The Second Coming (of family)

Blog Post about Summer 2020

Doug, Kylie, and Caleb were left behind to finish things up after the lightning-fast move. 

Doug had to take our air condition units off the wall at our old house and put them in storage. 

He hired a crane to take the water tanks off our roof and move them over to our new house. 

Then Doug had to get permission from our new landlord to put a western toilet in our new house and turn the bathroom door around because the door swung inward over the squatty area.  The landlord really wasn't excited about it, but he agreed to it.

In the meantime, Doug was watching the news. He was waiting for commercial flights to start up again, but instead, things seemed to be getting worse.

So he booked flights on a charter to get them out on June 28, 2020.

And guess what?  

On the city's instagram post the day they were boarding the plane, these were the posts:

"NEW ROUND OF LOCKDOWN IS EXPECTED TO IMPOSE FROM TOMORROW."

"LOCKDOWN FROM 6:00AM - 0:00AM TILL JULY 4"

"PHARMACIES, SUPERMARKETS, GROCERIES, AND BAKERIES WILL REMAIN OPEN DURING LOCKDOWN DAYS. 

LOCKDOWN PERIOD: JULY 29 - JULY 4. 

LOCKDOWN HOURS: 6:00AM - 00:00AM 18 HOURS"

Coincidence?  I think not :)

So, while they were boarding, I was watching more instagram posts come through and feeling so thankful.

The next day said, "AIRPORTS THROUGHOUT OUR REGION WILL REMAIN CLOSED TO COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS UNTIL JULY 15th."

I'm so thankful that Doug felt led to buy tickets and get out, because realistically, commercial flights did NOT come back on July 15th, and it would have been a long time until he found one. The charter flight just happened to be the best option.

On the day they left, the Covid numbers in our region read:

Total confirmed cases 5,533

Total recovered: 1,634

Total deaths: 180

Total active cases: 3,719

I am more than aware these numbers pale in comparison to what was going on in America. I was keeping track of the numbers there, too, and this screenshot from May 30, 2020, was one month before we flew back.

 

Lockdown...One More Time

2020 continued...

We needed to re-stock a bit for the lockdown, but we decided to walk, and it's a good thing we did.

I wish you could have heard the honking and craziness of what this picture represents.

People went kind of crazy (again) the day before this lockdown started.

This is what one taxi driver gave Doug to use as a mask.

Yes, that's a paper towel.

This sign was at the airport as a notice for people to stay healthy while traveling:

*Eat only well cooked food

*Avoid spitting in public

*Avoid close contact and travel with animals that are sick

And this posting...I don't know what the punishment was, but it was a big deal around here for a while that people were saying the corona virus was fake.

 

Sad and HAPPY...Birthday Time!!

The day after Kylie took her graduation photos, our landlord told Doug that we needed to move.  

He wanted to sell the house so that he could have money for his son who was getting married.  Selling the house would help them pay the bride price and get the new couple started in life.

Doug tried to convince him it would be hard to sell, and that if we kept paying rent, at least he would have some income.  No go.

On a side note, I'm writing this blog on April 7, 2021, and he STILL hasn't sold the house.  I was just over there last week!

The news about moving was also the same time that our language helper's mother died, so we went to her funeral. Death is an especially sad thing here for me. 

But a happy thing is celebrating one of our children's birthdays, and at the end of that sad week, we got to celebrate Karis turning 16!

She woke up to art that Kylie and I had made her for her room.  Knowing that after Kylie left for college, Karis would have her own room for the first time in her life, we wanted her to have pictures for her walls of things that she loved.

Kylie also designed a special piece for Karis, printed it, and had it framed.

Since Karis is lactose intolerant, the best cookie cake for her was a tahin cookie.

Tahin is made from ground up sesame seeds, and for some reason, it tastes better over here than the jars you can buy in the grocery store in America.  Kylie and Karis have perfected tahin cookies over the last couple of years, and this just happened to be a giant one.

Karis is a lot of fun to be around.  She keeps people laughing and has a great sense of humor.

She is so smart and works hard at everything she does. She is dedicated, independent, a very loyal friend.

As I write this, she only has one more year at home, so I'm trying to take advantage of the time I have left.

Happy birthday, Karis!

The DAY AFTER these pictures were taken, we had to go into a 72 mandatory lockdown.

It was the end of Ramadan, and numbers were rising. 

We had a graduation party planned for Kylie that was supposed to take place in 6 days, so we held our breath!

Locked In?

On May 10, 2020, we decided to do some "talking" as we walked around the old city. 

This particular day, our "talking" was answered, and we met a family, which started some Good-news chain of events.

There weren't a ton of people out, but it was so nice to be outside.

And on any given day, I normally wouldn't have taken pictures flowers, but I saw these on my photo roll and realized I must have just been really excited to get out and be in "nature" this particular day.

May 10, 2020

As if "lockdown" wasn't enough, Caleb decided to go for "locked in."

The story, as I understand it, is that Caleb, Doug, and Karis were in the kitchen, 

and Caleb told Karis he didn't want her to leave, so he locked the door.

Karis said she was leaving and walked over to simply unlock the key in the door.

Caleb told her if she got closer, he would throw the key under the door...

and that is exactly what he did.

He tried using a pen and a toothbrush (as evidenced in the picture) to get the key but to no avail.

That's when the hollering started.

We were upstairs, but eventually we heard them, and Keira saved the day.

I was laughing too hard to help, but I decided to document it with a picture.

May 17, 2020

 

Spring cleaning and a Slumber Party

Like many of you, lockdown proved to be a great time to clean.

I went through cabinets and shelves, slowly getting rid of things.

Everyone went through their clothes and pulled out what they couldn't wear anymore.

And Doug got the pressure sprayer out and cleaned the outside of the house.

You can see the outline around Keira of how much dust accumulates on our walls.

April 21, 2020

When the balcony upstairs is being cleaned with water, the cleaner may think all the bird poop 

(and yes, a LOT of that is bird poop) and dirt is flowing down the pipe to the street.

Guess again!  It flows down to the porch right by our front door 

(you can see the PVC pipe if you look closely), 

and the cleaner gets to start all over again, spraying it down the steps to go under the gate, 

and THEN out into the street.

Doug also trimmed all the trees and pressure washed our windows 

to make sure we had an unimpeded view of the yard when we were in the kitchen.

Keira also wanted to have a slumber party, 

so Keira got mine and Doug's pillows and blankets 

and put herself in the middle 

and set the whole thing up.

(This wasn't our last sleepover...

when the house got too hot, 

Doug eventually set a tent in the yard for us, 

and the three of us slept outside for two nights 

because it was cooler than sleeping inside 

(but I think that wasn't until June).

April 26, 2020

On April 21, 2020, the government announced new curfew hours: 

For the next month (until May 22...the second to last night of Ramadan), 

curfew was to be from 7pm to 6am, Sunday through Thursday and 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays.  

Since people sleep a lot during the day during Ramadan, and they are mainly awake during the sundown hours, I think they thought this would help lower the numbers.

I didn't work.

Lockdown (with Twins)!

Keira and I started having lunch outside.

April 5, 2020

And then we started doing school outside.

April 6, 2020

And others came and went with their books and computers as the sun would allow.

The yard really was a great place to relax and not feel so cooped up.

 

April 13, 2020

There was one week during quarantine that we came home from the 

grocery story with two trays of eggs.  

(Each tray holds 30 eggs...we eat a lot of eggs).

Anyway...these two particular trays were FULL of twins.  

Maybe on a "normal" week, we wouldn't have gotten so excited about it, 

but during quarantine, the excitement was a little higher than normal as you might imagine.

For example, in the picture below, I only cracked 7 eggs!

I know. I know.  Amazing, right?

April 7, 2020

Also, much like in America, each day the government posted numbers for us to see.

I think our country did an excellent job at first with a quick lockdown and keeping numbers low.

Later in the month , after they loosened restrictions so people could 

celebrate the beginning of Ramadan (April 23), the numbers quickly escalated, 

and then trying to get the number of cases back down again was a hard thing to do.

One of the assignments Keira had to do for the French school was write a message 

for their school page in her own language to "Stay at Home."

April 13, 2020

A Surprise Easter Treat

For Easter, our sweet neighbors that let us borrow the convection oven invited 

Keira over for an egg hunt.

The mom was so good to plan ahead and get plastic eggs from America 

(or maybe she had them from years past)

Keira had never remembered going on an egg hunt before because the only one 

she ever took part in was when she was three before we left America.

She had a good time.

We all went over to watch her, and they even took a family photo for us.

April 12, 2020

He is Good (even in lockdown), and yes, He is Risen!

Aspects of Lockdown

Ten days after starting lock down, a "Stay Home" message appeared in the top left corner of my phone's screen.

I think that's one way to know things are getting serious :)

And what more could we ask for? 

Our oven went kaput during lockdown, and there was no way to get it serviced.

I happened to mention it to our neighbors one day, and they said they had 

an electric one that belonged to their landlord we could use.

What a blessing!!

Our oven didn't get fixed for quite some time.

March 30, 2020

We were so fortunate to live in that house at that time. 

The "green space" that we had in our small front yard was such 

a refreshing thing for us when we couldn't leave our house.  

You will see in later blogs how we took advantage of the space on 

sunny, beautiful days like this one.

March 28, 2020

But on rainy days, like the one we had on the 29th, 

we had to move our roof picnic inside by the fireplace 

(another thing we were thankful for in that house).

 March 29, 2020

Flooding...Again

This was "traffic control" in our neighborhood.  

As we walked to the grocery store or fruit stand we would see a car

 or two come up to the police, and they always let them pass.  

I was curious how other parts of town were blockading people or allowing car travel.

I wish you knew how crazy busy this street by our house is ALL the time, 

because seeing this was so weird!

We were so thankful that the fruit vendor guys made it through to replenish all our neighborhood fruit stands.

March 16, 2020

And then on the 18th when rain came again, the gutters and drains couldn't handle it, 

and I was once again thankful drivers were not on the roads

The one great thing about my older kids' online education is that school continued the same 

whether there was corona or not. Whether there was a flood or not.

However, Keira's education was another matter.  

Like many in America, the French school wasn't prepared for something like this.

Her teacher had moved into a hotel before Covid because her apartment situation wasn't healthy.

The internet was spotty, and she didn't know how to use zoom or even make a video for the students.

The hotel she was in didn't have a generator, so when she would call the kids 

around lunchtime on Whatsapp to check in, if power went off, the call was dropped. 

(We have our internet hooked up to a battery, for instance, so we don't lose internet 

when power goes off - it would be really difficult for the kids to take online tests, etc 

if we were always losing a connection)

Keira's teacher would text the assignments every day on WhatsApp.

I would translate them in Google translate, 

and then Keira and I would work through them together.

It was quite the system!

The grey building with the white doors in the middle of this picture is where our 

neighborhood generator is.  It makes a lot of noise, and as you can tell from where 

I'm taking the picture, it is right across the street from our house.  But the noise is always 

a blessing to hear when the town power shuts off, and some man across the street starts 

the engine on the generator so we can have power.

I hope that whatever this guy got out of his house for was worth it.

Thankfully for him, a police officer from the blockade crew came down to help him out.

Covid...when it rains it pours.

March 18, 2020

A Night, Day, and a few Months of Crazy

On Friday, March 13, 2020, we were in our weekly Bible study 

when the adults started receiving texts and notifications that the city 

was going to go on lockdown for 24 hours starting the next day.

Not really grasping how crazy the town might be (because it was only going to be 24 hours),

we stayed and visited awhile before we all slowly started leaving the house where we were gathered. 

We got to the grocery store in our neighborhood, and of course craziness ensued.

The pictures don't do it justice, but inside and outside in the streets felt like 

Black Friday at a Wal-mart.

However, unlike America, the most popular item to fly off the shelf 

was not toilet paper. 

 

Water and eggs were the things quickly disappearing.

We also went to the fruit stand, and their crates were quickly emptying.

Doug and Kylie walked about a mile to find us eggs while we waited in the car, 

and then we headed home.

March 13, 2020

That night it rained, and everyone except medical workers were snug in their homes.

The streets were eerily quiet, 

And then a large amount of rain fell that the drains couldn't keep up with.

Thankfully no one was driving because the water slowly kept rising.

March 14, 2020
 

And you probably guessed that 24-hours was not the end of our lockdown.  

At midnight, we were informed we would be starting a 72-hour lockdown.

The government said we could go out and get food, but it had to be done on foot.

I guess it was better for people to get their heads around a little amount of time, because

After the 72-hours, they added 5 more days.  At the end of those 5 days (on March 24th), 

the government said the lockdown would remain until April 1st, and citizens would be arrested 

if they were out for any other reason than getting food on foot or seeking medical care.

On April 1st, they added 10 more days and said that schools would be back by April 16th.

But even in the middle of that 10 days, on April 5th, a 48-hour mandatory lockdown 

(no leaving the house) was mandated.

On April 23rd, for Ramadan, the government said people could move around to see family, but there was an evening curfew.  Still no restaurants, no airport.

Long story short, it was 46 days before I got in a car again. 

On May 11th, everything in the country opened except for the airports.

A surprise at the end of Ramadan (on May 23rd), we had another 72-hour lockdown to keep people from gathering and celebrating.

We squeezed in a graduation party on May 28th before we were locked down again from June 1st-June 6th.

(I'll continue blogging to catch up with all of these dates, but I wanted to chronicle the Covid response by this country's government from March to June in one place.)