Day 14: The Quarantine Routine

Day 14: April 9, 2020
Global cases: 1,603,694; Deaths: 95,693
Egypt cases: 1,699; Deaths: 118

Maryam Fawzi
Multimedia Journalism Alumna

Alarm after alarm rings, for hours, and eventually I got the energy to actually get out of bed at around noon. Obviously, way too late for someone who has work.

Spending all of my time at home is making me lazier than ever, my brain thinks that all I need to do is relax at the moment. So, even though I woke up pretty late, I still take my sweet time eating breakfast and I notice how my puzzle is almost done; great, now what will I fill up my time with? Eventually I start working, trying with all of my power to avoid the endless distractions.

I keep involuntarily scrolling through Netflix until I remember I should be on the browser tab next to it doing my job. A little bit later I find myself playing a phone game and I have to remind myself again that this is not a vacation; then Facebook, then Instagram, you get the point, just anything to keep me from doing my job.

My job as a magazine writer requires endless hours of staring at a computer screen – so cue in the throbbing headache once I actually start focusing for the longest time today without distracting myself.

To be fair, the computer screen isn’t the only headache-inducing part of my surroundings, my extremely loud neighbors with their gazillion children might very well be the cause of this pain. My room window looks directly over their backyard, and while there is a tree barrier between us to hide them from me, it doesn’t stop the tremendously loud noises.

The kids’ favorite game is to dive into the pool, but with a twist, they like screaming at the top of their lungs before every jump in. And with all the screaming children, the adults take this chance to speak – or yell – even louder as well so that they can be heard between all the ruckus.

So yes, it’s fair to say that these neighbors and their children may have given me this headache. Of course I can’t really afford a break so I just take a painkiller and push through the pain until it finally goes away and I keep staring at the screen until my working day is over.

My daily quarantine routine is then followed by a 30-60 minute break before I have to get up and cook. My sister is 29-years-old, but she can’t even make pasta, and she also doesn’t like takeout. So I’m stuck making food for two everyday until this whole coronavirus mess eventually blows over.

For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.

We then sit and have a (very) late lunch, something that was once a foreign concept in our family, but since it’s just the two of us stuck in the house together, it kind of makes sense. We start watching the first movie while we’re eating and by the time the second movie starts playing, we’re both not giving it that much attention.

I just sit and work on my 1,000-piece puzzle, while my sister video chats with her friends complaining about the boredom and the usual internet issues.

To be honest, I’m not bored at all. I’m actually happy in this quarantine, if anything I wish the days were longer because at the end of the day it always seems like the time just flew by very quickly.

I eventually go to bed after eating several bags of chips in shame, promising myself yet again that I will work out starting tomorrow. I’m very well aware that I need to wake up early so I can work, but I just refuse to sleep and instead watch show after show on my laptop. I eventually fall asleep some time between four and five in the morning, begging my future self to actually wake up on time tomorrow.