Diary of a day during the pandemic COVID-19

Ten o’clock in the morning. Sun rays on my window woke me up. Since I don’t need to set an alarm, I wake up later than usual. Usually I wake up at 7 am to get ready to go to work and to classes. I think back at those times and think to myself if this will ever pass.

We all had better days than these. Days filled with work, studying, but also going out, walks, and visiting family.

These days were not as stressful for me, I thought of them as days off of work because of the pandemic. I started to focus on my dissertation and study for my last exams.

The first days were more relaxing, but days past, weeks past, and it became months – these days had become routine.

Waking up in the morning, cooking and eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, cleaning the house, reading, watching movies, and going to online classes and going to sleep was something that happened every day.

Let’s get back to ten o’clock in the morning. I wake up and make coffee for me and my mom. She wakes up earlier than me to take care of yard and the flowers we have. After we have our coffee, we cook breakfast. As a cooking amateur I try to learn as much as I can from my mom. We have breakfast together as a family.

After that I start cleaning the house. Much like any other family, the burden of doing the house chores falls on us girls, which is why most of the work around the house is done by me, my sister and my mom.

My brother, even though worked and is still working during the pandemic, always finds time to help with the work around the house, whether that being switching out an electric bulb, repairing an electrical device or collecting the trash around the house and putting it away in the trash can.

It is a big relief when every member of the family does the chores, no matter how small.

After cleaning the house, I rest for a bit. I do this by watching a movie. If I’m being completely honest, during the quarantine I’ve watched so many movies that now I’m having a hard time finding a new one. Worst case scenario, if I find no movies to watch, I opt to just listen to music. Music really helps me think positive thoughts.

Later on, during the day I fed the cat that came to the doorstep. I looked at it with envy, it was free, not isolated like we were.  The weather was nice. Sun rays filled you with hope.

Time passes by and so comes the night. We talk to relatives via video calls. We catch up, since it’s been almost two whole months since we last saw each other. But health comes first, and after a bad thing a good one always comes. That’s why after the pandemic ends we will come out more rested, with new knowledge, and most importantly – healthier.

This article was written by Gresa Asllani, a student in the Department of Social Work in UP under the monitoring of professor Vjollca Krasniqi within the cooperation with SIT. This article was written within the project “Men and Boys as Partners in Promoting Gender Equality and the Prevention of Youth Extremism and Violence in the Balkans”, implemented by CARE International Balkans in partnership with SIT and YMCA in Kosovo and supported by Austrian Development Agency, and Oak Foundation.