Reminiscent of my teenage years, just like that, we’ve been grounded for three weeks 🇿🇦 starting midnight 26th March till the 16th April…

It just got real!

Well, it felt real last week, but it feels realer than real tonight.

As I was listening to our President’s much anticipated announcement, my heart sank. Last week I heard France had a lockdown, but a lockdown in South Africa still seemed incomprehensible just a few days ago.

I don’t believe it’s a drastic measure at all, seeing we went from 274 confirmed cases yesterday to 402 confirmed cases in South Africa (SA) today. Just the beginning of last week we still only had 60 confirmed cases. We don’t have a handle on this thing in SA. We need to flatten the curve.

But as I listened to our president speak, I could not immediately stave off the fear of the unknown and the anxiety associated with that. Loneliness gripped me and my heart dropped to my feet. I cried a bit. I was alone at home working at the time of the announcement, and for the first ten minutes after it ended my phone was silent. I believe that we were all in shock.

However, the unrelenting spirit of our human nature prevailed, and a sense of community then kicked in. After the cursory WTFs, we as a collective started to shake the dust off.

Some of my friends praised the president for his bold decisive announcement, but most of them started making light of a really heavy, heavy reality. The memes and the jokes then came flooding in. I always like to always give credit when I use someone else’s pictures, but there’s no way that I can trace the originators of the few memes which were shared with me and that I’m going to share now.

If these are your pictures, I thank you so much 🙏🏾🤗❤️

About an hour later, things just started to feel ok again. Ja sure, we still in this crazy real life Black Mirror episode with no end in sight, but what we gonna do? We just gonna dala what we must 🇿🇦

So then I put a very special edition bottle of bubbles from the Boschendal Wine Estate which one of my friends gave me as a graduation gift last year, on ice. Just as soon as I’m done with my work tonight (curriculum design – no less), I have big plans to have a candlelit bath with champers and listen Judith Sephuma playing in the background. Why not…. we gots to keep living!

 

Defining Lockdown:

Lockdown is an emergency protocol that requires South Africans to stay at home except for essential purposes. Only grocery stores, pharmacies and other essential industries will remain open. Only heath care workers, employees of pharmacies, grocery stores and petrol stations may go to work. Companies that are essential to the production and transportation of food, basic goods and medical supplies will also remain open. All non-essential activities are suspended. The full national lockdown begins at midnight Thursday 26th March and will continue for 21 days until the midnight 16th April. Anyone who breaks the rules of lockdown could be punished with imprisonment for up to one year or have to pay a fine.