Today, Friday March 13th, 2020, I’ve decided to start an account of my experience of an unprecedented event in my lifetime, a semi seclusion in Geneva, my hometown. I will write it till we’re back on track… in May…maybe…!
It started off as a joke but as early as January 26th, my cousin Charlie wrote me
“Daphné
C’est une tragédie en chine
Depuis ce matin tous les voyages de tourisme en Chine sont interdit…
Ca ne mange pas de pain de se premunir
Maximum tu auras acheté des masques et du desinfectant”
… which I couldn’t do because there was an immediate shortage of both… So life continued and I have documented my Jenry in Belgium and my February in Russia amongst other trips.
The ugly truth appeared to me yesterday morning when I cancelled my weekend in Paris as I wasn’t sure how I’d get back in the chaos… a sad and heartbreaking decision but I was with Marc all other weekends and we managed to “steal” two blissful weekends in Zurich!
and Ghent these last two weeks
I was however extremely surprised that no measures what so ever taken in my school while we knew what was going on in China and later on in Italy.
We only received hydro alcoholic liquid yesterday Thursday, March 12. Of course in the meantime we kept washing our hands 1 million times a day but we still went on with life.
Yesterday felt like doomsday suddenly. When I went to school there were hardly any students hanging around and everybody was extremely worried. We try to alleviate the heavy atmosphere by exchanging ideas about Netflix programs we would be able to watch in the days to come. I have already prepared my list of books and should I need more I still have plenty around.
It’s also yesterday at 10 pm when my classes were over I learned that Emmanuel Macron, my President, had delivered a very impressive speech and ordered immediate closing of all school and university facilities I was thus absolutely certain that the same orders would be given very shortly in Switzerland and indeed this morning I went to school, made sure to copy all my files on my flash key in case of need and brought all my manuals home as I suspected the school would be closed as well.
At 4 o’clock today we received our hundredth recommendation from the Geneva School authorities and finally at about 5 o’clock the message confirming that our school was closed that we wouldn’t be working on Monday but had to be available so this was not a holiday however I’m not likely to be back in presence of my students for a while now as we are on leave till after the Easter holidays.
I also went shopping at Manor Vésenaz and was shocked to discover the empty shelves and fear in the eyes of many customers, a third of whom wearing a mask. It made me laugh although the employees were clearly exhausted and rushing to bring some more rice and pasta…
On FB, we shared links and I particularly liked Mrs Comencini’s paper in Liberation. I leave this Day 1 chronicle with some ways to escape our self-imposed seclusion. Do come back for more and share your thoughts.
Italians singing in Sienna at their window
We also shared links of virtual tours of museums…
Merci Nicole ! De quoi s’extasier sans expectorer 😉
10 musei da visitare stando a casa: tour virtuali e collezioni online.
- Pinacoteca di Brera – Milano
- Galleria degli Uffizi – Firenze
- Musei Vaticani – Roma
- Museo Archeologico – Atene https://www.namuseum.gr/en/collections/
- Prado – Madrid https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-works
- Louvre – Parigi https://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne
- British Museum – Londra https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection
- Metropolitan Museum – New York https://artsandculture.google.com/explore
- Hermitage – San Pietroburgo https://bit.ly/3cJHdnj
- National Gallery of art – Washington https://www.nga.gov/index.html
- and twelve more on another link
COSMO POLITIQUE 
2 thoughts on “Chroniques Covid Chronicles”