Although it was to be expected further to the restrictions imposed in the neighbouring countries, the Federal Council’s announcement on March 13 still came as a shock. Due to covid-19 all schools would close until April 4 – with the Easter break added effectively until April 20 – and further to that the Canton of Geneva announced the same would apply to the nurseries.
I spent the weekend feeling somewhat anxious about how I would be able to work from home with two kids in the apartment. In preparation for this new reality, we stocked up on some food in the nearby supermarket and children’s books in the local library. This turned out to be a good move since the library closed down at the beginning of the week, pretty much like everything else, except for the essential shops.
How did the week go? Well, describing it as “challenging” would be an understatement. If juggling responding to emails, attending work-related video calls, playing with children and cooking was already a mission (almost) impossible, adding to the mix the home-schooling part was simply too much.
By the end of day 2 I surrendered. No way I can sit at my computer from 9 am to 6 pm and be as productive as I usually am (and as would like to be), while my kids, especially the little one want to be entertained. Someone please save me! Not many options though. I thought of getting a babysitter but decided against it. It would be too irresponsible to do so at the time when the number of people infected had been going up exponentially. So, here we were, stuck in the apartment with hardly any exposure to the outside world, except for our daily walks in the nature, strictly avoiding any playgrounds.
On one of the days I decided to go to the local grocery shop. A big mistake! I left the place almost traumatised. Empty shelves everywhere and customers behaving as if they had never heard about the need to practice social distancing… By the end of the week the Federal Council (finally) announced that these rules would be enforced more vigorously with fines applied in case of disrespect.
Yet, unless in dire need, I do not see how anyone could drag me into a supermarket again until this corona-situation is over. Given that my attempt to order food online failed miserably – it still beats me how no slots can be open beyond two weeks but hey, that’s the (new) reality, I guess – we rely on the good old staples and mainly canned and frozen foods.
And then the week’s finale: the little one ended up with an ear infection and is on antibiotics while the big one caught some bug causing a high fever over several days. By the end of the week my only thought was how to escape to my home country and have at least the grand parents to help. Too late, of course. The airspace back home had been closed for a while, the international trains are limited and the very lengthy car travel is almost impossible with some of the borders closed. So we remain stuck here…
But hey, the picture could be grimmer, for sure. As we’re heading into week 2, I’m trying to think about all the positive sides of this corona-confinement.
And how did your week go?
