The COVID 19 pandemic and the human condition

“Get a job!”

She lifted her voice, belting out at the top of her lungs, not a musical melody, but screaming expletives, specks of saliva flying, eyes red and deranged as she raged at the world because someone, her brother in law to be exact, would dare to impose on her charity. 

“Get out there and stand on your own two feet!”

In the tiny storage room at the back of the house, children cowered, bunched together in a corner, pitying eyes following their father as he paced up and down like a caged bull, muscles bunched, breathing heavily.

His sister in law's words fell on his shoulders like nuke bombs, and as he paced, he kept shaking his head, grunting, and shrugging them off. His brother's silence was so deafening, his ears rang.

"Big man, begging a lodging! And then want to bring his whole family to squeeze up in this place!"

The place in question, a tool shed of sorts, was the room where his brother dumped his handy man tools and odds and ends from around the house.

"Like you buy a one way ticket to come here, and then can't find the passage to go back!"

“Daddy,” Tim, the youngest and most daring of the lot, raised a hand timidly.  His father  paused and stared blankly at the little boy who, in happier times, would chase after him, fingers sticky with the snack of the moment, begging him to play a game of tag. 

“Daddy,” Tim plodded on. “Aunty said to get out and stand on two feet, do you usually stand on one?”

In a happier time, his father would have chuckled, chased and tickled him, threw him in the air and perhaps said, “Where do you get all that lip?”

Today though, his father paused, jaw working as he struggled to contain himself. Then, dashing a hasty hand across his eyes, he nodded awkwardly and returned to his silent pacing without a word. He needed to get a job fast! So far he'd only been able to hustle an odd job here and there, enough to ensure that his children were fed, but he needed something bigger, something more sustainable. The question was, with lockdown restrictions imposed, where would he find such a job?

Someone in the group pinched the back of Tim’s neck.

“Ouch!” the errant infant protested loudly. “What did I do?!”

Meanwhile, next door, their aunt continued ranting, hardly pausing to draw breath, releasing a volley of words like arrows, seemingly endorsed by her husband as she took down his brother, caring little for the children who witnessed her tirade.

Aunty was a teacher who held a respectable post at the community high school. Following reports of the COVID 19 virus spreading in their community, her school had shut off all live operations and reverted to an in-house model. Teachers delivered classes via  Zoom. To adjust, Aunty converted a room in her house into a classroom, plastered the wall with charts, set up her books neatly in a cupboard next to her computer desk and got right to work.  Her compensation package was unaffected. Her husband, a healthcare worker, also continued to work uninterrupted. They shared one son.

Others were less fortunate, like her brother in law who, before the pandemic, was employed in the service industry. When the governments ordered his business close, he subsisted for a while with his family, but as the pandemic ate hefty chunks of his savings, he sought solace from his brother, moving his family temporarily into the working station, much to his wife’s displeasure. Aunty used every opportunity she could find to make her opinion known.

“Like cockroaches,” she screamed in a voice so strident, it could have peeled wings off the insect. “Once they infest your space, there’s no getting them out!”

In another part of town, a family quietly struggling under the weight of the pandemic, received a visit.

A kind Samaritan had opened her home and her pantry to them, treating them to monthly visits, gifting them with boxes of hampers, absorbing the responsibility of funding the children’s school expenses, and expecting nothing in return.

Children, growing accustomed to the Samaritan’s visit, swarmed around her car whenever she showed up, paying little regard to social distance stipulations as they left handprints across her windows and trunks and flooded her with questions.

“Can I help? Can I help?”

“Did you bring cereal today, Aunty?”

“I loved the mackerel you bought me the last time, it was yummy!”

“Aunty, can I come stay with you?”

Now, dear readers, I shared the foregoing examples to ask a question: during the COVID 19 pandemic, if you were in a position to extend aid to someone in need, to which camp did you belong?

Were you a philanthropist or a self seeker? 

Were you contemptuous of those in need or were you trying to ease the burden others bore if you were in a position to do so?

And, if you decided to lend aid, I’d like to know, was it easier to lend aid to strangers than to persons you knew? 

You don’t have to respond to me, I don’t want you to, you can ask yourself. In a nutshell: Did you help freely where you could, or did you reject and spurn those who came to you for aid?

This unprecedented situation we faced as a global society, fighting back against the ravages of the COVID 19 epidemic, has certainly taught us a lot.

And in addition to strides made in the medical field to battle the impacts of the virus, a lot was also learned about the impact COVID 19 related stay at home restrictions has had on human health, and on the human psyche.

I would love to see a report on the impact this pandemic has had on the human character. Because in this regard, the way I see it, among those in a position to extend aid, two opposing characters were prominent: the philanthropist and the stingy self-seeker. 

Similarly, it can be said that among those who declared themselves in need, two characters also emerged. There were those who genuinely needed aid, and, unfortunately, there were those who capitalized on the opportunity presented and availed themselves of every charitable initiative solely out of greed.

It’s just a short post for you guys today, but I’ll leave you with this. 

May this be a lesson to us all.

As we move forward from this moment, as we reflect on how this virus has affected our lives, our communities, our countries, the world, may we also conduct some introspection and reflect on the way we have touched the lives of others during this time, so that when we answer the question, to which camp did I belong during this pandemic, we can add another: In the future, if given a chance to choose, to which camp would I want to belong?

Have a blessed day, guys!