Day One Hundred and Twenty-one

Feest Isolation Days – 13 July

My twelve year old Great Nephew lives in the States and I have asked him to give us all some insights to what the past months have been like for him living with this pandemic.  I think you’ll agree he has a way with words and I certainly have learned a few things!  I hope you do too!

Love

Kathy x

A young voice from America…

My name is Alex Ighemat and I am the author’s great nephew. This Covid pandemic was a very unprecedented time and this is a little bit about what my family did during the quarantine. I am a twelve-year-old boy living in Pennsylvania, USA. My family was lucky during this pandemic because we stayed safe during the period. My dad could work from home, my brother and I could learn online, and my mom’s business was closed so she stayed home as well. Finally, after 105 days of quarantine in Pennsylvania, we went green on June 26^th. This was the last stage in Pennsylvania’s reopening plan. This allowed non-essential businesses to open at reduced capacity and restaurants to open indoor seating.

I had to finish my sixth-grade year online because of the quarantine and I can tell you, it’s not the same as being  in the classroom. We definitely didn’t learn as much as we would have if we had been taught by a teacher right in front of the class. All hands-on experiences in class such as science experiments were cancelled. We were also supposed to study a stream nearby our school but that was cancelled as well. It was definitely a different experience than the normal year would have been if we were in school.

My family and I have been staying extremely careful, doing the best we can to keep the house clean, not to go out without a mask, clean the handles of doors and other high-touch areas, and even bleaching the grocery bags so as not to get the coronavirus. We wouldn’t go out unless it was completely necessary. We washed our hands until they shined and didn’t trust restaurants for a while. We definitely did a lot to stay safe from COVID 19.

I have started a comic strip about fruit during this pandemic and hope to get it in a newspaper someday. It’s a great feeling for me to make people laugh, so I hope this will help me achieve that.

Here is one of my strips:

This Summer is also lacking something that other Summers have and that is gatherings. We can’t gather at pools, have picnics, take walks, and do many other things unless it’s with close family. Of course, we’ve still found ways to have fun like running through the hose and playing basketball. I started a garden this year and have had somewhat of a harvest of green beans and sweet peppers. Hopefully I’ll get more vegetables soon. That’s what my family are doing to have fun this Summer.

We’ve just started gathering again with people but sadly, it seems that some parts of the US are going to have to go into isolation again in the near future. Hopefully people will make good choices and another lockdown will be averted. We must keep optimistic and hope for the best as only time will tell what happens next.

Alex Ighemat