Lockdown Journal: Day 30 (How Much Longer?)
If you’re new to this blog series and don’t know what’s happening with South Africa’s 21-day (now 35-day) lockdown, my first post has all the details. Or read all my lockdown posts.
It’s Lockdown Day 30. Day Thirty. The big 3-0.
I realize I’ve asked this question previously. (There is very little new to say.) But: How many more days should I continue this journal?
Our current 35-day lockdown “ends” on Thursday but actually it doesn’t. I still won’t be allowed to go anywhere and I have no idea when that will change.
I will, however, be allowed to order hot food from restaurants and have it delivered to my house. This is very exciting! But strangely I’m only excited because I know this will help some restaurants avoid going out of business. I’ve gotten so used to eating all my own food over the past month – I don’t even feel like ordering takeout anymore.
Anyway, on the one hand I kind of want to end the Lockdown Journal at Day 35. On the other hand, I don’t have much else to do. (Except rake the leaves but really I don’t want to do that.)
Also I have nothing else to blog about.
A couple of friends pointed out to me that journals like this will provide a record for posterity. Future generations will google “coronavirus South Africa 2020”, and find my blog and learn about what we went through during this extraordinary time.
I must confess, I like the idea of providing a record for posterity.
Also this lockdown journal has become my only purpose in life. Who am I kidding? Of course I’ll continue.
But I’m going to start actively thinking about and planning more interesting lockdown content. I’m even boring myself with this post.
Today’s Worth Cause
Here I will hand the reigns over to my friend Ryan, who lives in Brixton (one suburb over from Melville). Ryan and other members of the Brixton Community Forum have started a great initiative to help their neighbors.
The paragraphs below are from Ryan, who is also a writer. (In fact, please read this story Ryan wrote about people around the world who are adopting and fostering pets during the pandemic. It’s a wonderful, feel-good story and there’s a video with cute puppies in it.)
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Brixton is a historic, mixed-income suburb near the Johannesburg city center that is home to a really diverse mix of people – from migrants to students and professors at the nearby universities to artists, architects, and journalists, to many people who do the work that keeps our city going : domestic workers, gardeners, small traders, construction workers, and so on. Since the COVID19 pandemic began, many working class people in Brixton have completely lost their incomes. The Brixton Community Forum is supporting them with money to buy basic supplies like food, electricity, diapers, and toiletries. We are currently assisting about 25 families, with more coming to us nearly every day. We also support two daily soup kitchens in our area providing hot meals to the poor and homeless.
We’re asking for support in the form of cash donations so that our recipients can make their own choices about what they need most, whether that’s fresh produce, gas for their stoves, soap and tampons, or other needs that we might not think of or be able to supply in a food parcel.
Every donation goes a long way and is really appreciated by our community. You can donate in either of the following ways :
In South Africa, by EFT to the following account :
Account Holder: Ryan Lenora Brown
Bank: FNB
Account Number: 62490065648
Branch code: 250655
Phone: 073-021-6396
Reference : BRIXTON FOOD
Outside South Africa, by PayPal to the following account: [email protected] (NB: There is only one L in fulbright.)
Good night.
I’m bored with myself, too. But you give me pretty pictures to look at. Maybe you could do color themes with photos; since the days are running together, it could be Bluesday, Whitesday, Tealsday…
That’s a damn good idea.
Great that you can do the daily blog for a bit longer. I’m looking forward to reading more. Perhaps you want to set a private end date for yourself so that it doesn’t seem endless? That sky in Brixton Tower photo is amazing.
Thank you! I don’t know…I think deep down, the truth is I’m afraid to stop because then I won’t know what to do. So I guess I’ll just keep going until it suddenly hits me that I can’t go on.
How’s this for an idea if you are getting bored? See where your subscribers are from and invite them to be a guest blogger to report on how stay at home/lockdown/whatever is going in their are and in their own personal world. Could be interesting and insightful (and maybe spark some ideas for you to follow up on)
Hi Nancy. Yes, that is really a very good idea! Let me sleep on this. Thank you.
I can see you are having a tough time with this, but please!.. keep on keeping on. Please! You might not think it’s worthwhile but I can say for me, and likely for others, your posts, inconsequential as they may seem to you now, help your readers! And at some halcyon moment in the imagined future you can look back and marvel. From my perch in Seattle, I love to have a peek at your life. Yesterday, in rearranging book shelves, I found a tiny pocket directory to Johannesburg c 1963/64, before those pesky highways came and muddled up the map for me….and I even looked up Melville! How bad is that? (You will be happy to hear that the travelling library went there for 45 minutes every other Thursday) Now how did this once useful, then useless and now interesting little book survive? A long time from now, your journal will be fascinating in a way that seems improbable now, and you or someone will be glad to have it. Oh dear. Unfortunately this horror is a loooooong way from being done so please, don’t stop writing.
It’s one of the things I look forward to reading every day :-) I love Nancy’s idea!
I do too. I’m going to pursue that.
Brixton Tower photo: beautiful and - yes, we often have fabulous sunsets in Jozi. Something to look forward to at day’s end ????
That’s true. Sadly the way my house is positioned I never have a full view of the sunrise or sunset. It’s very frustrating! But that’s one thing I know will still be waiting whenever we can come out again :)
I’m having the same sort of problem - the rate of change has slowed down mightily, as one would hope. So I have figured that it makes sense to change to blogging about the COVID-19 situation twice a week rather than daily. That’s still a record for posterity, at an appropriate scale.
I just read your most recent post and it gave me this intense desire to hop on a (non-existent) plane and fly to New Zealand ????
Dear Summersx2, some writers, far better than most, that I admire (e.g Annie Dillard), have left us diaries of the minutia of their little patches that are now classics of nature writing. That kind of thing.
Thank you :)