Tag Archives: covid19

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Physical distancing, Social Togetherness #LockDownSA Day 3

Day 3 LockDown

29 March 2020

1187 cases
Recovered: no new figures yet
Deceased: 1(Western Cape) no new figures yet

Started the day cautiously optimistic, with today only 17 cases more than yesterday in our country. Only to read that it is not a true reflection of infection, it is only an indication of the numbers that were ready for reporting.

Everywhere online, businesses are begging for continued support, to keep the payment chain going and prevent economic collapse. To prevent staff layoffs and further unemployment. Further disruption of our lives and our future. Quietly, I echo their pleas and hope for the best, thinking of ways that we can continue existing for the sake of the people who work for us and their families.

There is so much good being written about. Neighbours waving and shouting encouragement to each other across the streets, the 7pm initiative where we all walk out of our front doors and clap for our services sector, our medical personnel, our emergency employees. Every person on the frontline exposing themselves so that we can stay home and be protected. People leaving tinned food out on dustbin or refuse collection day to share.

There is so much negativity on the other hand. Last night was Earth Hour, and we did an encouraging post on most of our clients’ social media platforms. Only to have angry comments in the line of this is the last crap people need. So much anger and frustration and lashing out at something innocent. Also still so much arrogance of the untouchables who still disobey the regulations. To what end, I wonder? Only to make all of this worse for all of us?

Life has become a BEFORE and AFTER. There was a time where I would, without a thought, quickly dash out to the shop to buy whatever we needed, be it for a meal or to fix something around the house or for a project or the office. Now it is a matter of planning around delivery times. And whether what I want to buy is actually on the list of what is allowed. There was a time where, if the kids got antsy, I would drive them to the bike park where I’d sit and read while they practiced cycling. Or we’d go for a picnic at the Botanical Gardens. Or we’d go hang at the mall or at their favourite restaurants. Now I have to think around activities for them that we can do at home. And with items we actually have. Without resorting to too much television time, because I am worried about the consequences.

The world has quieted down. There is no laughter in the streets, no cars driving close to us. I hear that elsewhere in town traffic is not really dwindling, but here in our corner, it is as if we are on an island of quiet. My children are the center of the universe that brings calm to my world. They keep me busy in so many ways that I appreciate, because otherwise my overactive mind goes places where it really doesn’t need to go.

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Physical distancing, Social Togetherness #LockDownSA Day 2

Day 2 LockDown

28 March 2020

1170 cases
Recovered: 5
Deceased: 1(Western Cape)

 

Today started a bit darkly for me. I woke up well ahead of my usual time, and couldn’t see the point of getting up. Day 2, with the number two perfectly representative of how I feel.

Probably the best way to describe my general state of mind is ambivalence. These are challenging times, more so because our expenses are not stopping and we have so many people dependent on us. I am not sure how I feel about any of this. I oscillate between an optimistic and cheery: We’ve got this! to a very dark and pessimistic: We’re going to go under, lose everything and die.

It is hard to not follow the news, because I need to know what is going on so that I can make the correct decisions for my business and assist our clients. For instance yesterday government issued a gazette that boils down to every website with a domain name that ends in .za – from government portals to private blogs – must now link to the government’s main Covid-19 page on its front page. No indication on when compliance deadline is, just get it done.

Online is a bad place to be right now. There are articles about thousands of people in various areas of our country not complying. People are happily cycling, jogging, travelling, visiting, going to the beach… as if this is business as usual. Our armed forces and the police have their hands full to get people to just do the one simple thing asked of us: stay home. On the other hand there are photos and footage of streets in major cities without a single car or person in sight.

This morning I woke up to three pieces of very bad news: EdCon may have to close its doors after lockdown (Edgars, etc – all those people, without jobs), Moody’s downgraded our status as a country to junk, and our connectivity is an issue again. We have so many challenges are business owners right now, just to stay alive and kicking. It breaks my heart that so many of us are doing what we are supposed to be doing: staying put. Our businesses are hanging on by threads and we do what we can. We all want lockdown to be over and as many people as possible to be safe. Yet the sheer arrogance of a sector of our population is going to worsen everything before it gets better, and lockdown may very well be extended.

At home, my toddler twins are climbing out the walls. They’ve not known so many days indoors in their entire little lives. I’ve always made a point of outdoor activities, and spoils and picnics and roadtrips. They want to see their friends. My daughter wants to do ballet, it is all she’s been talking about for two days now. My son wants to play soccer and go cycle. After they decided to vandalise the neighbours backyard yesterday, I am reluctant to let them outside without supervision, and I have to work most of the day, so their outdoor time is shrinking. What memories will they live with because of these times?

The new norm is to wake up in the morning, kick my own behind just to get started. Sort out the twins, get to my desk, get my work done. Stay positive. Freak out on my own, so nobody sees it. Calm down our housekeeper, who moved in with us because she felt unsafe in Thembalethu, and frankly, because it is the right thing to do. Cook/bake something from scratch for our little household. Make/craft something with the twins. Check our provisions, order the necessary online. Put on mask, gloves, sanitise card machine, pay. Come back inside, wipe down groceries, pack away. Try not to incessantly stress eat all. the. time. We are going to be fine.

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Physical distancing, Social Togetherness #LockDownSA Day 1

Day 1 LockDown

27 March 2020

927 cases (218 new confirmed cases) from stats of 26 March (no new final stats yet)
Recovered: 5
Deceased: 1 (Western Cape)

Woke up this morning with a heavy queasiness in my stomach, threatening to spill over into my mouth. That feeling you get when you are writing your finals at university, but you opted to stay out with your friends the night before because “you’ve got this” and now you realise that, in fact, you don’t.

Are we physically prepared for lockdown? Who knows – I hope so. We have a secure home. We have food, but not all we need – I went out to buy some staples yesterday because I didn’t want to stockpile, thinking of all the thousands of other people who also need to shop. But the shelves were glaringly empty, with a sad limp lettuce in the one corner at the bottom in a crate, and fluorescent lights highlighting the lack. We are lucky, I can try online for some eggs, milk, yoghurt, fresh vegetables.

Am I mentally prepared for lockdown? Probably better than most. I have always been a bit of an introvert, and am awkward when having to interact with people for any length of time. But even I am not prepared for all the feelings. Fear, anxiety, insecurity, sadness. I understand most of my emotions, but why this overwhelming sadness with tears sitting just behind my eyes, and a constant conscious effort to not break down crying?

I think it is because my mind keeps on straying to our townships, where the children may not have access to food, the elderly to care. Where 8 – 12 people live in a tin shack with no space to hoard food, even if they did have the money to. With the relentless sun beating down on these roofs, no fences between the houses, nowhere to go. Where people can no longer come out to actually earn their daily bread, because there is nobody to allow them to do it. God knows, I know this is the right thing to do, but I also know the vulnerable will be the first to suffer.

The voices in my head are oscillating between calming me down and freaking me out. The what ifs and the that won’t happens, coupled with the already present anxiety are not helping. Does everyone have this dichotomy between “all will be well”, and “no it won’t be”? I hope so, because otherwise I am already certifiable.

Some of my fears are completely groundless, and irrational. I realise this morning I forgot to bring the printer from the office, and I also don’t have any paper. That means… printing no activities for the twins to do. No printing of worksheets, recipes, or whatever my busy mind can come up with to print. Why is this irrational? We are a digital company and household – I haven’t actually used a printer myself for over two years. My children have more than enough to occupy them. There are children who has nothing during this time.

There is no cake flour in the house to bake if I felt at any point to bake an impromptu cake. Irrational, because I have never in my life baked a cake. I wouldn’t know where to start – I know it has something to do with flour, eggs and oil. Even cookies, the once I tried, were an absolute disaster – my cookie dough was runny and I kept on adding Maizena to get it to thicken up, and what I eventually got were misshapen dinosaur-y shapes that tasted very strange and I couldn’t even get the dogs to eat, let alone the children.

The twins asked to go play outside while I worked at my home office. With a trampoline, a ball pit and a covered swimming pool, I thought it’s a great idea. Some fresh air, a bit of activity, what could go wrong? Minutes later, the neighbours call me – the twins threw trampoline springs over the wall at their bakkie, denting it. I really don’t even know what to say about this. My little boy has a compromised immune system, so their lockdown started 9 days ago. They are bored, frustrated and need attention and stimulation. They know I am working during the day still, even though it is from home, but they don’t understand why our restaurant treats, road trips, walks and cycling has stopped. Four years old, so little and innocent still. I wish I could just protect them more.

I accessed my social media feeds this morning to get a gauge on the general mood, and right away knew it was a mistake. The public outcry online is so loud that it drowns out my small flame of positivity with a tsunamic wave of negative energy. There is SO. MUCH. ENTITLEMENT. Who are these people? Don’t they understand? There is arrogance, belittling, anger and a general dismissive attitude from a large number of people that makes me realise we are not all accepting of what is the right thing to do. And my fear is the sheer ignorance (sorry, there really is no other word) of these people is going to make it worse for all of us. Someone said it perfectly: We are fighting two pandemics at the same time; Covid-19 and Stupidity.

Unbelievably, there are apparently people who are letting their gardeners come to work (apparently this is acceptable because they use their own bicycles for transport). Although there was a clear directive against jogging, some are pounding the streets, attired in their sweats and running shoes, because the rules don’t apply to them. I watched youtube footage of police loading transgressors into their vans who were drinking at shebeens/taverns/pubs in Hillbrow last night.

My people, three weeks is a blink of an eye in the bigger scheme of things. This is hard, it is already hard. And it is harder on so many more people than we can imagine. But by not obeying the rules, we will not flatten the curve, and this will carry on longer, with more losses, than it needs to.