Month: March 2020

school’s out for-evahhhh! That would be true in all respects as the Ministry of Education just ordered the closure of all schools in the country (nursery – university) for the remainder of the school year. Of course we’ll continue with distance learning, but as Camille said, “there’s not really a point to it now, is there?”

I mean, of course there is for her and lifelong learning and creativity and all that and she’ll be going back next year and continuing on, but for Carter, it’s the end of his road. Now, we might say it’s fitting for a kid who wanted to be homeschooled since the day he started school to end this way, but even he is disappointed to be missing all of his senior year fun and celebration.

He has one friend already planning to leave the country next week as a result of the news, moving back to his home country where he’ll take his entrance exams for university (cancelling the year means no exams here). I’m sure others will begin to pick up and go as there’s nothing holding them here any longer. Whenever they can get a flight, as there are no flights leaving or entering the country for another week at least. But since we are locked down in our houses (except for people who still have to work) there’s no chance to say goodbye.

We are in the fines and arrest phase of lockdown: basically the government has published a list of fines for anyone caught violating various restrictions during this time of quarantine. Every night for 10 nights we are on a hard quarantine from 8pm to 6am. Nobody is allowed to leave their homes for any reason except by government permission obtained in advance (you have to text them for a movement permit). They push alarms to our phones every night at 7pm and then 3 times at 8pm reminding us that now no one is allowed out. It sounds like “EEEEEEEEeeeeeeee!” A loud shriek of a thing that sounds like my phone is being murdered.

During the day we are required to stay inside “except for buying necessary groceries and in case of emergency” (or those who are still required to work). If you are out and don’t have a good enough reason, you could be fined 2000 AED ($550). Basically we are to stay home. We can’t even go outside to exercise — though the boys have been walking the dog up and down our street a few times a day.

With child raising I like to say that the days are long, but the years are short. I am having to amend that saying for this period of time to “the hours are long, the days are longer, and the weeks are an eternity.” Partly because it all feels so pointless and indulgent. What to do? Wake up whenever. Eat food. Clean the kitchen. Sit on the couch. Sit at the kitchen island. Do some laundry. Clean the kitchen. Watch Netflix. Watch Tiger King so I understand all the jokes on Facebook. Maybe exercise. Maybe bake something. Clean the kitchen. Try to predict what food we will need 5 days from now which is the soonest we can get grocery delivery. Zoom meet with church friends. Clean the kitchen. Clean the kitchen (put that one on non-stop repeat).

How can I complain? I’m living my dream life right now. But they say even lobster starts to taste like soap if you eat enough of it. And I have filled my gut with all the sedentary activities that I possibly could and am now sick of them. Mostly because it’s without purpose and life must have purpose to be meaningful. I’m not looking for answers, just self-reporting. I’m sure I can find purpose in what we’re doing or not doing each day, but that would take effort and doing nothing is sucking up all of my physical and mental energy.

Gotta go clean the kitchen. At least 2 more months of this . . . Ackkk.

I thought this week things would settle. At the beginning of it Josh and I were looking forward to a week of “normal” within this COVID19 world. Alas, each day we have woken up to news of something that has changed overnight. One morning it was that all malls have closed, another day it was that all flights in and out of the country have been halted for 2 weeks. Then it was a stay inside order, unless you were going to work. But then it was unclear if you actually had to stay inside or if solo exercise was OK. Then it was official from the Ministry of Health: Stay indoors (unless you have to work) and if you get tired of the view inside, you may step outside your door briefly and then go back inside (that’s literally the instructions that were given). This morning we woke up to the most restrictive order yet: Lockdown from 8pm Thursday evening until 6am Sunday morning as the city is being sanitized and doused with chemicals over the weekend to halt the spread of the virus.

But like everything else this week, the guidelines haven’t exactly been clear. It was first all flights grounded, then not, then back to grounded again. Then it was all malls closing for 2 weeks which caused a run on groceries, even though grocery stores remain open for the next two weeks. It hasn’t made much difference in our day to day, but it causes a lot of stress, trying to judge what is essential and what is not (can we walk the dog?) in a culture where things are black and white, but rules aren’t always evenly applied.

They are taking this very seriously as our number of cases were low, but have started to creep up over the past week: 30 new in one day, then 45, then 50 and then 85 which is what generated the mall closure for 2 weeks. Next will be everyone ordered to stop working — currently it’s up to the companies that are allowed to remain open whether employees work from home or not.

We were originally scheduled to go back to school on April 5th, but once they closed mosques for 4 weeks beginning last week it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. My most favorable estimate would be the 1st week of June, after Ramadan and Eid, if at all.

The past two days I have taken a CoronaNap where I’ve unintentionally fallen into a deep hole of sleep for several hours in the middle of the day and then wake up, not knowing what planet I’m on. We aren’t doing much physically, but mentally I must be in overdrive.

Even though we’re in the same house, we haven’t been spending much time together the past few days. I think we’re all tired of each other’s faces. We eat, I call out various names to clean up parts of the house, _______ unload the dishwasher! ________, move the laundry from the washer to the dryer! _________, that is not clean — come finish the job!

In-between food and work everyone does their own thing. Camille has her google chats going on with her school friends when she finishes her work for the day, the boys are on their computers or on the x-box, Josh has been working on the 3rd floor, and I go between the computer screen, cooking some sort of food in anticipation of the next wave of hunger, or exercise/nap depending on the day.

Back in February (less than a month ago, which feels like a year ago) when I made this joke about our vacation plans for the summer:

I had no idea that it was going to explode globally the way it did and that scenario would end up being reality rather than fiction. Oops.

UAE registered its first case at the end of January and things really kicked off here the last week of February, causing event cancellations, school closures and encouragement to restrict movement. So even though official “lockdown” starts tomorrow, we are entering our 4th week of low/no activity, remote schooling, social distancing, quarantine, or whatever we’re calling it.

I’m not complaining as I watched my friend go through it in China for about 6 weeks before it came here. They’ve been locked in their apartment for about 9 weeks now. At least we have a small patio that we can use to keep active and get outside for a bit. The worst in China has passed, but they still aren’t back to normal. I’m watching their progress to gauge how things might go here.

So what have we been doing? Kids are in their 3rd week of remote school and haven’t left the house at all except to walk the dog or go to the gym with us (as long as it stayed open). They are gaming their hearts out each night in the evenings with their CA cousin and Canadian friend who wake up and get online with them. I gave up trying to put limits on it or restrict it since there really is no point. There’s enough hours in the day for them to do school, walk the dog, do any housework that needs to be done, and still game until their eyeballs fall out.

We have been cooking and baking, watching Netflix, having Zoom meetings for church planning/small groups online, and catching up with friends via Marco Polo, Zoom, Instagram and FB. I have spent WAY too much time online looking for new things to read and information to consume. Josh is working from home as of two days ago and I’m not working as of two days ago. Last week there was only a skeleton crew at school and all I was doing was managing book distribution for kids who put in digital requests. As I imagined, it was a heavy load week 1, less week 2 and now week 3, nothing.

So here’s a snapshot of what our days look like here:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

What is bringing me joy this morning is having the perfect blog post title pop into my head as I was in non-stop motion this morning — if you know me and and have my same sense of humor then you’ll get that this real life drama feels like a poorly written, unintentional comedy. Those who don’t get the reference should go watch The Office immediately.

I started writing this yesterday on our 3rd day of remote schooling. This week has been a blur of activity as the kids were home, but I had to go to work at school. I can’t remember who I’ve told what to, but schools here are closed for 4 weeks and all kids are restricted from campus, but staff still has to go work to get this remote learning thing off the ground, so I’ve been busy with the tech team sorting and getting tech items into the hands of those families at school who need them. We had 2 distribution evenings where parents came to pick up the ipads or computers that their elementary students usually use in class so they can continue working from home.

So I’ve been at school in the morning and the evenings and the kids have been like feral animals at home. That’s probably not a fair assessment, since I think they’ve all been getting their schoolwork done, but between church and work demands, I’ve not had any time to supervise them other than through text or yelling at them over the phone.

This week there has been lots of yelling, lots of apologizing, and lots of texting to 3rd parties to tattle on each other in a Round Robin of blame. As soon as one blowup is resolved, another one erupts — all centered around what they are allowed to do when not in class. I want them to look around and see what needs to be done; they think freedom from class means freedom from responsibility and a free for all on TV and games.

When your college age son calls to ask what’s going on because son number 2 has been ranting to him via text about how unreasonable mom is being . . . meanwhile I’m messaging Josh to tell him how I’m not going to make it through the next month if his boys can’t stop thinking only of themselves and having fun, and I’m pretty sure one of the Aunties had to step in to smooth things over via text . . . it’s not been a stellar week all around.

Thankfully I don’t have to work today, day 4 of this made for TV movie. We started with apologies and a promise to work harder to understand each other and I did see that wet towels were picked up off of the floor and the bathroom wasn’t left as if a tsunami had swept through it, so that’s real progress.

Right now I’m waiting to see if we can meet for church tomorrow or if the government has cancelled all gatherings. All public events have been cancelled for March and April (as of last night’s announcement) and rumors are spreading that we might continue with remote learning until the end of the year. I’m not worried, just worn out as things are changing by the day.

• 

• 

• 

• 

We’ve been on spring break this past week — said sarcastically because it started at the end of February and that’s not even close to spring, but whatever. We haven’t gone anywhere or done much of anything except get off schedule, staying up too late and Josh working too many hours, but it’s been relaxing (for us, not Josh) at least.

We’d already gotten word that when we headed back to school on Sunday that all extra curricular activities had been cancelled through mid-March. No sports practices or games, no swimming, no use of the gym . . . basically go to school and go home to prevent the spread of the Corona virus, aka COVID19 or whatever it is that we are calling it today. However, those measures didn’t seem logical (sit in class all day with 20 other kids, but avoid track practice?) so we were guessing that more restrictions were on the way.

And yesterday it was declared that all schools have been closed for the next 4 weeks. Nurseries all the way up through universities — throughout UAE. The entire country. True to form, the government announced that spring break would suddenly start 2 weeks early, last for 2 weeks and then students would be “remote learning” for the next 2 weeks. (our school is on a different schedule for spring break this year).

For us that means school at home for the next 4 weeks. If you could have seen the celebrating that went on at our house when they found the announcement on Twitter . . . forget Christmas, this was the biggest holiday of the year.

We don’t know what “remote learning” will look like in practice or how successful it will be. The plan is for them to log in online to each class at the same time they’d be meeting at school and check in, meet virtually, submit assignments online, etc.

I know the expectations for High School because I was working on editing the remote learning plan the week before we went on break in anticipation of this happening at some point in the future, but elementary school? No idea what they will do and how they will continue learning. Am I worried? Nope. Not about the virus and not about a lack of contact hours/loss of continuity/failure to be able to get into Harvard as a result of this. But there are a lot of parents who are, unfortunately. There’s a division between those who feel this is a whole bunch of overreaction and is going to ruin their child’s academic future and those who are “Safety first! We should all stay home for the next month and not leave the house so we stop the spread of germs. This is a matter of life and death.”

Since teachers aren’t barred from campus (yet) and the school is scrambling to create a digital education plan on the fly, I get to go into work on Sunday and hear the plan for the upcoming month at an all-Staff meeting. I’m pretty sure that “my job” will be supervising my kids and their online learning from home, since there’s not really a way to be a distance librarian.

So far church is still meeting, though AWANA is cancelled, but it’s possible that at some point they may close facilities to try to keep people at home. I’m not quite understanding the panic over this, but I’m not complaining as I’m happy to have a month that is light on events and activities and encouragement to stay at home. That’s my jam.