Tag: support

They say it comes in 3s…Masquerade, malaria, mortality.

On By dhanya8In Travel5 Comments

If we have learnt anything at all from this Covid era, it is that nothing at all should be taken for granted. So many freedoms, rhymes and rhythms of our lives have been disrupted, upended and in some cases, entirely denied.

Yet when things change in a severe way within a matter of hours, I believe the human nature worldwide is that of a state of shock…..

Last weekend of February 2021, I found myself with plans being changed, amended, and returned to. Leading me to be an attendee of the Lagos Yacht Club 88th anniversary dinner dance. However, with all the back n forth, it seems I missed the obvious play on words from the invite, and found myself as the only member wearing a ‘real’ mask, whilst everyone else (until they reached their bubbles), wore their face masks with ease.

Anyway, it turned out that this was the least of my concerns.

Some hours after leaving, it was noted that my body was absolutely burning hot – my skin felt like lava to touch. Yet I was lying there feeling utterly freezing, like I had been trapped inside an ice cave….

As the weekend continued, my temperature soared and soared, my energy went down and down, and my ability to move even my fingertips disappeared. Every single bone in my body felt like it was broken; such pain that I have no words to describe it. I was sweating whilst uncontrollably shaking. I was unable to walk yet very much needed to get to the bathroom regularly. Lifting my water bottle felt akin to the power needed as a heavy weight lifter. I was utterly and entirely poleaxed.

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No time like the present, especially when there’s no time at all

On By dhanya8In Corona, Friends and Family, Life lessons, parenting, workLeave a comment

So, here we are, weeks into lockdown, no idea when we will come out of it. For me, and many families around the world, this is also the Easter holidays. Whilst so many people around the world are struggling to adapt to the enforced stay-at-home protocols, as they adjust to the dramatic change in social situation, and the absence of schooling and usual work life, there are also many, many people, including myself, who are working somehow harder than ever before.

My phone and social media are rife with messages, of frivolity, dark humour, inspiration, risk rates, health care guidance, let alone melancholoy, anxiety, frustration and some despair. Loved ones with children are somewhat overwhelmed with their newfound 24 hour parenting regimes, single friends and loved ones are verging on the balance of gratitude and loneliness, and then there are us teachers, finding their way through the mud. Somehow, akin with the parents, we need to keep children reassured that everything is fine, fine, fine, and that it won’t be long at all until we are back together , when they can return to their daily squabbles, curious moments, and mind-opening sessions and routines.

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Cabin time quarantine

On By dhanya8In A friend in need, Corona, Disaster, expat, Friends and Family, Life lessons, Taking time1 Comment

Corona. Covid 19. Lockdown.

Words crossing everyone’s lips, world-wide, right now. Oh, and of course, vaccine.

Social media is on fire, full to the brim, an absolute plethora of this topic. Everywhere you look, read and even listen, you will find it as the central point, as the entire globe faces a pandemic it has never known before.

Quotes of positivity, joyous, inspiration, encouragement, reflection, are abound. Likewise fears, anxieties, observations and reports of economic collapse, relationship breakdowns from too much time together, stressed out parents, highly vulnerable elderly, exhausted medical workers; all of this, right now, is omnipresent.

So, I am not here to add to all of this, to give you a tale of woe, nor a story to uplift. I don’t feel it is my place to confirm the unease many are feeling with the uncertainty, nor do I have the right to suggest everything is going to be okay. I don’t know about either. None of us do. And that, is the crux of it. NoFor the first time in my lifetime, I do not have even a tiny sense of what may come when I open my eyes upon the next dawn. And whilst I can take comfort in knowing ‘we are in it together’, we aren’t, not really. Parents are finding themselves navigating an entirely new world, as they try to work out how to home-school the children that have befallen upon their every waking hour. Medical workers around the world, who have been fighting for better pay, working standards and conditions, and credit where credit’s due, are now all of a sudden being celebrated each week, by an evening clapathon. (How this negates the life and death risks they are putting themselves under, nor the millions of hours of hardship they have already suffered within their careers, I cannot fathom. But anyhow, it makes people feel ‘like they are doing their bit’ so…..) Employees around the world, myself included, are fearing when they will receive salary, if at all, employers and huge businesses are just the same – watching crestfallen as the economy crashes, companies go bust, airlines are grounded and basically, the entire capitalist world comes to a standstill.

(The planes are not the only thing presently unmoved).

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