DOVER-FOXCROFT -- Life has changed dramatically for families in the Piscataquis region, and around the globe.
“I get to get out of the house by myself, and that’s about as much celebrating as I’m doing today,” said Christi Pingree on April 2, her birthday, while picking up pre-ordered groceries. The couple, who will be married two years in June, have two children, Jarad Pingree’s son, Kieran, 9, and Christi’s daughter, Jelena, 9.
Pingree, a behavioral health professional, took a leave of absence when the school closed, even though she worries about her clients while she’s away. “My workplace is pretty understanding, and in my opinion, family comes first. I don’t want my kids shuffled around, especially at a scary time, an uncertain time. I want them to have stability, a strong routine. We do a whole school day and try to keep it as normal as possible,” she said.
Jelena enjoys being home schooled, but Kieran doesn’t like it as much and misses his friends, Pingree said. Finding materials hasn’t been an issue, as the school sends homework, coloring sheets, links to word searches and other educational games. Art projects are also available online. School begins right after breakfast.
“We do things in the same order every day,” said Pingree. “We knock out the hard stuff first, then go on to the easier things. If we can’t do recess, we do what I call movement – we put ‘Just Dance’ on the Wii to get all their wiggles out.”
Pingree said she “never aspired to be a homeschool or stay-at-home mom, and I was right! This is not for me. I only work when they are at school. I take them to the library once a week, and I’m at every sports thing, but I like to get out and work, and I like having my free days here and there, too.”
Financial concerns and COVID fears
Pingree was a little apprehensive when she took her leave of absence. Then they found out Jared would also not be working. Jarad just finished work as a background investigator. His new job, forensic analyst at the Maine State Police crime lab, is on hold.
“This is a little scarier because we don’t know how long this is going to go on for,” she said. “I don’t know if this will be a month or three months. I had heard with mortgage companies, if you needed to miss a payment or three, they would put it on the back end of the loan.” But when she called, she was told that they could take months off, but would owe back payments in addition to regular payments once they resumed.
Fortunately, the couple’s income tax refund arrived recently. “That was a load off,” Pingree said. “I felt like the timing was pretty darn good. I think we’ll be okay. We’ll be fine.”
Typically, Pingree shops at Sam’s Club and Walmart, supplementing with trips to Shaw’s and Will’s Shop n Save. Now, “I don’t want to go in anywhere. I pull in [at Walmart] and call and tell them I’m there, and they bring it out to the car. I don’t touch anything or talk to anyone. I wash my hands when I get home and I scrub everything down with antiseptic wipes, then I wash my hands again,” she said. Postage stamps are ordered online, as are photographs. Arrivals from Amazon get wiped down, too.
Pingree is also uncertain how safe takeout food might be. “Everyone decides how much risk they want to take. Everyone has their ideas, but to me, it’s just not worth it. I am perfectly capable of preparing our food. To me, better safe than sorry. That’s just my personality.”
Mental health matters
Talking to the kids about what’s going on can be tricky, Pingree said. “I don’t want to lie to them that it’s all sunshine and rainbows, but I don’t want to scare them, either. We tell them that everything is going to be okay, that we are doing everything we can to protect ourselves, and just following [recommendations] to keep ourselves healthy.”
Pingree, who works part time, misses having a few hours to herself while the kids are in school. “I really, really miss having time to myself one or twice a week,” she said. Fortunately, her husband helps her carve out a couple of hours to watch TV by herself, and she helps him find time for a nap once in a while. Jarad Pingree, a veteran, is missing pain management treatments normally received through a VA hospital in Boston.
Pingree said she misses attending church in person rather than via Facebook Live. And she misses dinners with her in-laws, who live nearby. “It’s been kind of weird and hard not to be able to do that. Yesterday, my mother-in-law put some masks in the mailbox, and waved through the window,” she said.
“I try to keep things as normal as possible,” Pingree said. “Other than that, we are just kind of winging it and doing our best like everyone else and hoping this thing will pass.”
DOVER-FOXCROFT – The team at Northern Light Mayo Hospital is getting ready for COVID-19, and they could use our help and support.
“One of the things I do think is a blessing for us here is being in a rural area where the population density is so much lower than even in Portland or southern Maine,” said Marie Vienneau, president of North Lights Mayo Hospital. “It helps increase the chances of success with social distancing. I hope and pray that helps us here in this county. We support the guidelines and encourage everyone to follow them. They do help and they can work!”
Social distancing is “one of the only tools in the tool chest,” said Dr. McDermott, VP of Medical Affairs and Senior Physician Executive. “We don’t know who is shedding the virus until they are sick, four to 10 days after they’ve been exposed. Social distancing will work, and may be what makes Maine look different than other places. We might be in social distancing for six to eight weeks, maybe more. Social distancing is a difficult term, so let’s call it physical distancing, but without a breakdown in communication.”
For example, he said, many meetings now take place online via Zoom, and friends can have dinner together over Skype. “We are very fortunate to have those technologies and people are finding creative ways to use them.”
Proper hand washing is also imperative. Dr. McDermott said he loves the handwashing advice dispensed recently by Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah, which was: wash your hands as if you have just sliced a bag of jalapeno peppers and now need to take out your contact lenses.
“A lot of people are very concerned about hand sanitizer, but when I became a nurse, we didn’t even have hand sanitizer,” Vienneau reassured. “Soap and water are all you need, so you shouldn’t worry too much if you don’t have hand sanitizer or bleach wipes. You can get by if you just wash your hands well.”
And while it was somewhat contentious, the merger between Mayo Regional Hospital and Northern Light Health on March 1 couldn’t have come at a better time, Dr. McDermott said.
“One of the things I would say really helps me get though the day and worry less at night is knowing that we are part of a system. That brought to us a wealth of resources, planning, materials and ability to anticipate potential problems that would have been extremely difficult on our own. I feel blessed that we’re there,” he said.
Vienneau agreed. “All the supports are there, and financially, we would have been in very dire straits had we not merged at the time we did.” The hospital is losing revenue from cancelled elective procedures and routine appointments, while savings are being depleted due to stock market losses. “It would have been very difficult for us without this system to back us up,” she said.
Community caring makes a difference
“I would say the community has been extremely supportive of the workers, as well,” said Vienneau. “Spruce Mill [Farm & Kitchen] sent cookies and coffee one day. Gordon Contracting donated N95 masks, and helped us set up our areas. And various community members are making homemade masks.”
Mayo employees are finding the community efforts, “very supportive and heartwarming at a time when they are under more stress than they may have been in their careers,” she said.
“It’s unusual,” said Vienneau. “At a time when many of our family members are home and trying to stay home, we are actually working harder than we would normally work, because the demands of preparing for this are quite great.”
To offset that unsettled feeling, it’s important all essential workers try to, “get enough rest, eat healthy, get exercise every day – all of the things that keep you going during a challenging time,” she said.
“I think one of the things that I personally have experienced that has been helpful to me, and I know other members of the medical staff have felt this, too, is the tremendous amount of support from our friends and families,” Dr. McDermott said. “Not a day goes by that I haven’t gotten a text saying something like, ‘Hey, I know you’re on the front lines. I’m thinking of you.’ That sort of unsolicited support from family and friends, through social media, texts and phone calls all help a lot.”
McDermott said he also feels blessed to be in an area where most of us can open our door and get outside without violating social distancing guidelines. While people in urban areas are stacked high in multistory apartment buildings, “we have the ability to get out on the recreational trails, go for a walk, go down to the lake or up to Borestone,” he said. “We’ve got those opportunities here in our backyard, and I think people are taking advantage of that. My daughter, from San Francisco, came home because if she was going to work from home, she would rather do it in Maine than in a crowded urban area.”
Healing themselves while healing others
While anyone who can work from home is doing so, hospital workers are in the workplace “because that’s where the patients are,” Dr. McDermott said. “We ask each other, ‘How are you doing?’ and then “Okay, how are you really doing?’ We don’t have a lot of employee turnover. People here form friendships over 15 or 20 years. They know when someone is under stress, and looking out for them is a nice feeling.”
There are also a couple of people at the hospital who are doing reflective readings, and sharing them with coworkers each day by email to provide insight, a reprieve, and to take the mind to a different place. “And humor helps,” said Dr. McDermott. “This is not something that should be taken lightly, but we try to find some levity. There are things about the ways our society is responding to this that are humorous – and laughing helps.”
Additionally, Northern Lights Mayo Hospital tasked some staff with creating a wellness handbook for employees. “It was sent out today [March 30] and has multiple links to mindfulness programs, meditation, recovery resources, exercise – access to programs to keep ourselves and our minds fit and healthy,” said Vienneau. “We asked them to develop this based on the situation we are in at this time. As leaders of this organization, Dave and I and the rest of the leadership team are charged with the support of our employees and helping them through this, being there every day and helping them, communicating with them, doing nice things for them like free food on Fridays. It’s a prolonged period that this virus will be with us. It is very important to support our employees,” she said.
“Of course, we have individuals who, based on their own personal situations, are dealing with some anxiety,” Vienneau continued. “Perhaps it’s a caregiver who is pregnant or older and has chronic conditions, and they are asking questions about that. People are seeking help and support if they feel affected, but overall, our employee morale is quite strong.”
Finding the silver lining
“Another thing that is really helping us through this is that with adversity comes innovation,” said Dr. McDermott. “We are learning to do things we haven’t done before. We are using Zoom as a secure platform to begin reaching out to patients in their homes through telemedicine.”
A lot of healthcare can be done well through telemedicine, he said. For example, a patient under treatment for high blood pressure, with an accurate blood pressure cuff at home, could safely have a follow-up appointment with a physician via telemedicine.
“In many parts of the country, telemedicine is more advanced, but all of a sudden with COVID-19, we are putting in place platforms in all primary care areas that will serve us well for years to come. I’ve got two daughters living out-of-state in urban areas, and they routinely get things taken care of through telemedicine. They get the advice and guidance they need, and it saves them time and travel. We are learning new things, which helps keep people resilient. I think some of the skills we are learning now are skills which are going to serve us well in the future.”
“Our providers are open and excited to learning new telemedicine technology,” said Vienneau, adding that after the crisis, healthcare will probably never go back to how it was pre-telemedicine.
The other thing that Dr. McDermott said he is seeing is the office-based practitioners, who are not as busy now, are cross-training for roles that they may have done in the past, like working in the hospital or in the ER.
“It’s refreshing for them to push their minds in different ways,” he said. “They are not doing something they are not comfortable with, in terms of taking care of someone sicker than their anticipated needs, but they are working in a different environment, with a different team. It’s almost like taking a vacation while at work. We are doing that now, before the surge. When we get the surge, we’ll be ready. We’ll have staff cross-trained and people won’t be trying to figure out how a system works that they don’t’ know really well. We will be ready to roll up our sleeves.”
AUGUSTA -- When one needs their job, speaking out about what it’s like to be an essential employee might be risky.
“So, I’m considered an essential worker, as we supply people with food and supplies for their pets,” explained the worker, who wished to remain anonymous. The store serves pet owners within a 50-mile radius of Maine’s capital and is considered a high-traffic location.
“The executives have done a great job being transparent about all the changes due to COVID-19,” she said. “We've been able to keep the same payroll hours, but our business hours have changed. We're required to keep track of the number of people in the store (no more than 15), which is difficult when 'Bob' and 'Mary' decide to take their family of five to go look at the 'pretty fish,' without gloves or masks, and with a few kids coughing and sneezing on everyone and everything in store.
“Because of this, and because we are trying to reduce the risk to everyone, we have an extensive cleaning schedule of all the carts, baskets, counters, pin pads, etc.” she said. “I've also learned that the best way to help protect my customers is to sanitize my gloves between each interaction. We are taking this seriously, but it has become painfully obvious not everyone is.”
This employee lives with, “my dad who has health issues already. Both my parents are taking care of their parents, whose health is already declining without the help of COVID-19. Because of this, every time I leave this house I'm wearing gloves, have hand sanitizer, and grab a mask from work if I'm there.
“The fact that I have coworkers and customers telling me that 'it is what it is' and 'if they get it, they get it' without wearing gloves or a mask or taking any precautions is appalling,” she said. “I'm putting not only myself, but my family, at risk by working, and people who go about their day like normal, without any precautions whatsoever are the reason we're in this mess.”
Recently, this employee came down with a head cold. “Mostly just a sore throat, but with everything going on, you never know,” she said. “Luckily, I had that day off, but everyone in my house treated me like the plague. If I touched a handle they'd sanitize it before using it. I drank so much Emergen-C!
“The next day I was scheduled to work,” she said. “As it was just a head cold, I was feeling a lot better but still not 100 percent. Everywhere you look, people are telling you to stay home if you feel sick, so that’s what I did. One more day to get it out of my system. When I called in however, I felt like the bad guy. The afternoon crew had also called in just moments before me, so now the managers were scrambling to figure things out, and I got the stress unload.”
Still, she is grateful to still have a job, “and so is my mom, who is now working from home. My brother works third shift and my dad is a disabled veteran. With a six-month-old puppy and two cats in the house, we are already crazy and annoyed with each other enough without the addition of COVID-19 closing opportunities to get away from each other.”
The April 9 blizzard didn’t help the stress level, since gardening is a pathway to relaxation. “My seedlings are eagerly waiting to be planted in the garden, and I need sun! I want to get my hands dirty digging out weeds and growing my own food again. Even before COVID, I was planning the garden, leaning about sourdough and canning and preserving foods, and summer will bring that. Like most people, I'm tired of winter and mud season at this point, and just want to sun bathe. But on the bright side, the birds are enjoying the feeder now. Some chickadees, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and eastern phoebes have visited.”
All in all, though, she said, “I’m calm but scared. I don't know if I'm being cautious enough or am blissfully ignorant of how much danger I'm putting myself (and my family) in.”ST ALBANS – When Agnes Totherow, 82, contacted The Eastern Gazette on April 9, she was frightened, in pain and frustrated! Agnes, who lives alone, has needed a hip replacement for months. She’s been in too much pain to leave the house over the winter, to sleep well, or even to stand with her walker long enough to cook for herself. And because of the COVID-19 risks, her surgery, scheduled for March, was postponed to April. Now that’s been postponed, too.
“Dear God, I hurt,” Agnes said. “I walk from my chair to the kitchen and I’m in such agony!”
Compounding her worries is that she tried to get Meals on Wheels – and landed on a waiting list. Her daughter, who lives nearby, picks up her groceries, as well as doing her own errands and those of another elderly family member. Neither woman has a lot of gas money, according to Agnes, plus she hates to see her daughter out there risking infection.
“I’m worried for my young’un,” said Agnes. “She can’t stay long. She’s in and out, afraid of infecting me or anybody else.”
Agnes spends a lot of time “yelling at the TV,” she said. “I have to just sit here and suffer, but that’s not my problem. My problem is, I see these people out running around. Do they not understand they need to stay in? Is there something somebody can do to make these people stay in, for the people like me that need medical help and can’t get it [until COVID-19 restrictions are lifted]? Please make these people understand!”
So to be clear, throughout Maine and our nation, there are people going without surgeries and preventative care they need until we have successfully flattened the curve enough for medical practices to return to normal. And there are elderly people with limited resources stuck in their homes, worried for their families and having a hard time paying for the food and medications they need, or the gas to fetch them. Some of those people aren’t physically up to cooking meals. And many of those people are experiencing loneliness and anxiety.
Staying safe at home and practicing the recommended hygiene when we must go out is vital. The longer it takes to flatten the curve, the longer it will be before we can get back to whatever our new normal is – and folks like Agnes can get what is certainly essential healthcare to them.
In the meantime, check on your neighbors, and learn what resources might be available to help meet any needs. A call to the St. Albans Town Office proved helpful.
Town Clerk Charlin Williams knows Agnes, and said she is “a sweet lady.” Williams planned to contact Meals on Wheels to see what might be done to move Agnes up the waiting list, and to invite a friend from church to take turns dropping meals at Agnes’s door now and then.
A call to the local town office is a good place to start when searching for resources, Williams said. Many communities have service clubs or volunteer groups trying to help out at this time.
In St. Albans, Hartland, Palmyra and Ripley, for example, the Hartland-St. Albans Lions Club agreed at their last meeting, nearly two months ago, to transport food to the homes of individuals or families who are self-quarantined due to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis in the household.
“We are not offering to [pay for] the food for people, but to help them by bringing it to the door and leaving it there,” explained Robert Davids, president of the local Lions Club. The club will grocery shop, and also pick up boxes from food cupboards for delivery.
Agnes didn’t fit the criteria, but that didn’t stop Davids from giving her a call, and then delivering groceries paid for out of his own pocket, when Williams told him about her plight.
“I don’t really know why but we haven’t gotten any calls, until I got the call from the town office yesterday about this lady in St. Albans,” Davids said. “I haven’t met her face to face. I called her and found out what sorts of things would help get her though the weekend, then went to Moosehead Market for microwave meals, milk, peanut butter and other items she suggested might be helpful. She asked me to leave them on a chair at the top of the ramp, because she can’t bend down enough to pick them up. This is not what the Lions were planning on doing, but I had the chance to help her out myself, so I bought the food and took it to her.”
And in a more roundabout search for resources, The Eastern Gazette reached out to a volunteer group in the Dover-Foxcroft area involving a partnership between The Commons at Central Hall, Helping Hands with Heart, and United Way. Dr. Lesley Fernow, who is heading up efforts to organize grocery/prescription deliveries in that area, called Agnes herself, and also planned to connect Agnes with a United Way volunteer in Palmyra who had offered to call shut-ins during this time of isolation.
“I was so down that day, it was terrible,” Agnes said during a follow-up call on April 13. Having lost power for three days, Agnes risked going to stay with her daughter until the lights were back on. “And I got some sleep last night,” she said, sounding more chipper.
“I also got to thinking, there are other souls out there in worse shape than I am that need help,” she said. “I’m just praying for them and asking God to hurry up and get this mess over with!”DEXTER -- Donna Kraft-Smith was one of many Mainers taken by surprise at the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the virus was making its way across the nation, Kraft-Smith was busy operating her Therapeutic Body Work Learning Center in Brewer, her own massage therapy practice in Dexter, and planning a road trip with her husband, Henry.
“It didn’t seem like it got real for us in Maine until March,” she said. “Up until then the President was even saying it was a hoax or whatever.” It was not until President Donald J. Trump addressed the nation on March 11, and Maine had its first presumptive case of COVID-19 on March 12, that many Mainers took a more somber look at the pandemic. To Kraft-Smith, it felt like things just “blew up.”
At first, she continued to try to run her therapeutic massage practice, stepping up already stringent cleaning standards. “I am always trying to keep everything as clean as possible, not just with COVID-19, but there are other things that people might transfer to one another,” she said. Then, because she planned to go on vacation, Kraft-Smith stopped seeing clients.
Kraft-Smith has 12 students this year at the Therapeutic Body Work Learning Center. The 500-hour course runs for 14 months during two intensive weekends per month. Fortunately, she decided to cancel the late March session even before Governor Janet Mills ordered the closure of nonessential businesses, effective March 25.
“We could have made that last class, but I really felt it wasn’t a good idea,” said Kraft-Smith. “There were too many of us in a room, coming from all different places.”
Even at home, there was confusion about how to proceed. “We were planning a road trip to Florida,” she said. “My husband and I went back and forth on it, and decided we weren’t going to go because we would pass through so many states and would be stopping at rest areas, gas stations. We decided if things got worse, we would be with people we didn’t know and we would not have a doctor, so it just didn’t make sense to leave -- and within a couple of days, things blew up.”
With her practice and school closed as non-essential businesses, Kraft-Smith continues trying to work with students, who are about halfway through their training. “I am doing some online training, but not everyone can use Zoom, and now they are saying Zoom has some issues. Because some people live remotely, it’s challenging. I’m trying to do some by Facebook and email. But they can only do the academic work; they can’t do the hands-on. We have to wait until a time that becomes safe.”
No students have registered for the new session beginning in September. “In the meantime, I’m expected to pay rent,” she continued. “My space out of Dr. Reddy’s building in Dexter, they said I didn’t have to pay rent until I started again, but the Brewer space, which is more expensive…I could defer rent, but he is still expecting me to pay that [back] rent later.”
Kraft-Smith is hoping that if she doesn’t qualify for Maine’s unemployment program, she might qualify under the new federal program. “I believe I may be eligible for up to $600 a week for up to four months, but the state does not have this site up yet,” she said on April 3.
Henry is retired and draws Social Security, so the couple does have some income. He is also experiencing health issues for which surgery may be required, but “doctors don’t’ really want to have you come in now,” she said. “They are doing a lot over the phone to postpone that. I’m sure a lot of other people are struggling with this now, too.”
Even if Kraft-Smith could work now, she wouldn’t. “I’m not scared to death that I’m going to die from [COVID-19], but I’d rather not get it,” she said. “I have no choice. I have to keep up. If I just go down, it’s not going to work. I am the only one who can go back and forth to town, can walk the dog, can really help him.”
To keep her spirits up, Kraft-Smith is connecting with students and friends on Facebook. “I have that to look forward to, and like everyone else, I’m trying to accomplish things that I don’t usually have time to do because of work. And I allow myself some time to be sad and to be afraid – but then I dust myself off and just keep going.”
Kraft-Smith has also been a yoga instructor, and is certified in Reike. “I practice my deep breathing all the time,” she said. “I’m aligning my body, and doing some stretches – probably not as much as I could, but I have a lot of other things I need to be doing. It’s not just yoga on a mat. Yoga is a lifestyle, so the things I’ve learned to keep myself calm are helping a lot.”
Kaft-Smith said that massage clients unable to see their pracrtitioners should be stretching “always!” and may benefit from online yoga, meditation and exercise classes. But, she cautioned, “When talking about people with a lot of chronic pain and stiffness, sometimes the videos out there are too much. You always have to be mindful of where that place is that your body says ‘that’s enough.’”
She’s also giving some thought to the future. “Eventually this is going to end. It may change my career. I’m thinking about other things I could do. Everyone isn’t going to want to just jump back in and have a massage until they feel safe again.”
There’s also the issue of job loss, and that folks may not be able to afford a massage – or the online classes Kraft-Smith is thinking about offering. “I could teach mediation and yoga online. Self-massage is something I’ve been thinking of offering.”
Kraft-Smith said anyone interested in possible future videos or massage can contact her at mainemassage@gmail.com.
DOVER-FOXCROFT -- Students travel to the U.S.A. from around the globe to experience high school in America and to prepare to attend our colleges. Now, because of COVID-19 and its associated safety guidelines, many students are unable to return to their homes and families while also missing out on that American high school experience.
Dayita Durachman, a junior at Foxcroft Academy, said she is one of the lucky ones because she has been attending the school since her freshman year. Students only here for one year have missed out on the end of winter sports, all of spring sports, prom, and may not get to experience graduation.
“I was born in Indonesia, but we moved to Singapore when I was really young,” said Durachman. “I came to FA mostly because I want to go to college here. I thought coming here through high school would make it easier to apply to colleges, to understand the curriculum and how the system works.”
FA was specifically chosen because of the good student/teacher ratio and the small town setting, she said. “There are no distractions to studying, like there would be in a big city. The teachers are very focused on us, which is very helpful to me because English is not my first language.”
Another thing that made Dover-Foxcroft a good pick was the Center Theatre. Durachman, who plans to study theater in college, has been performing in local productions for the past three years.
“I was going to be in ‘Oliver.’ I already auditioned and I got a really good part, but they had to cancel. It’s really sad,” she said. Durachman has had roles in Center Theatre productions of “Little Women,” “Seussical II” and “Lion King.” “The school is doing a really good job with productions, too. I was a main character in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ last fall.”
Durachman said she will likely attend a college in New England because, “I call this home, and I don’t want to be far from home.”
Still, it is hard to be away from family during a worldwide crisis. “My parents live in an apartment, and apparently someone in that apartment block has it,” said Durachman. “But they’ve been doing work at home. My baby sister is only five months old now, so I’m really worried about her – but I think they are fine. They are just staying home.”
Many of FA’s foreign students went home as the pandemic spread. That wasn’t an option in her case. “I was going to go home, but that Monday it hit. Singapore closed its borders, so I can’t go home. And I would have to go through Germany because it takes two days to go home and Germany is in a really bad situation…so I just couldn’t get home. I don’t know when I’m going home. It’s a day-by-day situation,” she said.
Having her in a small, rural community is some comfort to her family, Durachman said. “But they are still worried. There’s going to be a risk anywhere.”
There are other challenges. Some classes, like music and chorus, cannot be offered online or students may lack the instruments to participate from home, she said. “Or like chemistry. I’m kind of sad we can’t do the labs anymore. Labs are very helpful because you actually see a reaction and how it works.”
Some teachers are better at teaching online and responding promptly to email than others, said Durachman. And preparing for the SATs has also become a challenge. “I paid for it already and got the books, but the tests got cancelled and it is harder for us to study in the summer.”
FA is trying to make the best of the experience for students still living in the dorms. “The school is trying to keep us physically active,” Durachman said. “They open the gym for us, and we can walk on the track when the weather is nice.
“It’s mostly the social interaction that I miss,” she continued. Dorms are not allowed any visitors. Residents, because they are already cohabitating, do not have to social distance, but students have all been given their own room. Activities are organized to try to keep them entertained and cheerful. “We do painting, indoor soccer, and we had an Easter egg hunt around the dorms – I got M&Ms.”
The school is keeping the dorms open and providing meals. “The school is doing a good job,” said Durachman. “I’m glad I’m stuck here, compared to all the kids stuck in their own homes, especially an only child. I’ve been living with these people for a whole year. We are all safe. Here, I have friends and some social interaction.”
Durachman does a lot of reading, online entertainment, and “I’m trying to get some new hobbies. I’m trying to learn to knit, but I’m very impatient,” she said with a laugh.
Her parents call her daily. “I am a little sad I haven’t seen my parents for eight months now, but I kind of want to spend one of my summers here because everyone says Maine is the best in the summer. This might be my chance to do so,” Durachman said. “But the world is sick and everyone is struggling and it’s just really sad.”