I'm still standing

Hello everyone!

I guess it's almost the same for most of us now: we spend our days at home, doing basically nothing. In another context, maybe all through my life in school for example, this would have sounded like heaven on earth to me...of course just without knowing the reasons for this staying at home. Now I just wish that I could go outside to the park every day and enjoy the sun and the green around me or go back to work (...I can't believe I just said that...), but I don't. Normally I'm super lazy already, but when cooking, cleaning, reading, listening to music, running online conversation clubs, learning some new vocabulary and sleeping become my main occupations, which has been the case for I don't even know how many days yet, my level of laziness increases even more. All through the past weeks I've been trying to keep myself busy, but I noticed how I lost my motivation more and more.

I think since this whole staying-at-home-thing started here in Georgia I went shopping 3 times and every time I entered a shop I was surprised that there was still everything available which is really good...not like in the stories I hear from my family back in Germany...I think I don't need to be more specific about what I mean^^ But there are also some things that are not the greatest I think. Even though many people go outside with masks and gloves and all the persons still working wear protection, I see so many people walking past our living room window with their mask down. Last time I went to the shop, I passed a man who was fully covered with a cap, sunglasses, a mask and gloves and he went to the bakery. He touched the glass of the counter with his gloves, then took off his sunglasses with these gloves, said hello and what he wanted to buy and then realized that it was quite weird to speak through his mask, so he took off the gloves to lower his mask to talk to the girl in the bakery. When he got his change (...before putting his gloves back on which were made to be worn only once and then thrown away...) he put the mask back on and went to his car. This was only one situation I witnessed, but my flatmate told me some more interesting things she saw...and with interesting I mean more without any sense. It seems like many people are not really aware of how useless a mask is when you wear it while walking in the street on your own just to take it off when you talk to someone...which I thought was a way where it's likely to infect each other because of the short distance in case anybody is sick, but of course it's possible that my information is wrong. I try not to do too much research about this whole topic and just sit in the sun in front of our living room window to eat and watch people passing by.

Speaking of food: over the last days all of us remaining volunteers (my flatmate Lola left today to go back to France) were cooking and baking and also sharing everything which means that I had a loooot of good things to eat. Just to name some examples: Gilles, a French volunteer, tried some Georgian cuisine: he made Khinkali with mushrooms and Khachapuri (which was amazing), Erika made her 'lazy pie' (basically cookies in butter-caramel...I think I don't need to explain in detail how unhealthy but good this is) and Goda cooked some Žagarėliai, a Lithuanian specialty which reminds me a bit of "Schmalzkuchen", my favourite thing about Christmas markets at home, so they were super yummy as well. Even though I don't really like baking that much I made an apple pie today for Lola's leaving, because Mikio is not here anymore (Mikio – previous French volunteer who always made cake for everyone...chocolate cake).

Also I felt quite entertained and almost motivated again compared to the rest of the time when we didn't have electricity in the evening a few days ago. It was not completely dark outside yet, but I was getting ready to take a shower in our no-window-bathroom when the lights went off. So I used my chance and had my shower in the dark and it was actually quite fun trying not to fall while getting in or out and then searching for the doorknob with my eyes closed because I couldn't see anything anyway. After 2 hours of candlelight-reading in my armchair the electricity was back and Lola and me wanted to celebrate this with a cup of tea. Since our water boiler is broken (I think 2 months already...) I took a pot and wanted to boil the water like this, but: no gas...of course. A bit frustrated but also slightly amused we went to Lolas room to relax and go over some stuff that was left to prepare for her. Half an hour later she went to check and the gas was back, so we could still have our tea, which made me very happy.

...By the way: did I mention that the day before the no electricity- and no gas- for a little while-day was the no water for 12 hours-day? ...But we're prepared for these situations and it doesn't happen very often, so it's no big deal, it was just a bit funny how it all came at once within 2 days.

Now I guess I talked enough and maybe way too much again so I'll go back to our recently new-found occupation of colouring and braiding hair and re-piercing ears...

Hopefully everyone is healthy and thanks to everyone working in shops, pharmacies and hospitals who keep us going through this mess.