There’s a storm in the air. Raindrops mix in the warm spring wind. A fine rainbow stretches across the sky. It is like a symbol for the mood in Germany, one year after the start of the corona pandemic: sun and rain, bad and good days are very close to each other.
The same goes for 38-year-old Jan, he doesn’t want to give his last name. He sits in a wooden boat on a playground in Bonn and watches his almost two-year-old daughter digging in the sand. “Our batteries will soon run out,” he says. He and his wife work shifts and take turns looking after their daughter. She also goes to the childminder a few hours a week. “I would have liked better planning for anything involving children.”
The father of the family Jan only has limited understanding for the Corona measures
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For months, daycare centers and schools in Germany were mostly closed. For a few weeks now they have been able to open again for a few grades. Jan adds that he can no longer fully understand the measures taken by the federal government: “It’s a strange situation. The vaccination is not progressing, and at the same time we are opening up despite increasing incidences.”
Apparently some in Germany share this attitude. For a long time – as several surveys show – people supported the decisions of the federal government. But approval is waning. In a survey published by the YouGov institute on Friday, only 35 percent of respondents certified that the federal government was dealing well with the crisis. Last September it was 63 percent, in February it was still 43 percent.
Timid opening steps
Germany is taking its first steps out of lockdown. The shops in some federal states have been allowed to reopen for a week. In some cases, as in Bonn, only with prior appointment. This is cumbersome, but the city center is much busier than it was in January. Young people stand in front of shops with full shopping bags.
Alessandra Cuschié can look forward to the hesitant opening steps and the fuller city center. She owns a so-called concept store with clothing, home accessories and jewelry in the pedestrian zone. A woman stands in the door of her shop: “I made an appointment!”
During the time when she had to keep her shop closed, she kept in touch with her customers via social media, says Cuschié. “We went live on Instagram and Facebook to present our new fashion”. However, she was unable to compensate for the loss in sales. She does not yet know how high it will be exactly. But she reckons with at least more than 50 percent.
Shopkeeper Cuschié can finally receive customers on site again
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Loneliness and quarantine thoughts
Bonn with its 300,000 inhabitants, located on the Rhine in western Germany, is a peaceful city. One of the kind there are dozen of them in Germany. Talking to the people here does not give any impression of the overall situation in Germany – it is a highlight. But the thoughts and feelings of people in the pandemic could be expressed in other cities as well.
Like Ute’s, who doesn’t want to give her last name either. She came to the Rhine in the early evening hours to watch the setting sun. The rain has subsided. Reddish light shimmers behind thick clouds. Ute is holding a warming coffee in her hand.
The 52-year-old lives alone. Nevertheless, she says, she coped well with the restrictions of the past twelve months. “In the last phase, a few weeks ago, it got difficult. My mood went down a lot and I also had problems.” For six weeks she felt paralyzed in body and mind. “It’s just too long. You couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel with the bad news all day.” At some point, however, this mood was gone again, since then she has been better again.
On the opposite side of the Rhine, Saifudden and Samir also met to enjoy the last hours of the evening outside. The two twenties are best friends and see each other once a week. They sit facing each other on a wall, about one and a half meters apart, each with an after-work drink in green bottles in front of them.
Samir is a baker, Saifudden lives in a refugee shelter. Every Monday they are tested there for the corona virus. “This is good for us,” he says. 20 people share a kitchen. In December, his test showed positive. He spent two weeks in quarantine in a hotel room. That was a bad time. “My head did that,” says Saifudden, turning his finger in a circle.
Sociology student Katrin Lindstädt works in a vegan café
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A few minutes’ walk further north, Katrin Lindstädt escapes the sadness of her exclusively online staStudent life in a vegan café. She works here a few hours a week. Customers are currently buying take-away food and drinks through the window. Lindstädt is happy to be able to continue working. “Mainly because the university currently consists of getting up and walking two meters to the laptop,” she says.
But her job has also changed. The café is well known in the district. Before Corona, tables were set up on the footpath in front of it in the warm months, and they were always occupied. The many regular customers still come. “But there is simply less contact possible. Chatting with customers is missing,” says Lindstädt. “Everything is just less fun than before.”
The sun has now disappeared, the wind is blowing cool from the river. Will there soon be crowds of people sitting close to the shore again, as they usually do when spring comes? Maybe in summer? The longing for it is great, but it still seems very far away.
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