]

We seem to have quite a few ex choirboys and Catholics as members of this august forum. I count myself as one but not fully lapsed in that I go to mass once a month.

Our parish has a good system of checking on older parishioners and getting in shopping for them. Proud to be a part of it.

Perhaps it is worth remembering that this relaxation of rules does not apply to the over 70s and many still need our support.

I might add that our parish church is full most Sundays. Congregation is made up of, mostly, wrinkles, Poles and Filipinos.

[Ex-Ascot]

Our local schools in preparation for opening next week have to have, in addition to many other things, a washbasin with soap in every classroom. One private school here in Maun has been punctilious in its preparations. However, nowhere did it say that the taps have to be connected up to the water supply.

They are within the law. Definition of 'washbasin':

A large bowl, usually with taps for hot and cold water, for washing your hands and face.

It says 'for' hot and cold water, not 'with'.

[TheGreenGoblin]

However, nowhere did it say that the taps have to be connected up to the water supply.

They are within the law. Definition of 'washbasin':

A large bowl, usually with taps for hot and cold water, for washing your hands and face.

It says 'for' hot and cold water, not 'with'.

In his early twenties, a young, lean, fit, Adonis like, Green Goblin set off on a sponsored cycle ride from Johannesburg to Cape Town, via Durban, in support of the Karoo town of Laingsburg that had been devastated by a 1 in a 1000 year flood.

Having made it from Durban, up, via Kokstad, into the Transkei, he arrived exhausted one hot summer’s afternoon in the town of Cofimvaba and fixed upon the town’s one and only hotel at the time as a place for a bath, rest and overnight R&R.

Having been advised by the African (i.e black) manager, who boasted one of those ubiquitous optimistic white toothed African smiles, the kind that makes the weary, and wary, very nervous, that the hotel had a bathroom on every floor (the hotel only had one floor), the Goblin booked in and stripped off and proceeded to the only bathroom, naked as Adam in his pomp, save for a dainty (clean it was fair to say) white towel covering his genitals and opened the bathroom, and then the rusty bath tap from which there came, not a rush of water, but a gurgle, nay a cough, and then a puffadder like hiss, and then, finally, a belch of dust and then nothing.

Infuriated the naked, hot headed, and now very bothered, Goblin strode naked into the foyer to tackle the manager who smiled that preposterous smile again to say…
“Oh yes, we have a bathroom sah, but the town pump she is broken, the man from Queenstown will fix it next month…”

Africa: 1 - Goblin: 0

[Capetonian]

That reminds me of a brief sojourn in small town USAmerica :

I found the number of a motel and called them for a booking. A room was available. I asked the price.

"Eighteen dollars, with breakfast". Surely I'd misheard.

"Eighty dollars?", I queried.

"Eighteen dollars, and we can do you a discount if you're in for more than one night". Obviously nobody ever chanced a second night. I was worried.

"Do you have any deluxe rooms?" I asked, imagining the eighteen dollar room to be a cockroach ridden underground cellar where the only running water was from the ceiling.

"Sure do. We can do you the deluxe for twenty eight dollars."

I asked the difference between 'standard' and 'deluxe' : "Deluxe gets you a carpet and a towel."

I optimistically assumed that it would at least be clean. I slept in my clothes, deciding that I'd stay cleaner that way than by risking intimate contact with the stained mattress whose exposedrusty springs would probably have removed some of my vital organs. Two threadbare rags that may have started life as bedsheets some time during the last century lay folded at the foot of the mattress. The airless room smelt of ancient cigarettes and decay. The only comforting thought was that the air was so stale that I was sure that no living being had been in there for months, nor could have survived, lessening my chances of picking up any unwanted livestock.

In the morning, after a spray of rust and dead cockroaches, a few drops of brown liquid emerged from the shower head. I brushed my teeth with some flat Coke, mindful of what Coke does to tooth enamel but feeling more comfortable with this than with the motel's water supply, turned my back on the sordid room, paid my twenty eight dollars, and headed for town, where for the only time in my life, I was pleased to see a McDonalds.

TGG probably remembers the old days in ZA when you couldn't get an alcoholic drink on a Sunday in a hotel unless you were 'resident' there. Driving down from Rhodesia, at thirsty o'clock, we would stop in some dorpie, ask for drinks, be refused, go to the reception and book a room or two for the night, in fictitious names, head back to the bar, get our drinks, and bugger off. We never left without paying for the drinks though.

[G-CPTN]

Monkeys run off with coronavirus samples.

Great! That's all we needed . . .

[TheGreenGoblin]

Hooh, hooh, aar, aar...

I am with the monkeys, **** human beings...

[TheGreenGoblin]

TGG probably remembers the old days in ZA when you couldn't get an alcoholic drink on a Sunday in a hotel unless you were 'resident' there. Driving down from Rhodesia, at thirsty o'clock, we would stop in some dorpie, ask for drinks, be refused, go to the reception and book a room or two for the night, in fictitious names, head back to the bar, get our drinks, and bugger off. We never left without paying for the drinks though.

Of course I do!

[Ex-Ascot]

The Botswana Daily News (Government run) has a poll on the opening of schools.

1. Looking forward to reopening, 2. Not ready, 3. In a dilemma.

I have voted No.1. Want the little b@stards back under lock and key instead of running around the dry lagoon.

[Capetonian]

A huge problem, the lack of adequate educational facilities in ZA is a ticking time bomb. The children who don't go to school not only end up perpetuating a worsening situation by remaining uneducated, but they are likely to be abused or commit crimes in and around the townships. Some so-called schools have 40-50 to a class, teachers who are illiterate child abusers, no books, no electricity, and no proper sanitary facilities. This is what the ANC has done to the people who voted for it.

It's all very well keeping the populace ignorant, the Nats did the same, but there is only room for a finite number of uneducated thieves in Government.

No school tomorrow
Minister’s plan for partial reopening on hold after talks with unions, parent bodies

Sunday Times31 May 2020By PREGA GOVENDER, STHEMBILE CELE and JEFF WICKS and SIBONGAKONKE SHOBA

Panyaza Lesufi

● Basic education minister Angie Motshekga’s plan for grades 7 and 12 to return to school tomorrow was stopped in its tracks yesterday. The minister’s apparent climbdown came after a week in which she faced opposition from teacher unions and school governing bodies, insisting the schools were not yet ready for a partial opening as SA moves to level 3 of the Covid-19 national lockdown. The new twist followed a marathon meeting between Motshekga, MECs, teacher unions and governing body associations last night. The minister is expected to make an announcement today after consulting further, says South African Democratic Teachers’ Union spokesperson Nomusa Cembi. Several sources said Motshekga acknowledged to the five unions and three major governing body associations that met with her that “the system is not completely ready”.

It was also revealed that some provinces were “really far behind” in terms of readiness to reopen schools. An insider said the indefinite postponement was to give teachers and governing bodies another week to prepare, and buy time to deliver water to schools without running water, where tanks had not been delivered.

The meeting took place amid calls from the unions and the governing body associations for schools to stay shut until they had the correct equipment to protect staff and pupils from possible Covid-19 infection. It also came as the One South Africa Movement, headed by former DA leader Mmusi Maimane, and the South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) said yesterday they were going to court to stop the re opening. Grade 7 and 12 pupils were due to return to school tomorrow, followed by other grades at later dates. A survey conducted among 6,600 principals has revealed that there is a dire shortage of face masks for teachers and pupils in eight of the country’s provinces. The study, conducted on Friday among members of the five teacher unions, also indicated there are “serious lags nationally” in the delivery of water tanks to schools. The results show that although progress has been made in the delivery of Covid-19 essentials, “it was not sufficient to guarantee the safety of both teachers and learners”.

On Friday, a day before they were set to meet Motshekga, the unions and SA’s three major governing body associations threw down the gauntlet when they issued a joint statement unanimously agreeing that the sector was not ready to reopen schools.

“We cannot support a piecemeal approach to the reopening of schools or the leaving behind of the most disadvantaged schools in our country,” the statement read.

The unions called on all schools, including those that are ready, not to reopen until all the non-negotiables were delivered. The unions’ survey found that only 40% of respondents indicated there was a system in place to replace soap, 45% said toilets had soap and water, and 39% indicated that classrooms have been disinfected. Yesterday, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) joined the fray after rejecting the department’s decision to partially reopen schools.

National Education Collaboration Trust CEO Godwin Khosa, who heads the consortium tasked with monitoring the delivery of Covid-19 essentials to schools, confirmed that he presented a report to the Council of Education Ministers. He declined to comment on the “observations and recommendations” made in the report, saying it is “sensitive and of national importance”.

A glaring mistake in the Government Gazette that published the regulations on school reopening, which the unions described as “a flawed document”, is the failure to mention grades 1 and 2 or the date for their return to class. More than 850,000 grade R pupils attending public schools will have to wait until July 6 to return to class, but their counterparts at private schools will be allowed to return to school from tomorrow. This is because of a special dispensation that was granted to the independent school sector by the department of basic education. Basic education director-general Mathanzima Mweli informed the National Alliance of Independent Schools Associations (Naisa) on Friday that only independent schools with grade R classes will be allowed to reopen those classes tomorrow.

“The other [early childhood development, or ECD] centres are the responsibility of social development and not basic education, and social development will determine when ECD centres registered with them will open.”

“It was a special dispensation granted by the minister because independent schools have the ability … to have a negligible number of learners. A number of them have the resources to meet the Covid-19 regulations.”

Basil Manuel, executive director of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa), said it had asked Motshekga “for more time to ensure that the system is properly ready. We are not at the place where we are comfortable that everything has been done and that every school is ready to open. We are not saying teachers must not go back.

He said that curriculum planning has to be done because teachers don’t know what has changed in the curriculum. He said they also expressed their concerns over the “flawed” Government Gazette, saying “all it has done is confuse more than it solves problems”.

“We are gravely unhappy. It’s a poorly written document.”

He said the idea of more grades being phased in at one time was mentioned for the first time in the document. Previously, the suggestion was that two grades at a time will return. According to the document, grades R, 3, 6, 10 and 11 will return on July 6 and grades 4, 5, 8 and 9 on August 3.

Manuel said grade 9s will only return on August 3, yet they need to make subject choices for the following phase. “Would it not be better for this grade to return in July? Why are they coming back so late?”

David de Korte, president of the South African Principals’ Association, representing 3,000 principals, said headmasters are advised not to “feel pressurised” by their provincial education departments if they are not ready to reopen.

Paul Colditz, CEO of the Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools, said a third of the 514 schools that participated in a recent survey on school readiness said they are not ready. Several schools have already had to close down because of infections as the first of the school management teams started to return from this week — 37 staff members at 32 schools in the Western Cape have tested positive for the virus. In Gauteng, two teachers tested positive — one at an independent school and the other at a public school in Ekurhuleni. They are in quarantine, and a Johannesburg principal is being treated in hospital after contracting the virus. Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi confirmed that a pupil at a school in Bronkhorstspruit, 50km east of Pretoria, had tested positive for the virus. Both the One South Africa Movement and the HRC said yesterday that they are going to court to stop schools from opening on Monday.

Maimane said papers, which will be filed electronically by the movement, cite the president, government and the ministers of co-operative governance & traditional affairs and basic education as respondents. The organisation argues that the government has the good intention of balancing economic and health considerations, but the reopening of schools is a gamble given the state of some schools and the track record of the department.

“We believe that schools are not ready and we are asking that the court provide a supervisory role to make sure that all schools in this country are safe for learners to get back into,” it argues.

HRC commissioner Andre Gaum said they dispatched a letter to Motshekga on Thursday, highlighting safety concerns.

“Our chairperson wrote to the minister to ask her to consider postponing the reopening of schools in view of our own monitoring and consultations with stakeholders, which points to a situation where many schools are not ready in terms of the basic requirements, we have not received a response to that letter yet and we are considering our options. One of those options is an urgent court application.”

Gaum said that because schools that do not comply with the minimum health, safety and social distancing measures will not be allowed to open, poor children are in danger of being left behind.

“That is of particular concern because most these schools [that would be barred from reopening] will be in areas where socioeconomic backlogs and general disadvantage would, in effect, prevent those children from going to school, while other children will be allowed to return,” said Gaum.

[Magnus]

The pubs are still shut.
The pubs are still shut.
The pubs are still shut.
The pubs are still shut.
The pubs are still shut.

[ian16th]

We can buy booze from Tomorrow!

I plan on going out to buy some on Wednesday. Hope the rush will be over.

[G-CPTN]

We can buy booze from Tomorrow!
I plan on going out to buy some on Wednesday. Hope the rush will be over.

Sold out?

[Ex-Ascot]

Magnus at least you can purchase the pop. Ian if they ever open here I am not queuing. Also think that we will leave it until the second day. It is unlikely that they will sell out of wine and scotch or even the more expensive beers.

[OFSO]

Cupboards full of booze here to get rid off before we move out in ten days time. My SIL says pour it down the sink.

[G-CPTN]

Cupboards full of booze here to get rid off before we move out in ten days time. My SIL says pour it down the sink.

Give it away to the homeless (or their charity) - for those using foodbanks.

[Ex-Ascot]

Cupboards full of booze here to get rid off before we move out in ten days time. My SIL says pour it down the sink.

Give it away to the homeless (or their charity) - for those using foodbanks.

Sod the homeless, let them drink meths. Private Bag XX Maun Botswana please

[larsssnowpharter]

Sproglette Senior is in year 10 at school. We have received notice that lessons for 1 day a week for just 3 hours will start next week.

All the precautions look sensible so, despite some misgivings, she will resume her education. In fact she has been very diligent with her online lessons but misses the sport.