DAY 11 (Community Quarantine)

     

      PANIC- The quarantine is starting to take it's toll on us. My daughter is experiencing an anxiety attack. Fearing the virus going in her throat, she gargled mouthwash too deep in the throat which, unknown to her,  irritated it. A sore throat is a symptom of covid. Thinking that, she also started to have difficulty in breathing. She panicked, paled by fear, wept. I had to talk her out of it. 

     It is psychosomatic, the stress of hearing the death toll both here and abroad, plus the forced confinement is making her feel sick.

     We turned off the TV 

     She is ok now. 

     It is almost a decade since she last slept with us in our room, now she is. There is no social distancing when assurance is needed.

     EARLY BIRD- I wake up at 4:30 to go the Ricarte talipapa to avoid the rush of morning buyers. I have been hearing stories that people from Dolores and Cainta, where social distancing is strictly enforced and the lines to the market could go for kilometers, are pouring in to buy food stuffs. 

     This is a nightmare since the informal market is not monitored by the barangay or the Cainta LGU. People literally rub shoulders here and with the shoppers pouring in from different places with reported positive cases, the infection probability meter goes up by tenfold. 

      I think I may have overdone it because when I arrive, the stalls are still closed and the deliveries are just coming in. 

     Not a waste since I take the time to exercise my feet and walk. Ricarte has talipapa from both ends, one near Bonifacio avenue which is near us and the other end at Ortigas Extension, twenty minutes walk from the other end. 

      When I arrive at the Ortigas end, same thing, still closed and just opening. So, I walk back to where I began and is finally able to buy what I need .

      I am surprised to see that Ricarte is empty of people especially the youth. This is a densely populated street and people congregate on the sidewalk 24 hours a day. I guess the daily routine of doing nothing must have exhausted them to the max.    

     HERE COMES THE SUN- Like everybody else, the uncertainty is unsettling me. When will the the contagion be controlled ? I have been reading bad news from Europe and how covid has locked down these highly developed countries. Their health frontliners stretched to the limits.

     I am comparing it to what is happening to the Philippines, a developing third world country (I have been hearing "developing country" since my grade school days and we have not left that designation) where almost a third of the citizens live in abject poverty. Ironically,  I can't see the urgency in many people, it is as if this is another prolonged holiday for them. 

     When I see them sitting on the sidewalk,  blank look in their eyes, how they seem not to care,  I sometimes imagine that they are just waiting for it to come. 

     I try to stop thinking but that's almost impossible. 

     Sitting, waiting for the sun to come, listening to guitar music, drinking coffee, these used to be relaxing.