Stay Safe, Be Kind
It’s Wednesday at 7 pm and the church bells are ringing. I’m used to them ringing for either something to celebrate (royal wedding) or something serious has happened (royal death), so I was a bit nervous the first time it happened. Turns out, it’s an effort to say “thank you” to the essential workers during the coronacrisis. So now on Wednesday evenings at 7 pm I open the windows and listen to the church bells for 15 minutes.
It’s been an interesting few months.
We were in the US when the COVID-19 news started getting more frequent. We were there to prepare our house to go on the market for sale and had given ourselves 4 weeks to get everything done. As the time of our departure got closer, the news was getting more and more intense. We were due to fly out Saturday March 14 from Denver to Chicago, then fly Chicago to Amsterdam arriving on Sunday March 15.
We had been meeting with friends for meals throughout our time in Denver, but “do we hug?” became more common. On Wednesday March 11, we were at a small gathering with friends when we heard that flights from Europe to the US were being halted starting Friday night. We tried not to panic but we had a bunch of questions: how would this impact us flying the opposite way? would Europe respond in kind the next day? should we try to fly out sooner?
Billy tried calling the airline and tried accessing their website, but they were overloaded. It looked like the airlines were surprised by the announcement and were struggling with the volume of travelers now trying to reach someone to talk them through the news.
Thankfully for us, conversations in Europe were happening during the rest of that week but no decisions had been announced yet, so we boarded our flights on Saturday, and arrived in the Netherlands early in the morning on Sunday March 15. The plane to Chicago was surprisingly full, but the international flight was maybe 1/3 full. It was kind of surreal.
We boarded the train from Schiphol airport and two transfers later, we were back in Arnhem, staggering to our apartment for some rest.
We got home just in time.
Timeline of Measures:
In the evening of Sunday March 15, the Dutch government announced new measures to control the spread, including closing schools and restaurants, in public people are to stay 1.5 m apart, if you sneeze use a tissue or your elbow, and work from home if possible. (https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/03/coronavirus-in-the-netherlands-what-you-need-to-know-2/)
Children are to stay home but people in crucial sectors (https://www.government.nl/topics/coronavirus-covid-19/childcare-for-children-of-people-working-in-crucial-sectors) would still be able to use daycare.
A week later, on March 23, the government announced more measures after a particularly nice weekend meant people thought it was a good idea to head to the beaches, much to the facepalming of the government. Gatherings were banned until June 1. You can go outside for a walk if you need, but not in a group, and otherwise everyone is to stay home except for work, shopping, or caring for others. If anyone in a household is ill, everyone should stay home.
On the business side, services involving direct contact with others (hairdressers, nail salons) closed until April 6, and everything previously announced still stayed closed (schools, etc) and shops that are open are required to do things to keep people 1.5 m apart. Mayors were given the authority to close areas (like beaches and roads) to make sure people and businesses comply. People can be fined €400 and businesses can be fined €4,000.
Here’s one I didn’t see coming: Casinos closed as of March 23. I didn’t know we had casinos in the Netherlands! (https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/03/coronavirus-in-the-netherlands-new-government-measures/)
In general, people are asked to stay calm and avoid giving into panic driven-behavior. It’s amusing that the word for hoarding is the same as hamster (“hamsteren”) so the sign language interpreters are having fun signing the “no hoarding” requests, and people, even ministers, are stopping to watch. https://twitter.com/i/status/1245043033458053120
Another week, another set of announcements. On March 31, the Prime Minister said measures would be extended until April 28, with schools closed until May 3 and sports events still cancelled until June 1. (https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/03/the-netherlands-extends-anti-corona-measures-to-april-28-at-least/)
Occasional updates are now the norm. Mainly it’s “here’s the current situation, continue to stay home”. Tuesday April 21 saw an announcement from the Prime Minister that schools and daycares haven’t been shown to be hotspots for infections, so they can start opening starting May 11. Due to gatherings of (older children and adult) people being too dangerous for spreading the coronavirus, organized events continue to be banned until September 1. The big concern is that relaxing measures too soon will lead to a new wave of outbreaks. Caution is the general approach for now.
For us, our daily life is probably 60% like it was before, and 40% changed. Billy and I had been working from home already, so being home and on the computer is normal for us. Now instead of bird and bicycle watching I’m also seeing neighbors on balconies, people looking out windows, and socializing taking place as people stand in their doorways or lean out their windows to talk to visitors.
We like to eat food prepared by others, and we like eating at home, so take-out is usually our preferred, and now it’s available from places we usually would walk to (like a nearby “cafeteria”). The main difference is they leave it on our doorstep and I lean out the window to say thank you.
It’s also easy to lose track of the days.
Grocery shopping is hugely different. We used to walk or ride our bikes together to the store, and would go about every 4 days. Now Billy goes alone and only once a week (and sometimes longer). When he comes home, he goes straight to the shower, his clothes into the wash, and I decontaminate his phone. It’s a weird new ritual.
Our street also has been under construction as part of a large new water line project, and they got to our corner while we were gone. Watching them has been a great source of entertainment for me. They had a huge trench in the road and were taking out the old huge pipes (maybe concrete?) and replacing them with new ones.
Then they covered it mostly with dirt and sand and spent a few days on various utilities’ lines, probably reconnecting and replacing various items, and many of them were also covered by (smaller) plastic tubing. All if it was then covered entirely by the dirt and leveled and pounded down. The thing that’s striking about this to me is that it’s a handful of people, and they’re doing everything by hand. The dirt pounder is a one-person machine. They’ve got maybe two large machines that seem to do all of the digging and scooping and carrying. They use the machines to pick up other pieces and other machines! They’re amazingly precise with their use of these machines.
This week they’re rebuilding the road, brick by brick! Literally there are teams where one person is loading a wheelbarrow with bricks from a pallet on the sidewalk, dumps them by the other person, who is on their knees placing one brick after another in this lovely herringbone pattern. It’s fascinating and delightful.
We were scheduled to be on a riverboat tour this week with Billy and his mom and two of her sisters. It was cancelled of course, but I keep seeing reminders on my calendar. Billy and I decided it might be fun to do a virtual tour instead, so we’ve been putting together daily emails with links to YouTube videos of the cities we would have been visiting. It’s been an amusement to us, and it’s highlighted something to me.
We are noticing a lack of videos, in English, of some of these smaller Dutch towns. Sure there are plenty of videos about Amsterdam and Rotterdam and Delft, but not so many for Schagerbrug or Sneek or Den Helder, for example.
It’s gotten me to thinking. I had wanted Nikki Abridged to serve as a conduit to helping people learn about Dutch culture by me taking them around, in person. With the current measures in place, and probably some big changes in the future, I think I will focus more on virtual tours. Billy and I will be able to get to places, over time, and we can put together videos for people to watch from home. So if you have somewhere you’d like to visit virtually, let me know!
I’ll keep doing what I’m doing: posting blogs, posting pictures on the Instagram account, and posting videos on the YouTube channel. I reworked this website recently so now there should be links to each of these at the bottom of every page. Let me know if they’re hard to find and I’ll come up with more solutions.
It’s a strange time. In everything, it’s important to look after each other. There’s a sweet video that came from New Zealand.
Our landlord, who lives downstairs, left on our doorstep a pot of cute flowers that I’ve been able to keep alive (woo hoo!). Our local boardgame shop is organizing virtual bingo for Koningsdag. There are groups online offering help to each other, and I regularly hear stories of neighbors picking up groceries for each other.
I know in recent days there have been a few small but very vocal groups of people in the US calling for folks to get out of the house and start interacting again and ignore the severity of the situation. Thankfully most people are using common sense, staying in and not giving into that kind of fear mongering. It might feel good at the moment to give in or react quickly to something that connects to an emotional response, but please, do take a moment and think, maybe do some research, and then decide on action. You’ll feel better about it in the long run.
We have an amazing opportunity right now to define who we are as a society; what are our values, what’s important, and how do we react when faced with adversity. I am hopeful that we will look back on this time and see that most people reacted with kindness and compassion.
It’s good to hear you’re ok. I’m missing the boardgames and the company enormously. Have a good time and stay healthy 🙂 .