No embassy Fourth of July parties this year; instead, we sent custom U.S. flag masks to our contacts. Cases continue to go up here, although our absolute numbers are low (under 1000 cases, under 100 deaths). The embassy is still hunkering down, and I continue to worry about ever getting caught up! There’s ostensibly a 6PM curfew and mandatory masks in public here in Liberia, but the Liberians aren’t exactly diligent about it. With the airport reopening with at least a couple of commercial flights, we worry about more community spread of the virus.
I worked on Friday, trying to get through some case work to sort out what visas I could possible issue to help reunite families. With the Presidential Proclamations restricting travel based on visa class and flight routing, it’s tricky.
John and I had a great phone call with our friend from Pakistan, Rick, last Sunday. He’s now working for DHS in Texas. Wednesday I had a fun chat with my friend Stacie, who just arrived next door in Abidjan. And yesterday I had my video chat with Ann, Pamela, and Jackie back in Arkansas, which is always fun.
It’s been super-rainy, which is fine with me – except when it coincides with two recent grocery store trips and deliveries to friends here in quarantine. John made some yummy Indian food yesterday. We watched some fun movies this week: the Mr. Rogers one with Tom Hanks was surprisingly good, and not so much about Mr. Rogers, but about a reporter writing a piece about him. We loved “Ford vs Ferrari” – again, surprising because we’re not really race car fans but it was a good story with good acting. And last night we laughed at “Eurovision: the Story of Fire Sage” – it was thoroughly silly and fun, and I loved seeing some familiar scenery from Iceland.