Here at Yokota we are not really in quarantine yet.
Over the last week we started school at home and have become restricted to not going farther than five miles off the base. At this point the swim center has gone from normal free swim to allowing only 20 people at the pool at a time. And the citizens have started really practicing social distancing. Some families are overreacting and not allowing their children to play outside or with anyone. But the virus is not on the base yet. It's just slowly moving closer to the base through Japan.
It is moving very slowly because the Japanese people have good hygiene and respect for others. If they are sick at all they are careful not to spread their germs. Despite being overpopulated and having a great number of elderly in their country.
In America the pandemic is worsening because Americans have bad hygiene habits and are selfish. They are going out spreading germs. Not caring about social distancing or self quarantining. In places like New York.
But smaller cities and towns have wiser people, it seems. They are trying to do as advised.
March 20th was the last day of school. We were informed just the day prior that it would be so.
The teachers were also informed at that point. They were given an extra long weekend to prepare. Wednesday the 25th we started at home school. The school provided us with online resources. Too many online resources. They set up class chat meetings for the kids to check in, listen to their teacher read a story, have class. They gave us schedule suggestions to help us parents. But they also gave the kids assignments. And so many different websites to use that it was truly confusing.
It took all week for me to figure out where to go for each assignment for each child.
If we had a single kid then this supplied at home system would be okay. But when you have multiple kids using different websites and receiving a hundred emails about info to know it is overwhelming and downright impossible.
Sterling was home from work that week and helped out. But it was still too much.
Sterling helped Luke and oversaw him. I took on the two younger. As per our usual.
Tiberias has so much homework! And he struggles. Luckily, I can teach him during each assignment and try to make sure he understands everything. Fraction for example. He was confused when we went to do his fractions math.
Athena's work is simple because she is in Kindergarten and she is in the highest ranking of her class, I am sure.
The online classes/meetups are not working out for us. I was completely stressed out that week. But now it is over. We've had this weekend to catch up on assignments that were overdue. And I've realized again that I can't do all they expect. I was hoping they would go easy on us but they didn't. The school has tried to turn our homes into classrooms. When they should have given us less assignments and simplified them like this: go study sakura trees and write a paragraph about them, read, write a journal entry. Instead they give us journal assignments and too much instruction. Just leave it up to the parents, I say.
During this week I planted my garden in front of the house. Athena planted seeds in pots in the backyard. And she watched each day as beans grew in wet ziploc bags in the kitchen.
She came and told me there was a problem in the bathroom. It was about an inch high and it was cold water.
Scooping it in a cup wouldn't work. We finally decided towels was the best option. We soak a bunch of towels and placed them in a laundry hamper which we whisked out the front door to wring out. Then back into the restroom to repeat.
Week one was stressful for me. Not fun. Not cool. I think week 2 will be better.
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