Wild Mountain Thyme of COVID-19
Hello, adventurer!
How are you? I feel like this post is very untimely given the current situation. I’ve taken a tad long hiatus, and what do I have to say after I get back? The world is currently shit. It’s this year, 2020, in particular.
At the time of writing, the world is currently battling the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. It was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan City in China. At the time of the outbreak, I was in Seoul, South Korea (or perhaps in Busan).
I got back to the Philippines on the 1st of January. It was snowing. Little did I know that 20 days later, South Korea would get infected, and roughly a month later, the cases would amount to 20. Then 58, the next day. Then 70, the next day, and so on. As of today, there are 8,162 with 75 deaths. My heart goes to that little quaint country.
I bought a couple of face masks out of whim from a Daiso store in Myeongdong. I never thought I would need more just a mere 2 months later — and “need” is an understatement here, mind you. They are now vital to my survival.
I remember the obscure Christmas songs playing on the cold winter’s day on a bus to Petite France. The Korean countryside, as eerie as it looked, was tranquil. Now it is empty and quiet for a particularly terrible reason. “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire” is not a phrase to describe it.
I got back to Manila filled with ennui of a fantastic vacation being over and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of trivialities I’ve left in December. January was definitely a test of humanity with disaster happening one after the other.
Case in point, the long dormant Taal volcano suddenly erupted, which prompted worries of my parents living in the jungles in the same province as the explosion. Thank God they were spared. Albeit, I wasn’t as the noxious gasses reached the capital wherest I lived.
My thoughts were also of the destroyed Blue Mountains in Australia, burnt by wildfire which ignited the ire of climate change activists. I’m, of course, all for climate justice. These invisible borders that we have instilled in ourselves may just lead to the extinction of our species — a thought I’m not really fond of.
Right now, we’re on community quarantine which is, of course, a lockdown. Every hour, another patient turns up positive for COVID-19. In just a span of a couple of days, the number of cases augmented, but the private sector is still resilient in their stance of not allowing employees to work from home.
I guess I would just like to paint a picture of this seemingly distressing chain of events. The synchronicity of these troublesome predicaments are hard to ignore. Hence, I’ve decided to report them here.
I leave you with this song. I hope to someday visit Europe, and this is a soundtrack of that dream.
Spoiler Alert! They’ve allowed us to work from home under an enhanced community quarantine until April 14. This is going to be a fun vacation for my recluse heart.
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