AMERICA HAS UBER EATS -- WE HAVE MANDI!! (Armand). Mandi got permission to drive at the beginning of this crisis and comes to Vlashaj at least twice per week from Tirana to meet with contractors and check on the building progress.
Today he brought me a basket of wish list items I haven't been able to find in the village markets. Before Corona (BC) we shopped weekly at a European chain grocery store in a shopping center on the edge of Tirana. In the village market, the product offerings are much slimmer and offer very few recognizable brands. Today, Mandi brought us deli ham, sausage, Hellman's mayonnaise, canned kidney beans, tortillas and canned corn. I've already started my next list which includes pineapple, celery and broccoli. 
One thing we can say about this time of quarantine is that we are never bored! We might feel trapped -- but we are not bored. As the head of our WGM team, Nathan has been in zoom meetings daily relaying information about changing restrictions in Albania, communications from the embassy (esp now that all commercial flights have ceased and land/sea borders are closed) and reporting back to the local team mission directives and decisions. Yesterday, though it was Sunday, Nathan spent several hours learning a new software program to better live-stream our church services. Today he gladly left his work at the dining room table to meet with a contractor to discuss the gutter systems and insulation (Albanian construction is more different in its steps than I even realized). Shortly after that I got a heartbreaking phone call from a church member asking for financial help because of being unable to work. We knew that it was a difficult call for that person to make and know it is just the beginning of a season of really hard times in our community. A good number of families here rely factory work (which are largely shut down) and on sending family members abroad for seasonal agricultural jobs. With Mandi nearby, he agreed to pick up boxes of food for this person as well as a handful of other families we know are struggling.
The newest round of restrictions unveiled over the weekend means that Nathan and I can no longer take our bi-weekly date to the market (the only time we leave our house and while we could do so it felt like such a moment of freedom to do so). We can now only send one family representative to do shopping, and only with permission via a text message which has to be applied for at least 24 hours in advance.
But though we haven't been able to go anywhere, it's been an incredible blessing to church hop on Sundays across a variety of different streaming church services offered by many of our providing churches. Such a blessing and feeling of connection with back home that we don't typically get to experience!
Yesterday we caught Ellie trying to sneak a wad of paper into the trash and noticed her licking the tell-tale signs of chocolate off her lips. Apparently, she found a secret stash of Hershey bars in the deep freezer being saved for s'mores some day. She explained that she and Reni were playing a Star Wars card game (like the one in which Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon). They felt to keep things interesting they needed stakes of their own. Oh my. What have times come to. Incidentally, we do not condone gambling, but we are so grateful these two are still finding things to do together and rarely complain about the lack of going out. They have not left our house since March 10 (21 days as of this writing).
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| Hair gel covers a multitude of imperfections |
Today things felt desperate and I was finally able to convince Reni to let me cut his hair. I was less successful in getting him to pose for a good photo -- He gave me one shot. The neckline is a little crooked but his argument was, he couldn't see it and likely not too many others would see my mistake either. He had a point.
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