One Special Thursday...an End and a Beginning

Thursdays are special for us. 

It's the last day of the week, and our tradition is to have pizza and a movie.

It started a long time ago with nachos and popcorn on Fridays in America, 

but in Africa, we started making homemade pizza every Friday 

because it was hard to get cheddar cheese and chips were near-impossible to find.

Now we are back to pizza, 

and even though many in the family would prefer homemade pizza, 

buying it is SO much easier, 

and Thursday nights are pretty busy already with ballet, gymnastics, and soccer.

On May 7, 2020, I drove to pick up pizza for the first time since March 12th, 

and it was clear that they were not taking dine-in customers.

Can you tell what gave it away?

This particular Thursday we were celebrating something bigger!

Earlier that day, we had all joined together in the kitchen as Kylie turned in her last assignment for her senior year.

With sketchy internet delaying the turn-in and "Pomp and Circumstance" playing on my phone, we celebrated our first graduate in the Taylor household.

Kylie, when this posts, you will have almost completed your freshman year of college.

We are so proud of who you are, your accomplishments, 

and how you have allowed God to work in your life.

We love and miss you!

May 7, 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.)

Castle on a Hill

We went to the top of the original city during the first week of March 2020

with some friends. They hadn't been up there yet, and we always enjoy going 

for the history and the view. They took their two kids and we took Keira.

Only a few people live up there now while it is being restored, 

but people still visit up there every day, walking the streets and looking around

This is the first time I had visited this particular shop.  I've been to a couple of the museums and one of the rug shops, but I don't think this shop has ever been open.

It was crammed full of interesting items.

Some of the restored buildings.

An old mosque.

We also visited a small amphitheater

Before heading out the other end of the city.

The buildings and high walls of the original city shielded us from the sun, 

so we were pleased to walk out to this warm glow hitting us.

The old bazaar was just below us. I've shown you 

other pictures of it here when Karis' friend came to visit.

Some of my favorite parts of the bazaar are the crafts on these steps.  

They are so colorful!

You'll see them again when I post Kylie's graduation photos, 

because she took some of them down here in the old city.

Keira is always a popular attraction.  You can see the men behind her, 

looking at her, while she looks at me.

Some of the many carpets and bags for sale..

Pomegranate and pomegranate juice are some of my favorites, 

ESPECIALLY when someone else does the work of peeling the fruit for me!

The old city really is built higher than you think.  

Civilization built on top of civilization for a few thousands years 

resulted in where it is today.

And the new city is always bustling below.

 

March 4, 2020