Like fellow South Africans, I expected this daily grind of lockdown would end next week. Alas, last night President Ramaphosa extended it to end of April.
From the macrocosm point of view - health and welfare – of course Ramaphosa is right. The threat and the potential effects of a rampaging viral infection in this country are horrendous. The potential of infection in townships and, worse, in informal settlements beggars belief. Take a look at just one informal settlement and multiply that by hundreds and you get the picture.
Here in the microcosm? Small scale crazy making. I’ve got it good. This household consists of my fragile mother, two live-in domestic workers, and seven dogs. Marauding monkeys drop by now and again. Hungry kingfishers occasionally snack on easy-to-see-easy-to-skewer goldfish.
Nevertheless, crazy-making territory lurks between what was - walking and swimming several days a week – to what is: in-place stretching, running up and down 10 steps, skipping rope, and mowing the never-ending lawn. Crazy-making lurks in the little things, too: the one-eyed, peeing everywhere, deaf mutt (aptly named Scruffy) who barks every seven to nine seconds throughout the day; the need not to snap at housemates; truncated phone conversations with intelligent friends and family in faraway, chaotic United States.
On the plus side, spending time in the garden is a gift. (More on that below.)
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'Post Tortoise'
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| Courtesy Daily Kos |
Back in 2005, a doctor stuck up a conversation with a 75-year-old Texas farmer. Eventually the topic turned to Trump and his role as GOP Nominee for President.
The farmer said, “Well, as I see it, Donald Trump is like a 'Post Tortoise'.”
Unfamiliar with the term, the doctor asked what was a 'post tortoise'.
The farmer said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a tortoise balanced on top, that's a post tortoise."
Seeing the puzzled look on the doctor's face, the farmer explained. "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, he's elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with."
Such is the chaos in the United States these days that American citizens decline US Embassy repatriation offers. One young woman in Lebanon explained that it's “safer” in Beirut.
I delayed repatriation for similar reasons. (See Week 2, Day 11, Monday April 6, “Fly the coop?”)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Today, I spread yesterday’s grass clipping around sections of garden. It’s the beginning of autumn/fall here – one feels the coming-of-winter “nip in the air” – so time to start prepping plants and mulching anyway.I removed mounds of the diaphanous pond weed again today. I last thinned this weed on Week 1, Day 3, March 29.
Another 20 days of lockdown.
I’m due to depart May 19. Will I? That is one question.
Another question: what shape will I be in when I do depart?
And will I have another 14 days of quarantine/self-isolation in California?
Read Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3
