Pandemic Stories, Part 2
In Sunday’s newsletter, I asked people to share what they’ve been up to during the pandemic and how their families and communities are coping. I’ve collected all those responses on one page and will be sharing excerpts over the next couple of days here and in the newsletter.
From a reader in Germany:
My husband and I split up in February after 16 years together. It was — and is — devastating. I haven’t been sleeping or eating much. The pandemic has put my personal pain into perspective. I feel for the people who lost so much more than their spouse. As for me, I think that if I can hug my friends again, eat at a restaurant and go back to my gym, I just might be able to survive the end of my marriage.
Travel writer Amelia Rayno has a report from El Salvador:
In El Salvador, we have been under martial law for more than 2 weeks. Multiple kinds of paperwork is required to go outside. Hundreds have been arrested for violating the law, as interpreted by the military and more than 4,000 are in containment centers around the nation.
Perhaps even more pressing is the creep of hunger, in so many homes that can’t afford to miss work for 2 days, much less 2 weeks. I am fortunate to have some liberties as press, that have allowed me to continue working, photographing and in the process, do a little bit of volunteering, while my travels up to the villages above Santiago Nonualco provided a rare opportunity to be surrounded by nature once more (even at 97 degrees, it was welcomed) and receive another important dose of perspective.
I am fortunate to have income still coming in, plenty of food to eat and a comfortable place to live. I am lucky, I am privileged beyond belief. Never does that hit me harder than when I walk into the villages of this beautiful country and see those whose homes are made of stick and mud and plastic bags, who barely had enough to eat before, when they were selling their goods. And now… and now. The reality is, this does not affect all of us equally, and while it can be easy to look inward during this time and focus on our own anxiety and boredom, I hope we do not stop looking outward, too.
Doing it differently in Stockholm, Sweden:
Right now, Sweden is not suffering any worse than nations which have locked down and so people are nervous, anxious because almost everywhere else is doing it differently. It’s an odd mix of trust in the health authorities (they’re calling the shots, not the government) and sort of holding your breath. Hoping, trusting, praying that they called it right.
An anonymous reader from Washington DC shares:
My spouse works on advocating for better government policy concerned with a vulnerable population that happens to be disproportionately affected by the pandemic. I work for a 24hr crisis hotline supporting a constituency that isn’t directly related but for whom resources are being affected by the pandemic. Our jobs are degrees removed from the people we help others serve, but we are both seeing and hearing of what a decimated safety net can’t do — as we always feared — as we do our bit parts in the relentless tides of adaptation now demanded by our jobs.
In Tokyo, Japan:
I work in Tokyo and live just outside, in a very large city. People here are pretty much ignoring the warnings from the health administrators, and the government waffling makes Trump look good. My wife stopped going to the health club even though they opened up again last week. The church across the street had a service yesterday. You can see kids in the park and more people than ever in the residential areas. We had a run on TP early on, then on groceries when the Tokyo mayor told everyone to stay home…for the weekend.
Family worries in New Jersey:
I have a family of four — two kids, a daughter who had her Freshman year in college ripped away from her and a son who is a Junior in high school. At this point, I am happy to report that all of us are completely healthy and have not had any signs of the virus. Probably the hardest part of this whole experience has been to watch the way it has impacted my kids academic and social lives during what are some of the most important and impactful years of their lives. Nothing crushed me more than having to drive to my daughter’s college to clear out her dorm room during the first week of March because of the virus. Even though her school’s administration had not made any decisions on the remainder of the school year, my wife and I made the “executive decision” to take everything home because we had a feeling she was not going back there any time before September (and who knows if that will happen!). She had developed a wonderful group of friends at her school, she was crushing it academically (Dean’s List first semester!) and she was absolutely thriving in her new college environment, and now she is stuck taking virtual classes and having video chats with her friends near and far. She has been handling it exceptionally well; however, as her Dad, it crushes me.
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