PERSONAL STORY 3
We interviewed an employee from an NGO in South Africa in times of Corona. The date of the interview is the 26th of May, 2020. The whole world is in the middle of a pandemic right now and everything is different from how it used to be. We are curious to how people in South Africa are dealing with the situation and that is why we interviewed some people living there. On the news we are reading a lot of things, but the best information is from the people themselves.
She can't work from the office anymore, and has to do her job from home. Which is hard, because she is alone. She tells us that it is hard to be alone. It has prevented me from being with friends and family, so it starts to take its toll. It does something with your sanity. That is why you try to keep yourself busy and try to focus on different things. I am in constant communication with friends and call my mother every day, but it is not the same as being in the company of the person.
On the other hand the lockdown has given me a change to explore new things and do new crafts. It has been really hard so far not to be able to do any fieldwork. I would be exciting when that is finally allowed again. I think the little things that were taken for granted are much more to be appreciated by people after the crisis, like hikes and beach walks. It makes you work harder on relationships between family and friends.
Our supermarkets are open, but there are long queues of people who have to do their groceries. It does not really make sense because small businesses like e.g. hairdressers with a limited number of 2 à 3 people in a space cannot open. Because the queues for the supermarkets are very long. On BBC we read that the queues in South Africa to get food are way too long. [1] That does not take away the fact that some of the measures are actually good.
