Life in the Time of CoVid-Day 3 Lockdown
March 29, 2020—Lockdown Day 3
USA: 103, 321 confirmed cases; 1,668 deaths
Italy: 86 498 confirmed cases (finally numbers are decreasing); 9,136 deaths
It amazes me how some creatives spurt out brilliant, funny, clever responses in crisis. When the chips are down the funny get funnier, the clever get cleverer.
I am definitely not in that category. Friends I’m hearing from have set up offices and figured out how to work from home—and tackle lists of Honey Dos. (Charles has washed both cars, straightened the garage, and finished a puzzle.) Those with kids—wow! cook/ cleaner/ supervisor /teacher /entertainer/ referee rolled into one…Writer friends are zooming forward with stories. Homeless, I am not even a snail. I am a slug. A slug with Internet. An inert slug.
However, I have a room and a small garden to circle. I forced Curtis up from his computer to take laps around the tiny yard. 29 strides per circle. He clocked them on his fitbit, humored me through 25 laps; I jollied him through 20 toe touches before he cut bait.
But, while we circled, my thoughts turned to all the families and children Lockdown in the Townships living 5 or 8 or 12 to a 10x10, without a bathroom, maybe a clothesline to circle.
From what I’ve seen of South Africa in the 9 years and thousands of road trip kilometers, the country is largely rural. There are several major cities: Johannesburg, Durban, Capetown among them, these are like cities anywhere—buildings, businesses, highways, traffic, mixed with suburbs. And on the outskirts, crowded clusters where laborers, domestics, hourly workers and their families live.
Think tenements, barrios, kampungs—shanty towns. Whole extended families crowded into one tiny room with no running water, some no electric or TV, shared toilets at the end of a row.
whole families living in one room
Hundreds of tiny tin or cinder block homes squished side to side, thousands together—Social distancing??? Six-feet-apart???
…and my big complaint is internet speed and “only” getting to circle this lovely garden…
South Africa: Confirmed CoVid cases have risen to 1187, 2 deaths
Meanwhile…Headlines in this morning’s paper:
LOCKDOWN? What Lockdown? “Capetonians continue to shop and walk their dogs.”-timeslive.co.za
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Life in the Time of CoVid-Day 2 Lockdown
Saturday, March 28th: Day 2 of Lockdown
The sun is shining, birds chirp, and the small garden outside our window awaits. Last night, after a long day and night spent sitting—mostly reading through Corona Virus news and updating family and friends. And of course clicking on posts marveling at the quick-witted jokes and parodies this pandemic is inspiring.
By nightfall, my rump was so sore, I felt as though I’d been paddled (not in a good way.) I woke committed to changing that. I mentally scheduled exercise breaks, which include a daily socially-responsible walk. Curtis and I made a plan to only buy enough food for each day so we would have an excuse to walk to the shops.
During the Lockdown movement outside the home is restricted to shopping for food, pharmacy, doctor visits and Government aide offices.
“Gloria” our hostess at Manderley Lodge
This morning, Gloria greeted me then followed with “This is the third day, you must wear a mask when you go to the shops.” I started to respond, “we don’t have masks,” then stopped. It dawned on me what she meant by “3rd day.” This was the 3rd day after we flew here from Port Elizabeth. The third day—one of the contagious days—if we had contracted the virus during our time at the airport, in the airplane, or the taxi to her guest house….the 3rd day since we arrived at her door. Had she taken us in, fed us breakfast and sorted us out since Wednesday night beneath a threat that we might be carrying the virus?
I looked at Gloria with renewed gratitude. It dawned on my then why the travel agent had had such a difficult time finding us a place to stay. Were we carrying CoVid-19?
A short-while later, Gloria passed me her phone by laying on the table and calling to me. “You should read this,” she said.
“Do not leave home for bread/rations/or for anything, unless it is of DIRE NECESSITY because THE WORST PHASE BEGINS, the Incubation Period gets Over and may Positives will start to come out...From March 23 to 7th April we must take care of ourselves. The Peak of the Virus is two weeks, normally in these two weeks all infected will appear then there are two weeks of calm and then two weeks it will decrease . . .TILL 7th of APRIL do not receive visits from anyone, not even from the same family. This is all for the good of all.”
The time difference between South Africa and the US is at least 6 hours, so I had until about 1:00 pm, when the digital NYT arrived in my inbox to feel a tad claustrophobic and sorry for myself that we were confined to the yard, that we hadn’t stayed with Shona & Charles—that I had only 1/2 a bottle of wine.
Then I read this article: “We Take the Dead from Morning to Night" by FABIO BUCCIARELLI and JASON HOROWITZ.
So what if we spend the next week eating sandwiches and drinking water? We will stay in for as long as we could be contagious. WE WILL NOT PUT ANYONE ELSE AT RISK! We may have sore rumps, but they will heal.