It has been a good 9 months of adhering to strict emphasized social rules. A brutally aggressive death of loving hugs, congratulatory high fives and meeting handshakes. Not only that but also the shared iNgudu and gathering after long week of trying to get paid.
The social impact of Covid-19 is what we are living; the anxieties of a stolen normal. Somehow we had imagined it was a 2020 thing that as the year ends it too would be swept away with the summer breeze. And now reality is kicking in that it will be long before we even get to the edges of normal.
Everyone is longing for that freedom we once took for granted. For a get-together, a sigh of the long year it has been, a drink in your hand, a friend next to you and unmasked faces.
Some have proven that freedom is yours if you want it. Paying zero regard to Covid-19 protocols. From Government officials to ordinary citizens. Hugging friends, not maintaining social distancing, filling venues over permitted capacity. Forcing way to normality, because it has been a tough year.
A long year of sudden deaths and rushed funerals. Folded corpses and not enough time to mourn. No women filling the mattresses, women chopping vegetables, cooking outside, making fire. People coming in to sing, to pray, money offering. Old friends staying all night and talking about how the dead had lived. None of that.
It has been a dreadful year of trying to swallow this sudden new normal, not being able to see your passed beloved one for the last time, not travelling to bury them, not taking a walk because of curfew or go to your favourite restaurant and for some not working because the restaurant is closed. Long year of killed dreams and asking ‘what’s the point?”. Being robbed off the freedom of thinking beyond survival.
This festive season, will be the most difficult to celebrate. A season of trying to get away from this mental pandemic that has halted our lives and dreams.
But we will get through it if we save ourselves and those around us.
