More cases in our town

For weeks we had 19 cases, now suddenly 36.

A new case in our town, friends stuck in the wrong places

A man from another province is in the government hospital here in SR for reasons unrelated to covid. Last night they found he has covid19. Im guessing that will mean more bans etc. Hundreds of people will need to be tested. 🌼 Everyone has been looking forward to today, the last day of 3 communes being shut. But now there are other road closures happening. I was hoping to access a supermarket and a hotel for internet but it feels uncertain now. 🍄 Meanwhile some from our village are stuck in the worst effected areas- Phnom Penh and Poipet. They went to those places to look for work as the main industry of our town doesn't exist at the moment. Until last year millions of international tourist would visit our town to see the temples. 🥑 Also stuck in Phnom Penh are some expats who were only there for errands or passing through because they had to use the airport. They expected they would be back in their homes with their families in their respective provinces by now, but were prevented by the April 7 KNY travel ban. It has been lifted for most of the country but not Phnom Penh and other covidy places. 🍯 Some tried to get permission to leave but it didn't work out. Finding a taxi driver was impossible as the driver would have got stuck in their destination province. And even if they had permission woukd they be let theough all of the province borders? A risk of getting stuck somewhere a long the way. 🦀 One family decided they didn't need to waste weeks cooped up in the captial and looked in to visiting their passport country instead! Crazy times! 🍋 And still other expats outside PP who want to leave the country face te big hurdle of getting into Phnom Penh. On top of all the normal hurdles of pandemic flying.

Restrictions lifting- province borders and SRcommunes

A few days ago we heard the travel ban between provinces is over for most of the country. I didn't expect that as the daily tally is still going up. It only made sense when I remembered it was put in for Khmer New Year. Mid April is when everyone travels to see family, the biggest holiday of the year. In a few days time the 3 communes in SR that are closed for this fortnight will open. Thats 2 lot of restrictions lifting at once, it feels like there will be more cases here soon. Delayed KNY spike plus first post lockdown for a large part of the town. We ve been locked up for 2 weeks and I realise I gave up following whether we have curfew and alcohol bans. It seemed so important to know before, but irrelevant when we were stuck in the village.

More post lockdown surprise emotions

So as I wrote yesterday I found I was scared to go past the checkpoint, and then surprised and something like angry when I saw people had been going about their normal life the whole time. And since then I also found I feel like we need some time at home together. Even though we just did that for 2 weeks! But with our whole village locked in together, with no option for anyone to leave, it felt intense! It wasn't actually that different to usual in some ways. Except that normally I can go for a ride, and Soeun and boys can go and play soccer. Doing a big shop today, in case we have lockdown again. Can not access my usual supermarket, so going a bit further. This one has good prices for somethings but does not seem to sell some products I would normally get. Couldn't find any oats, granola, bran, kidney beans,peanut butter, crackers etc. Dairy was limited too.

Lockdown 2 ends; not as carefree as I imagined

6am ANZAC day & end of lockdown

 It had been a weird and hard 2 weeks, people around us had no market, no work, no food. Surely our village needs to open again soon, how will people survive?

So it was exciting when we found out the lockdown was over and the market would be open again....

Except then we realised it wasn't real..

But then we realised it was!

So then we tested it out and turned out not to be true.

That all happened around lunch time, then later in the day we noticed something which made it seem like they had let people in.

So we tested it again and this time it turned out to be true!

Unfolding alongside this was news that someone we know has Covid19. They only just finished school last year and moved away to another town to work. After being taken from their workplace they are now being held in a makeshift medical facility, in normal times it is a restaurant.

The parents are distressed.They are also are away from home in search of work, but instead of money for food they found Covid restrictions. 

So now the family is stuck in 3 different town without income or ability to travel. All to the backdrop of increasing virus cases.

But back to our village lockdown. When we realised we were free I quickly got ready to go out, which took some effort as I hadn't done it in 2 weeks. I have a long list of things I want to buy at the supermarket! I found out from friends which shops I can get to, some are in lockdown communes.

 By the time I was ready it was too late to go, and we realised we will probably still have freedom the next day. We just dont know how long it will last though, with cases going up and up. Out of the last 4 weeks we were in lockdown for 3, and we guess we will be spending more time at home. So the idea is to do a big shop while I can. Hopefully soon, although there is nothing urgent.

My last bike ride was 17 days ago, so this morning I grabbed my helmet while the kids were still asleep and the sun wasn't too hot. 

It was not as awesome as I thought. 

For one, I didn't check my tyres. 

And two, I had some emotions I didn't forsee. 

After having officials there keeping us all out and in, I felt a bit scared to leave the village. Was I going to get in trouble? What if they don't let me back in?

And then, once I was in the park I saw lots of people riding around as if it was normal! I realised they had been going about their normal life the whole time we were locked up! For some reason I felt surprised and kind of angry at them.

It was a fleeting feeling, only noting it as it felt so bizarre. Somehow I had forgotton there was life beyond 700metres away.

 Whirlwind day, will explain more later. 

Two different pieces of news seemed to be with us all day. Confusion about our village's situation. Sad, stressful news from a family we know. Both were overwhelming and happening at the same time.

But Day 5 of homeschool feels like we are starting to get used it again. They both did both a little maths and a little bit of English.

Some headlines from this morning, and news of 10 deaths by late in the day. The first death only happened on March 11th, now up to 71.

Others locked down without food

 

Sharing some screen shots of morning and aftenoon headlines today. I don't think I really ever read the Khmer Times before but now I check it everyday. They post the covid stats up the top.

A workmate of someone known to us tested positive and their whole company has been shut up and they all have to stay there for 2 weeks. 

Hopefully they will be given food, but it sounds like she will have no access to her clothes, bed, money etc, only what she had with her at work today (or whatever day it happened).

Its happening in a town about 3 hours from here and Im only hearing it 2nd hand so Im not sure of details.

Her parents are stuck in another town, unable to go to work and with no money to buy food. 

In a 3rd town her other family members are together, also with no work, school or income.

My last ride- 2 weeks ago.

Maybe day 12ish of village lockdown, although its 14 days since they found the case here and closed the market. 

Our hopes we would be let out after a fortnight don't seem realistic. Some say we have 5 more days, other say 2 more weeks. Our bans and curfews keep being extended so Im not surprised. 

And even we we so get let out, I dont want to risk getting stuck away from family, like Ive seen happen to so many people.

Also I might not be able to access the supermarket anyway, if its in a lockdown commune.

🌞

Day 4 of our new year in homeschool. I started printing maths worksheets on the back of old used worksheets, thus getting around the lack of printer paper. Lucky we bought a printer recently, I had been going into town to get school work printed.

We haven't started maths yet, all they want to do is write and draw in their journals, since we watched Anne Frank. Miss likes copying songs, her own idea. Master seems to write about WW2 and my nose.

A few online maths programs were the backbone of maths before, but atm they aren't interested. Perhaps thats good as the internet isn't fast and stable enough anyway.

Lockdown homeschool

 

Day 3 of school, and maybe day 11 of our 2nd lockdown: 

Just realised there is no more new printer paper to print more maths worksheets and the internet is too slow to do the online lessons.

 Also, Master is not excited to start maths again. Miss is enjoying coping writing out.

I think we will be doing mostly English and History this week.

Lockdown food

I just found out the milk&bread etc  friends brought yesterday had to be sprayed with disinfectant by the officials before it came in to our village.

 I'm feeling very safe and clean!

My way of getting ready for a no-food-shopping era is to stock up on tinned food. Also as much as the freezer can hold and boxes of milk.

 Meanwhile my Khmer family are preserving duck eggs amd veggies from our garden, as pictured.

And I saw our neighbour digging a hole to find crabs. She found one, even though it is hot dry season.

We're still having lunch as our main meal. My SIL cooks Khmer food. Often a soup or stir fry, ir grilled meat. Breakfast and dinner are more casual and scattered. Default dinner for the kids is fried egg, rice, carrot and cucumber sticks.  The adults often eat leftovers, sometimes I defrost food I cooked for myself that no one else likes.

Master is into WW2 these days. He normally watches short history doc on youtube but today we watch some cartoons about Anne Frank. Now they are both writing in their journals!

It was interesting to see her family have food delivered the day after we had people bring us food.

 

Or maybe its only day 9?

 Two members of our household went out on bikes to the checkpoint to meet my expat friends. They live on our side of town and got some supermarket stuff for us today, as we can not go out. Our other friend who brought us cash before also can't move around freely now, so we couldn't ask him again. Also its easier to ask expats to get supermarket stuff as they are going there anyway.

Day 10 of village lockdown

 From friends messages it seems lots of people in town aren't in the lockdown zones, but the places they want to go are, so its almost the same thing. 

Three communes are shut up, but it still seems like there is a lot of movement within each area and even people moving between communes. Quite different from our strict confined space, which started without us even knowing.

Starting to think about how to get bread and milk.

Day 2 back in homeschool mode. Miss wanted to do some writing on the lined paper. Master was happy to listen to history.

 https://youtu.be/JyRQqU6RGgM

One week of village lockdown, 4 litres of milk left!

 

Dark and noisy outside. 

The sky is black with clouds and noisy with thunder. 

Also dark from smoke and falling embers and noisy with the crackle of a nearby fire. Smells like they are burning old branches and grass rather than plastic and other rubbish.

Our covid refugee has been with us for a week now, since our village shut and he couldn't get home. Strong rain last night, so Soeun put the tent up. He normally sleeps under just a mossie net.

We had a church meeting this morning, with just those of us here. 

The boys are collecting some snails and fish from the pond they just emptied. So much mud. So much fun for the kids.

They didn't tell us how long we will have to stay in our village for but we are hoping only 2 weeks. Even if we do get out in a week Im not sure if I can just zip to the supermarket as 3 communes in town are now in lockdown for 2 weeks.

For fresh food we can buy here, and most supermarket stuff I stocked up on. We are ok for oats and toilet paper, but we only have 4 litres of milk left.

Six hundred and something cases today. 

At home with children

Our son has a secret spy kit in his hat!

Our daughter likes drawing girls.

 

Not just our village in lockdown

Miss my bike! But a family walk is nice.

A week after the 12th case was found near our market, I think the town now has at least 19 cases. 

About 2 months ago there had only been around 400 cases in the whole of the country from since back in January 2020. Now over 5000 more. Daily tally in triple digits.

We have already been confined to our village since Sunday, and the capital has been in lockdown for a few days. Today we heard most of SR town is in lockdown, although people don't yet know the details. But I'm told the supermarket and markets have been really busy.

I think that would stress me out, lucky I've already been in lockdown for about a week.

Until a month or so ago I used Facebook on my phone. I'm glad I signed out before all this Covid 19 chaos took over, I know I would be too distracted. 

Apart from Soeun and Khmer Times I've been hearing what's going on from messages only, not from fb groups and what other people share on fb as usual.

Looks like there is now some English stuff on the Siem Reap lockdown here.

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50839817/three-communes-in-siem-reap-b

Ever changing - jotting it down as it happens.

Our house guests can cook their own breakfast from what is growing in our yard.

So not only can we not leave our village, we also need to stay home. I had thought I could still go for walks and rides back and forth, 700m at a time. But no, only allowed out a certain amount of times to get food.

Most of the rest of our town is still open, I think we only have 16 confirmed cases so far. 

But as of last night the captial is also in lockdown. 

They have already had curfew a bit longer than we have, and already there is a ban on travelling between provinces. But the numbers keep rising, so I guess the government is putting in place extra measures.

I know of a few expats who got stuck in the capital when the travel ban started. They were about to go home to various provinces where they live but now have to stay in PP until at least April 20 or something like that. So they are in lockdown away from home.

The weirdest KNY ever! Grandma couldn't visit us, yet we ended up with an 8 person household anyway.

 

Today's stats from the front of Khmer times. Compare to ones I posted earlier. Or ones I post in the future.

Our second travel ban

 

Similar but different.

On March 20th our whole commune had a travel ban. No one in or out. For a week.

This time, it is only our village, not the whole commune. And you can come in, but you can not go out. We don't know how long for. Maybe 2 weeks?

Last time the market was still open, this time it is empty and taped off.

Last time we had some warning, less than an hour, but we did know ahead of time. It was connected to the breaking news of the second covid19 case in SR. It all seemed to happen at the same time.

This time, it happened without us knowning. A friend was visiting on Sunday 11th, he went to go home but was not allowed to. He will have to stay with us for New Year. 

I guess it was connected to the 12th case, but instead of happening at the same time it was 2 days later.

 12th case commotion happened on Friday night. So when we didn't hear of a travel ban on Saturday we thought there wouldn't be one. So not getting home on Sunday felt out of the blue.

More covid changes

 So after some chaos at our market last night we thought we might end up with the same as last time that happened. A commune travel, no one in or out. At the time we didn't know how long for but it ended up being a week.

But no, so far this time they just closed the market, a clinic and imposed an 8pm to 5am curfew on the town. 

(The captial city and at least one other province already had this.)

Heaps of new cases today

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50836543/black-friday-cambodia-detected-576-new-covid-19-cases-in-one-day/

March Time Capsule

Current fave toys and their whiteboard likeness. 7/3

Before last month moves too far into the past we’re making a collection of words and photos from March 2021.

A child-made scroll.

Hot season started, we paused our school work for our long summer break, the 38 roads project continued, walks and rides in the Angkor Park still happened but only in the early morning!

Srah Srang 6th March, 6:36am

Covid19 disrupted our lives with Cambodia’s worse outbreak to date continuing on from February 20, which gave me a vivid reminder that it was one year since it felt like the world turned upside down.

We still buy a lot of food, but not all of it. 7th March

“March 2021 is just like March 2020 only now we have toilet paper.” 

I saw this on Facebook and it felt true. Although we never had a toilet paper shortage here it did feel like we were doing March 2020 all over again. We hadn’t had to take much notice of restrictions for ages, then suddenly in March we had to cancel trips out of town and pay attention to how many new cases each day.

 

Wat Bo Road, 6th March, 10:15am

1^st March

A birthday party we went to on the last day of February 2020 popped up in my newsfeed memories. It was the last big gathering we went to before everything shut down for the new virus. We had just said goodbye to two families as they moved out of Cambodia. We didn't know a few more were about to leave. They didn't know either!

Bougainvillea- such colourful flowers in this season...and masks

4^th March

Hot season takes me by surprise every year!
The last few days the kids were tired and grumpy in the late afternoon and today one even fell asleep half an hour before dinnertime.
Time to think about some hot seasons habits.

Hot season habits might include:

Cornflakes for easy dinner

Naps during the day

Less or no school work

Less bike rides during middle of day

Less everything during the middle of the day

Ice cream

Drink more water

Eat mango

Angkor Wat, 12th March, 6:51am

6^th March

While feeling so tired from the 'feels like 38' humid day I questioned my son on  why is he  still so energetic even in hot season. He said without missing a beat, very loudly and while jumping around:

BECAUSE I GET MY ENERGY FROM THE SUN!
I'M SOLAR POWERED!
I AM A JAPANESE ROBOT!

Angkor Thom moat, 10th March, 6:54am

7^th March

It was on this day last year schools in Siem Reap town area were ordered to shut for at least 2 weeks.

I remember what I was doing when I found out, (I was in the middle of messaging a friend about kids and dental issues) .
It seemed like such a bizarre idea at the time. We didn't know that in a week’s time all the schools in the whole country would have to shut and for a lot longer than 2 weeks.

12th March, 6:44am

8^th March

This day last year was the first time to wash our hands at Khmer church. Soeun built a tap and sink for this purpose. We didn’t know at the time but it was also the last time for our children and I to go to Khmer church.

Wat Bo road again

9^th March

Countless diggers, dump trucks, detours.
Lots of destruction and dust.
Most of the main roads are construction sites these days, it is hard to describe how bizarre it seems. But also people just go about their daily business. “Reaper Roadworks” group on Facebook has a group collection of photos and videos of this transformation.

Part heat, part covid, we don't want to go out too much. Shop in bulk when we can.

Meanwhile the virus is creeping closer. Since Feb 20 cases have been rising. Mostly it was in the south of Cambodia, but last few days cases have appeared in provinces closer to us.   And today we heard just outside our town there was a case which meant schools there closed. Some community overlap with the high school near us, so our neighbours are impacted. Possibly geographically the closest we have been to people getting tested for C19. 

Fixing up the pond, although the kids pretended it was a World Wa trench

11^th March

Up until this date there had been no confirmed deaths from Covid19 in Cambodia, this was the day the government announced the first fatality.

Food by Aunty! She has been staying with us since June 2020. This is a corn dessert with coconut milk.

 

20th March

“Travel ban for our commune. No one in or out. Starts in 12 minutes”

Such a confusing shock to hear this, I didn’t know what it meant for us. A man had travelled from one of the infected provinces and sought medical treatment at the market near out house and about 3 other places in town. Our whole commune was banned from travelling for a week, and the pharmacy in question had police tape on it for two weeks.

I wanted to hurry in and see the sunrise, but some were more interested in how they are restoring the original bridge.

Sheepie and Koala

 

Always drawing

Summer holidays at home. 3pm is ice cream time!