It's the beginning of a new month, and lemme tell ya, January was kinda tense. I texted a friend the other day that I felt trapped between an unstable volcano and a looming Asian superbug. Here in Manila, we've gone from wearing face masks to protect us from Taal Volcano ashfall to wearing them to protect us from the Wuhan coronavirus, and there really wasn't much of a break in between.
I woke up on Thursday morning of last week to a text from Seth's school. They'd decided to postpone the annual Chinese New Year performance due to concerns about gathering in large groups indoors. I was so disappointed, and honestly, I was also pretty angry. At that point in time, there had been 0 confirmed cases of cornonavirus in the Philippines. (At this point, it looks like there have been 2 confirmed cases in the Philippines, and the president just shut down the entry of non-residents coming here from China.) The school has decided to postpone all February activities at the school until... who knows when? And I'm still angry because it feels like overkill to me, and that overkill has resulted in hardworking students and teachers not being able to present the program they've worked on for months. I was really looking forward to seeing Seth deliver his first Chinese line.
I walk the streets of our area, and many people are wearing masks. We were asked to wear masks to our homeschool classes last week and to stay home if anyone was showing any cold symptoms. We took our kids to see a movie on Saturday, and we were just about the only people in the theater. I went to the warehouse grocery store, and it was the emptiest I've ever seen it on a Monday afternoon.
What I honestly want to be delivered from right now is the FEAR of the coronavirus.
I believe in being prepared. We have a Go Bag at the ready in case of earthquakes. My pantry is stocked. I like my to do lists, and I like having a plan. It's not like I'm a "devil may care" lady over here.
But at this point, I just don't see a rational reason for all the anxiety I'm seeing around me based on 2 cases of coronavirus in the entire country. I'm frustrated because the nervousness around me affects daily life here in Manila.
I recently read a really fascinating autobiography of the London Blitz in WWII called "A Chelsea Concerto" by Francis Favell. She was a volunteer in Chelsea during the war, and she saw and endured horrors that I hope to never experience, including the bombing of her own home while she was in it. What stuck with me, though, was how important British calmness in the midst of the bombing truly was to morale and winning the war. Those poster reprints that say "Keep Calm and Carry On" mean more than you realize. They were truly the way the British lived. It wasn't an empty slogan. They couldn't escape the bombs, and once they realized that, they just continued on with regular life in the midst of them. They went to work, to the shops, out to dinner, knowing that they might hear an air raid siren at any moment. Many stopped sleeping in the air raid shelters at night because they were also being hit, and they decided they'd rather get some sleep and die in their beds. Their refusal to stop daily life because of the Blitz was an encouragement to them all, and morale matters in winning a war.
So I think of them, and corona virus fear feels even more insignificant. Yes, I know that people will say, "It's not the same thing! We have to do what we can against global pandemic!" To which I say, "The important things are already being done. More people died from the flu last year in the U.S. than have died from corona virus. The numbers of cases HERE doesn't justify everyone wearing face masks HERE and refusing to go out." I'm going out to malls and the movies, and I'm not planning to wear a face mask. You can just call it me channeling a British stiff upper lip. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment