Living in the New Normal...

Sunset from my balcony

Since I last wrote 2 weeks ago, things have gone a bit crazy here in Slovenia. I'm not going to try and give an opinion on anything that's happening only try and explain as best as I understand recent events. Slovenia currently has one of the highest Covid rates in Europe and as such has been put on Europe's dark red list (this is a different list to the UK one). As a result of high rates of cases and low take up of the vaccine, the government introduced new measures 2 weeks ago. Here it's called PCT (preboleli, cepljeni, testirani) and it essentially means that to use most services one has to prove that they have been vaccinated, have tested negative in the past 48 hours or have recently recovered from Covid. This affects everything from sitting inside in restaurants, to going to most shops to even meeting together as a church. As you can imagine there are a lot of people who are not happy with these new measures. Every Wednesday since they were introduced there have been protests and demonstrations in the centre of Ljubljana. The first one descended into a mini riot with police using water cannons and tear gas. The protest this week seemed to be even worse and lasted around 7 hours. They marched to different parts of the city but eventually they moved back to the centre. Some journalists were attacked and again police used water cannons and tear gas. I'm not sure how long it would have continued if that evening Ljubljana hadn't experienced one of the biggest storms for many years. According to Slovene news, more rain fell in a short period of time than had fallen in the previous 2 months combined. It was pretty impressive to watch! Anyway, this seemed to discourage the protestors and they eventually dispersed. I'm close enough to the centre that I heard some sirens and the helicopter flying around but it didn't affect me otherwise.

For me, the PCT conditions are more of an annoyance than anything. My NHS pass is valid here and most places just glance at it and it's all ok. However I'm never quite sure how the different security guards will react to it, especially if they try and scan the QR code, which won't work because it's not an EU pass. This led to me having an argument with one security guard. Eventually he let me in, mainly because he couldn't speak English, my Slovene was bad and I think he got bored!

Coffee on the hob

Apart from getting used to these conditions, I am feeling very at home back here in Ljubljana. I have been welcomed back by the church with open arms and it's been great getting to spend time with friends here again. I'm also getting to know new people and I have joined a choir. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to do something musical outside church and to get to spend time with non Christians. I continue to feel blessed by the flat I've been given and have been working to make it feel like home. I even bought a Slovene coffee pot so I can make it on the hob.

This week I started Cornhill online. It felt a little bit strange just watching videos and not interacting with people but I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. I also had a placement test for my language course which starts next week. I found out today that I've been placed in the upper intermediate class which I think is a fair reflection of my abilities. Please be praying for me as I start these courses, that I will be learning what God wants to teach me and that I would be a blessing to the people around me.

Overall, please be praying for the country of Slovenia. It's feeling very disunited and there are obviously strong feelings on all sides of the debate. No solution will ever please everyone but I really pray that God would be working in the hearts of people and that they would be able to come together peacefully to discuss the issues.