Another Sunday në Karentinë

We’re not really in quarantine. It’s not even lockdown. It’s restricted movement for social distancing. But that takes too long to say.

The specific rules in Tirana keep shifting, but the pattern has fallen into a rhythm. For several weekends in a row the whole city, the whole country I guess, was on total lockdown from Friday evening until Monday morning. Nobody was to leave their homes, at all, for any reason. In an emergency you were to call emergency services. No shops or businesses whatsoever were to open, for any reason.

These are the moments that feel sobering, with an odd sort of clarity – the skies turn the most pure azure, when everything stops. You hear the wind, and birds, and small household noises rising up from the neighborhood nearby. It feels like a crisis but also a deep silent stillness. You hear an occasional siren and, from all over the city, the periodic calls to prayer.

Recently, these restrictions have eased up, and as the weather gets warmer and the sunshine more insistent, there is a swell of energy and movement. Last weekend the elderly were allowed out on Saturday morning, and mothers with children under 10 on Sunday morning. I went out with Oz on Sunday and maybe half the people we encountered under the exuberantly leafed-out trees were mothers with kids under 10. This Sunday, maybe a third. People were just everywhere. Some wearing masks, many not. A clandestine coffee business had opened up and was furtively handing out espresso in paper cups to people lined up (well-spaced) outside.

During the work week, we can go out shopping – one person per household, once a day. For a long time Gimli was our designated shopper – it made me nervous, not so much the threat of contagion but police presence just generally makes me nervous. I’m the most scrupulous person you’ve met but I always feel like I’m going to be interrogated for something or other. Anyway, after our Sunday excursion last week I felt freer about going out so I’ve taken over the grocery shopping. It’s nice, actually. There is always a cluster of older men hanging out across from our neighborhood grocery store smoking and yakking. It’s like they can’t help it – they have to see each other.

Tonight we have a Zoom call with my in-laws. Off to supper.

 

 

Dusting

It’s been too quiet here for too long.

Last night I had my first COVID-19 nightmare. It didn’t seem like it was related to the virus, until I realized that the keyword was “lockdown.” I dreamed it was a code red at school, and we had to initiate lockdown procedures because of armed assailants approaching. It’s been a long time since I’ve woken up from a nightmare but happily I was able to get back to sleep quickly. In part because I’m so tired all the time.

Our new normal here in Tirana is working from home, doing school remotely, only leaving the house for essential errands (grocery shopping and paying the bills). Every afternoon we hear sirens from police cars to initiate curfew. For a long time it was at 1:00 p.m., now it’s 5:30, and then the eerie silence begins.

Eerie, but beautiful too. We hear birds, and wind, the quiet sounds of a neighborhood – voices, household sounds, even roosters. It’s like living in a village somewhere off the main roads.