It was mid-January. The whole world as coronavirus’ hostage. People wearing masks, people coming back home by 6 p.m., people losing their jobs, and people not finding one.
But there are still interregional trains from 10 euros Paris-Bordeaux. There are some flats, for really modest budgets, on the Atlantic coast that have not seen anyone since your last visit in October.
And you book your tickets, your flat and you leave the urban world full of anguish.
To breathe, to breathe, to breathe.
This is how the new year has begun for me.
One of these days, I caught the morning sun and took the ticket from Paris to the zone 5 of Île-de-France. It was a freezing morning and silence poured serenity around me and over the fields on the top of a hill where Jambville village seemed to be on the top of the world.
It is the top of the world, because I can’t stop returning over there again and again, when I am longing for silence, for beauty, for space and for peace
in my soul.
The isolation helped me to prepare the escape plans, in other words, I looked for ideas to go for a walk somewhere else except of Vexin, in Île-de-France. I thoroughly examined every inch of the google maps and photographs, and made a list of things I would like to see. When the confinement became milder, I visited Saint-Prix, a small town just nearby the famous Montmorency Forest, to the nord of Paris, in Val d’Oise. When the weather is sunny, it’s like a small Switzerland, and it is a good option for a not very long walk not very far from Paris (25 minutes by train from Gare du Nord).
Last Sunday I took another direction – to the south-east of Paris. I took the train doing to Provins from Gare de l’Est. In about 40 minutes it stoped at Mormant. From the railway station, it took me two hours walking to the south, where I expected to find a fortified medieval farm dating back to the 13th century. And I found it. There where only pigeons, ducks and me, and it was beautiful.
The farm is called le fief des Époisses. I think the peak of its glory was in the 70s, when it was in possession of the Maire of Mormant Mr. de Wulf, who transformed the farm into a place for musical events. Mstislav Rostropovich gave a concert here one night in 1975, and up to a thousand of people came from France, Belgium and Switzerland to listen to him.
It was later sold to the society Bis which accomplished the restoration works here in order to create a museum of agriculture. This dream didn’t come true. The farm is now closed to the visitors as private property (but is still visitable from outside). As it is the case of so many small historical buildings in France, it has become a place for meetings and seminars.
I had an interview for one good near-research, administrative position last Wednesday. The very fact that they noticed my CV and INVITED me for the 1st interview is significant. The salary is 30-35k euros per year, and the person should work really hard, and start straight away (adieu, summer!), making sometimes difficult decisions.
However, they chose another person. Disappointed as I got the decision, I should be perhaps rather happy that it wasn’t me who was chosen ’cause I’m really not sure that such a kind of administrative highly responsible and emotionally hard slavery has any monetary equivalent, and I am not sure that I would be able to endure all the challenges of the job.
At the same time, we had a really wonderful conceptual conversation with the employer. Wish him every success in his missions!
Back to my role of a cleaning lady. Today it’s been the first cleaning after the lockdown, since mid-March. Feel as if I climbed Everest.
тим часом під Кримським мостом у 19 окрузі Парижа, на каналі, пара лебедів звили гніздо. кажуть, 6 яєць висиджують по черзі. вчора бачила обох, зараз – одну (одного). прямо над ними люди поставили огорожу і повісили оголошення з проханням тримати дистанцію і не турбувати, бо пара очікує дитинчат і їм потрібен спокій
Jogging is not allowed during the day, run if you can before 10 am and after 7 pm. I just walk. I ran twice and stopped. The French say, j’ai la flegme. But those who run in the morning and in the evening, they also go shopping at the supermarkets between 10 and 7. There’s always lots of people in the streets. Always. The weather is awesome, so of course it is hard to stay inside.
At the beginning, I thought I would have permanent language lessons online, three to four students a week, but I was mistaken. Since almost three weeks, in order to make some savings to be capable to pay the rent at the beginning of May, I’ve been having my lunches at the church. The flat owner was so kind as to propose me to pay just the amount of subsidies I got from the government. Though, I would rather pay as much as I can.
I’ve got just one active student. The other five I hope will become active once again… sooner or later. With this single student, we have two hours of Russian 4 times a week (at the moment). The prices are really low right now. After the lesson, I go to the church, sometimes also buy something at the oriental shops (tahina, honey), and eat at home. Time goes by so fast… After 7 pm, I go for a walk.
There’s a Balkan family living by the shore of the channel Saint-Denis. The house they occupy was a sort of a service construction which served for some things related to industrial transportation via the channel. The family which counts about 20 people occupies the whole building (two floors). There are women, children, young and adult men. As I pass by so often, we greet each other, and still I’m a bit scared of them. Women wash their house and then pour water from the window on the passage where the passers-by and cyclists come and go, the water then flows into the channel. It doesn’t get worse, you can see many things there: huge dead fish, plastic bags full of garbage, plastic and glass bottles, and other shit floating here and there from one place to another and never disappears. One of the family members, a man with a huge belly and a traumatized eye, is fishing there all the time.
Paris streets became dirty. There are masks and gloves, and charity lunch plastic everywhere, I know its forms ’cause I eat from this plastic myself. I think a lot of the poor get their nutrition at the churches and other free food distribution spots.
I’ve got no news from my ancient Greece colleagues since more than three weeks. The lazy mathematician calls or sends me sms almost every day. I didn’t accept that he borrowed me 150 euros. It’s kind of him, but I would rather not to… No sex with the strangers.
And no house-cleaning any more after the lockdown.
I’ve found a place where one can get his or her packed lunch every day during quarantine. It’s the Paroisse Notre Dame des Foyers, 20 rue Tanger, 19e arrondissement de Paris, 1km from my home. I went there two days ago for the first time and received my lunch. It is for free. Today’s Easter, and I went there for the third time and got a bunch of tiny Easter chocolate rabbits! Very touching.
The volunteers organised it in a way that no one comes into contact with nobody. You don’t enter into the church. Just at the entry to the backyard, they put a table. A visitor comes up to the table where there’s a daily meals package waiting for him or her. There are about five volunteers. I think the older man is the priest. Everybody’s kind and polite. No crowds. I would say there’s no one coming for help, but I saw two people yesterday taking their lunches.
There are always a small bottle of water, two small bagettes, butter, confiture, compote, a cake, fruit and a salad, every day different. And today – lots of rabbits! Thank you!
Happy Easter
This summer Angeliki, a noble Greek woman with blue eyes, woman we love, responding our question what she usually eats for lunch told us that it was cappuccino and bread with tahini and honey. Tahini? What’s that? I remembered I saw it at the Vassilopoulos supermarket. We bought it but I did not like it. My friend did however, and now, this early spring we tasted it again and read about it lots of good things. So this time I loved it and as our quarantine lasts I can’t even imagine how my life could have been if I did not find tahina in various small oriental shops in my neighborhood.
Since the beginning of isolation, I’ve ate 4 kg+ of this divine crème de sésame, accompanied with mountain honey from Crete and sometimes with bread or bagette aux grains… And coffee, tea, tea, and coffee again. All days long. I don’t feel I need something else. Well, tonight I want beer… but it’s exception. Salads from time to time. No chocolate, no trash food like ready-to-cook spinach pie or quiche Lorraine I bought at the Monoprix or Leader Price. After my cleaning missions, I needed badly to eat something that bad. And I ate it. Just before going to sleep!
I think my life in quarantine has become a bit healthier. I approach to walking around three hours a day. I stopped doing toxic and dirty work (although I liked it as it relieved my head mentally and physically). And I eat a little bit better.
Around the end of 2019, I thought, “OK, great, I’m finished with my post-doc, I travel to Ukraine for the winter holidays, and the new, happy epoch is going to start: hunting for a good job, well-paid, and in a sphere where I love to work. Therefore, I should transform this blog How to Survive in Paris into a book, sell it (as a best-seller), become rich, forget about survival in Paris and move to Greece, to live my life amidst the last ancient Greeks in a remote tiny village above the ever-rough Aegean!”
The universe wanted it otherwise, however.
So, instead, I have not only to complete the first chapter of the story, but also to start a new season of How to Survive in Paris : CoronApocalypse.
At the moment I can describe you the end of the first season. Some of you already know that in late January, February and the week just before the global lock-down in March, I was a genius intelligent cleaning woman in three houses. That was not enough to survive, but thanks to my Dad and Friend it was possible to live and… to go for 10 days to Greece exactly around the end of February. At the time, I told to myself that we should go now when we have time, even for one week, because in summer it could become impossible: I imagined I found a job by that time and could not move for at least one year anymore. And we did it. We traveled to Greece and came back each to his / her city. In Ukraine, the quarantine began in two days after his arrival. In Paris, one week later.
The week after arrival I earned 30 euros for 2 hours cleaning, another 30 euros for 2,5 hours were paid before my voyage in Greece. That’s it. By the end of the week I started to feel not well, and my gentle lazy mathematician did not force me to come to his place. So, 30 euros of “income” the last week before the new era.
Meanwhile, an interest in languages arose… and the first week of the quarantine I managed to give three lessons of Modern Greek and two Russian language lessons. Next week, another lady contacted my for Modern Greek and we had two lessons. One more lesson of Russian and… the last one. Suddenly the girls could not continue any more… until the situation got better. In this way, during the first quarantine week I earned 133 euros, the second week 85 euros, and the third one 75. I pray for every next week to bring me 50 euros. But I still hope that some individuals have language thirst and hunger and they will find me. Better sooner!
Thanks to the imposed restrictions, I discovered an absolutely nice place just one kilometer to the north from my house. I think it’s a great place for excursions too, so when we’re all out, that would be great to show to the Parisians my discoveries! I only have to look for a historical and other related information about the Canal Saint-Denis. If 98% of the runners run around the canal de la Villette, Canal St Denis is much more quiet, but also quite industrial, but there’s a charm in that. It’s full of sun, it is open, and you can find the walls with funny and ridiculous and smart street art. This channel became the place of my everyday walks.
If you like my sketches or some of them and if you can afford a small contribution, I will be very grateful! paypal: valerie.sarine (a) gmail.com.
Stay safe!
How to survive in Paris 