CABIN
FEVER
Cabin
Fever: distress, irritability, restlessness and/or claustrophobia
resulting from prolonged periods in enclosed spaces or isolated
places.
Yes, you're bored to the
teeth with corona, apart from being stuck indoors for long periods,
there is nothing much else going on. It's wall- to- wall corona on TV
and almost everywhere else.
Well, sorry but here we
go again. One fascinating aspects of this crisis is that we are all
in it together, not equally it's true, but we are nearly all
affected. The last time I heard there were only 17 countries claiming to have no infections, four of these nobody believes,
leaving just 13, mainly small island nations in the Pacific Ocean,
corona free. The rest of us are experiencing some form of lockdown
and/or social distancing.
Anna and Fred (Greece)
wonder if the cure will turn out to be worse than the disease? In
the mountainous region on the mainland where they live the
population is mostly elderly and is already living on or below
poverty level. They fear that the damage to the fragile local economy
will cause more hardship and death than the pandemic. Their
small company provides hiking holidays - they have spent the first
lockdown weeks cancelling all the arrangements they had made for what
promised to be a good season!
On
the lighter side, they added, in their tiny village the authorities
have fenced off the square to prevent the six inhabitatants, all
elderly, from getting together to organise parties, festivals or demonstrations during lockdown !?
Lali
and her family (Georgia) live in Ushguli the highest permanently inhabited
village in Europe. “We're alright ” she said, conversations are
not long due to the language difficulties.
I have no doubt that the people
of Ushguli will survive. They are strong, independant mountain people
who are used to being cut-off from the rest of the world for long
periods. In living memory travellers
were advised to avoid this bandit infested area. Now tourist hand over their money
willingly providing the villagers with a fair amount of extra income.
Lali has recently extended her guesthouse, “ there are no corona
cases in the area but we don't know when or if we will be opening for
the summer season”? She added sadly.
Similarily
the people of Breb, Romania, are used to a degree of isolation. “It's
just like an extended winter” said Irena who together with Radu runs
an open-air bar and restaurant next to the campsite where we have
helped out the last few summers. Now Matthijs, Eveline and their
children have the whole campground to themselves. Good place to be in
a serious lockdown – not so good for business! The campsite,
restaurant and other small scale tourist and hospitality initiatives
are an important part of the village economy.
Cees
and Sylvie (France) have discussions not about who has to do the
shopping but who is allowed to do it. During the strict French
lockdown a trip to the supermarket is an event!
Guliza
(Germany) was running low on toilet paper but enjoying her work. Only
the older members of staff were working from home. The younger ones, rightly or wrongly, are not too bothered about corona!
Luckily
for Penelope (New Zealand) restrictions will soon be lifted
otherwise, judging by the all the photos of delicious looking food
she has been posting on social media, she would soon not be able to get out
of the door.
Sjors
(The Netherlands), a climber, mountainbiker and general outdoor
person remarked after just a few weeks working at home: “I never
thought I'd miss the office”!
Tibor
and Saltanat (Germany) had a cat but it disappeared soon after the
lockdown started...
...coincidentally Kees and Leny (The Netherlands) told me that cats are becoming
stressed because they don't like humans hanging around in their
houses the whole day. While dogs are getting sore feet from being taken
out too often!
Marta
(Poland) eloquently summed up how most of us feel at this moment: “Lockdown sucks”!
She said.
Too
true, but Marta, there are some compensations. A big one being that I
may have found the secret of eternal youth. Not in a swimming pool, like
in the cult film Cocoon (1985), where a group of elderly people are rejuvenated after regular dips in a pool that has been charged with a
'life-force' by aliens. No, it's in a local supermarket! This store
has, for the period of the lockdown, opened its doors an hour earlier
exclusively for old people. I went on the very first day, it wasn't very busy, just a handful of silver haired customers shuffling their
way around the shelves and shelf stackers. Three weeks later I revisited
this over seventies shopping hour, I
was surprised to find that the handful of fellow shoppers now looked a
lot younger, they no longer had grey hair and they didn't shuffle! Clearly
something extraordinary had happend. If, indeed, this supermarket
has been invested with some sort of life-force then one lady must
have been coming everyday, she looked no older than 35!
Well, okay, I don't blame you, you may not believe in miracles...
...
but I'll be going back tomorrow just in case.... and maybe the day
after.
