Covid-isolation in Paris

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.

Pause

Sometimes I feel so exhausted, I can sleep 12 hours at night and three hours the next day as if something took all of my energy, I have no will nor desire to do anything, I am empty, I am a biomass, I am nothing and nobody. Meanwhile, there’s in my head the whole list of things to do but I’m too weak to make a single simple step – to open an already created document, to write a few sentences; to search for new job positions; or at least to write memories about something dear and bright. All things became heavy, the rhythm of life is suspended, and perhaps I should learn to follow the flow.

Though, it’s easy to take entropy and self-destruction for a moment – or period – of recovery.

For those who’s eager to go to the ocean, here it is, the ocean I saw last November.

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La Côte d’Argent

 

Joyeuses Pâques !

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

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Quarantine eating habits

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.

Well, well, well, Coronavirus

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!

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Coronavirus et l’histoire de la grippe

D’importantes observations ont été faites dans son oeuvre classique Les Maladies à l’aube de la civilisation occidentale (Paris) par un historien célèbre de la médecine Mirko Grmek déjà en 1983. Compte tenu du schéma cyclique des pandémies en temps modernes, il nous faudrait attendre à un taux assez important des victimes et des décès dus au coronavirus. Lisez attentivement le fragment :

Le germe de cette maladie [de la grippe – vg], Myxovirus influenzae (isolé en 1993 par Smith, Andrewes et Laidlaw), provoque chez l’Homme une puissante réaction immunitaire qui détermine l’arrêt des grandes vagues épidémiques. Cependant, cette réaction spécifique ne suffit pas pour éliminer définitivement la maladie, car son agent déjoue les défenses immunologi-humaines et les souches qui parasitent les animaux. La grippe est une maladie des animaux domestiques et des oiseaux qui vivent à proximité de l’Homme. C’est en Asie, dans de vastes territoires à la frontière de la Sibérie et de la Chine occidentale, que se produit, en règle générale et dans les temps modernes, la recombinaison génétique périodique du virus grippal humain. Là naissent les vagues pandémiques qui progressent avec une grande rapidité et infectent de manière cyclique l’humanité tout entière. Aucune épidémie historique de grippe n’a débuté en Méditerranée. L’épidémie dite « espagnole » porte à tort ce surnom, car elle est venue, elle aussi, d’Asie.

Des renseignements précieux sur l’histoire de la grippe ont été obtenus récemment grâce à la séro-archéologie. Il a été prouvé, par exemple, que la pandémie de 1889 [grippe « russe » – vg] avait les mêmes propriétés immunologiques que la pandémie dite « asiatique » (1957), laquelle succédait à la grippe dite « espagnole » (1918). Le type « asiatique » et le type « espagnol » alternent de manière assez régulière : tous les 60-70 ans, l’un cède la place à l’autre. Chaque cycle est interrompu vers son milieu par une pandémie grippale due au changement du sous-type immunologique”.

 

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 Le Grelot, magazine satyrique parisienne, 12 janvier 1890

Ironic

I’ve realized how ironic is the name of my blog today…

There are finally only three major rules that may help to survive not only in Paris:

  • work at home if it’s possible
  • often wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds
  • don’t touch your face

Take care!

Here’s today’s evening Paris:

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Silence is nearby

Everybody knows, or should know, that silence is essential for our recreation, our creativity, our health, physical as well as mental and psychic. Letting oneself into a non-stop routine of the noisy cities means to ruin oneself, to create numerous risks for, among other disorders, dementia and depression.

I propose you (once again) to make a stop. To listen to silence. I’ve elaborated many safe and picturesque itineraries in the countryside across beautiful authentic villages of Île-de-France, just one hour from Paris by train. Our day-long journeys would depend, of course, on your walking habits, so distance may vary from 10 to 30 km.

Participation fees according to your possibilities. Join me one of the sunny days once you’re in Paris.

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So make a stop and have a really regenerating walk. No crowds, no urban noise.