Lifting the weight from the back of my neck
Scotland, United Kingdom On this final day of 2021, I am drawn to reflect on all that has happened these past two years, both to myself and the world. I am grateful for so many things. I am grateful for all the ways I have grown and learned. I am grateful for all I have…
A country I could call home
Galway, Ireland On the 4th of August, in Beirut, something horribly horrific happened.My heart didn’t break on this fatidic day.It crushed and pulverized in a million pieces. My heart was already breaking for over a decade; the fist tear happened when I was born, in the mid 80s, from the ashes of the civil war. Growing…
The morning after
Beirut, Lebanon It is the morning after.What we hoped to be a nightmare, turned out not to be. I mean it is, but it happened for real.People are still missing. The search continues. The capital is in rubbles.It’s OK to feel vulnerable and weak, but we must not panic. We did that yesterday. Today is…
Wild foods for wild times
Glasgow, Scotland Living in this part of the world, when good weather comes you know to make the most of it. Usually, this means scanning the seven-day forecast and plotting trips to the mountains or coast as soon as a chance of sunshine reveals itself. Currently, the geographic boundaries of opportunity are somewhat smaller- an…
Loss
United Kingdom Please note this post contains content that may be distressing to some readers. Approximately four weeks before the UK government announced that we were to go into lockdown due to a worldwide pandemic, my husband and I found out that I was expecting our second child. Our daughter is almost four years old;…
Hillside Refuge
Nepal Which day of the lockdown is it today? I’m not too sure, where I am, it’s easy to lose track of time.My partner and I have been staying at our house, which is located in a hilly rural area of Nepal, approximately one hour away from Kathmandu. It’s a quiet place, surrounded by nature…
The year the music paused
Nashville, USA When I first penned this piece I titled it – The Year the Music Paused, as a play on the Don McLean song –The Day the Music Died. In it, I wrote about the impact of COVID-19 on Nashville and my life here with my husband as a musician. I wrote about how I’ve…
Lockdown: A journey in emotions
Ottawa, Canada OptimismWhen my partner and I went on lockdown on March 13, I had just come back from a work trip to Toronto one week earlier. I was attending a large conference hosted by the Canadian food service industry. Thousands of participants were in attendance, including large numbers of food producers, restaurants, and bars.…
See-sawing between gratitude and hopelessness
Philadelphia – Boston – Dubai – Islamabad I was in tears while on hold with Emirates. During a span of 48 hours, I had gone from reassuring fellow international students at UPenn and saying we should stay put in Philadelphia to changing my flight ticket twice. First, I bought a ticket home for the end…
Houston, we have a problem
Houston, United States By Ansam Sinjab Entering week six of work-from-home, week 10-ish of social distancing (depends when you started to take things seriously in this country), week four of my Nike Training Club fitness program, day six of my guided mediation program (last one was two weeks ago), day 20 of not watching Trump’s…
The Blackbird Show
Madrid, Spain A concrete planter next to the subway is no decent home compared to the coniferous forest, the blackbird’s natural habitat. But these are the kind of situations you have to deal with when you grow up in a city like Madrid, where housing price is absolutely nuts. March is the month in which…
Go Home, Stay Home
From Maine to London Days before the quarantine became mandatory, Nils, my British fiancé, spotted the homemade sign taped to a second floor window in the block of brick flats across the lane. “Go Home, Stay Home” it read, in colored pencil. We could see it from our kitchen. I’d caught glimpses of a woman…
Them changes in Minneapolis
Minneapolis, United States In the brief moment that Thanos snapped his fingers to bring the demise of the Avengers in Endgame, is how quickly the social activities dissolved. Many of us hoped this year would be the year; a year for expansion of travelling and seeing different sights. A year which might have seen us…
Inaaya’s life under lockdown
London, United Kingdom Hello. My name is Inaaya Shah. I am an 11 year old girl living in coronavirus-affected England. Life here has changed a lot for me. School has shut down for one. You might think that’s perfect for me but it is not. You see, I’m in year 6 at school. I was…
Reflections from a London household
London, England ‘It’ all seemed so far away – China! And even when ‘it’ reached Italy, maybe having decided on Brexit, it was ‘over there and we felt removed from any threat. But….. we are all connected’ and this ‘Runway’ disease knows no borders. The Lockdown though, we should have anticipated it (other than toilet…
Confinamiento
Mexico City, Mexico Here we are in May 2020, in Mexico City, living the same confinement as everyone else. It has been six weeks already and I anticipate another eight weeks to start resuming activities. I am experiencing this pandemic with my family – my husband and three children – Luisa, 5 years old, Simone,…
Frontline to Backline
From the UK to the Persian Gulf I’ve spent 14 years working for the NHS. Spent a variety of years tasting many specialities spending days and nights walking along various hospital corridors. After this I decided to become a general practitioner and for the last nine years this is what I did until 14th February…
Every cloud has a silver lining
Toronto, Canada Go Train schedules, traffic jams, changing seasons, pressing deadlines, and take-out dinners. This is the day to day life in Toronto and much of the Greater Toronto Area (the suburbs outside the city). The COVID-19 pandemic caught us off guard. Usually when world-wide events happen, in this part of the world we tend…
Lahore in Lockdown
Lahore, PakistanSpring brings out the best in Lahore, the city of gardens, of ancient architecture, of culture and heritage. In the last decade especially, the academic scene in Lahore has boomed manifold. Spring has been an usherer of all things creative and positive, like Lahore’s first biennale in 2018. Come spring and Lahore hosts its…
Freetown
Freetown, Sierra Leone April 2020 Sierra Leone had been the only country in the West and Central Africa region without a case of COVID-19 – that’s out of 24 countries and something to be proud of. But on March 31, things rapidly changed when the President, in a nationwide broadcast, made an announcement that the…
Colorado to California
California, United States This ‘break’ was never expected nor called for. I was busy with my schoolwork – graduate school has been nothing but all work – when we got an email that there was a suspected case on campus and students would be taking their classes online until further notice. Until then I had…
Dancing out of the lockdown
Islamabad, Pakistan It was March 18, 2020 when I realized I had been at home for two full days, avoiding any social interaction. My movement inside the house involved going from my bed to my sofa and then back. It took me a day to mess up my sleep cycle, and while I was working…
There are no foreigners in a lockdown
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia By Saqib Sheikh The world is in a state of harmonized chaos. A calamitous tumble of the economy and global order is visible through empty streets and vacant parks, not protests or violence. It is peaceful, yes, but an eerie peace that has been forced upon us. The Coronavirus has thus proven…
Running away
London, England You come from behind and swoosh past me at great speed, nearly brushing my side, oblivious of me. One moment you are there, another and you are gone, in your world, running at pace and lost in your earphones. I shout at the receding back of your head, “Give me two meters!” but…
Art in a time of Corona
Beirut, Lebanon I’m an artist from Britain, and have lived in Beirut, Lebanon for the past ten years. My home is in Gemmayzeh, a neighbourhood near ‘The Ring’ bridge at Tabaris and Martyrs Square, the central square of Beirut. Just three months ago, these locations were the epicenter of the Lebanese protest movement which began…
The shower dilemma
Paris, France I would have never imagined that the number one topic of discussion with my friends would one day be about how often we are showering. Two weekends ago, I started this discussion with some friends on a group video call. Ever since, we have been keeping each other updated of our shower time,…
Fables
Toronto, Canada There was this village, a farming village. It was not so big, not too small. Farmers there grew all sorts of crops: rice, wheat, maize, eggplant, lentils. And there was always plenty of food to go around. One day the rains did not come. Then another day, then a week. The farmers began…
Self-discipline in quarantine
Pennsylvania, United States It was the first week of March when I watched a documentary about life under lockdown in the Wuhan province of China. I empathized with the people living under the constant threat of Covid-19 but not even for a second did I think of being in the same situation sometime in the…
Shock, Humour, Acceptance
Lahore, Pakistan The shock: It started as a dreadful email, informing us about the closure of university. It came as a shock to final year students who were busy planning their last two months at university. The awaited delights like the grad-trip, photoshoots and the final goodbyes.We were too oblivious of what was happening around…
One step beyond
Pisa, Italy “When in April the sweet showers fallThat pierce March’s drought to the root and allAnd bathed every vein in liquor that has powerTo generate therein and sire the flower;When Zephyr also has with his sweet breath,Filled again, in every holt and heath,The tender shoots and leaves, and the young sunHis half-course in the…
Accidental pandemic mini-break that should have never have happened
Aberdeen, Scotland & Colombo, Sri Lanka My feelings are mixed about what is probably the last “adventure” I will have for a long time. (When I say adventure, I am not including whatever spiritual and mental journeys we are all supposed to be making during the lockdown, according to the online influencers and self-righteous life…
Free flow, in lockdown
Kigali, Rwanda I fly in from Berlin, to honor a consulting work contract, being effective 1st MarchGreat times reconnecting with the motherland again, more networkingWork on an Airbnb project with Dadi, close friend. Money gets investedWe find an abandoned place out of the city, close to the lake, clean it, paint it, bring life to…
If you believe in darkness, then you must believe in light
West Midlands, England I do not fully know how to explain the time we are living in. In conversations with close friends, I find myself repeating versions of “guys, seriously what the hell is going on, it’s like the world is on pause….”. As a humanitarian, I am trained to almost instinctively act at a…
Day 33
Washington DC, United States As I write this, it’s day 33. Day 33 of what originally started as me self-isolating out of an abundance of caution (due to potential exposure and potentially exhibiting symptoms) but has turned into a mandatory city lockdown along the way. I know it’s day 33 from the strike marks on…
The life of an ordinary Rwandan citizen
Kigali, Rwanda It was Friday night, 20th March. I was on my way home from a restaurant when I got a notification that the country would be starting a two-week lockdown the next day. While reading the official government notice, I never really paused to consider what it would mean for me and how I…
A mild case of Covid
London, England Last week, I overheard my husband telling someone on the phone that I was ill. Within a couple of hours, that person’s partner, in another continent, messaged to see how I was as they’d heard I wasn’t well. Covid has given the term viral a whole new meaning. I’ve been thinking about the…
Fairy tales in confinement – cosmic wisdom vs. Covid-19
Florence, Italy 6 April 2020, day 29 of Covid-19 confinement. Once upon a time, there were approximately 200,000 tourists visiting the city every day. Even though I have lived in very packed places across the world, I was never a big fan of those crowds of people. It can feel like fast food, but for…
Springtime in Iraq
Duhok, Iraq Despite the grim news of coronavirus gripping all of the world’s media, spring has arrived in northern Iraq! This is usually the prime season for family picnics and hikes on the beautiful mountains and trails surrounding the small city of Duhok, but even one of the biggest Persian New Year (Nowruz) celebration weekends…
Fica em casa
Lisbon – Portugal, April 2020 I am a roadie……catering department. I have toured for 12 years supporting artists and crew, from tiny theatres all the way up to stadiums and festivals. Mainly the UK but also throughout Europe and the US. In recent years, I have been working nine months out of 12. My partner is Portuguese and…
Let me entertain you
Coulsdon, England Entertaining a little human during lockdown is my new job. I work from home as a copywriter, and I’m also a part time SEN key worker at a local school, so I’m a bit busy with that. But nothing fills my days more than my nutty little toddler and his many daily discoveries.…
Clapping time
Malaga, Spain Every day at 8pm, people in Spain go out to their windows, balconies, and terraces to applaud for healthcare workers and all the essential personnel (cleaners, supermarket sellers, pharmacists, etc.) as a way of thanking them for their courageous work during the COVID-19 outbreak. Since the beginning of the lockdown, which started around…
The world has started to resemble a convent
Manila, Philippines Thursday, 12th March – I caught the evening bus bound for Quezon Province, five hours northeast of Manila. I hoped to reach before midnight. There were talks of a lockdown to be implemented the next day. I felt like a fugitive escaping from the prison that is Manila during a lockdown. Truth is, I…
Making the best out of COVID
London, England My heart goes out to all those personally and collectively affected by the COVID situation, there is a great deal of suffering out there… but right now, I feel it’s important to make the best of whatever situation we find ourselves in so here are my appreciations…. This deliberately goes back to basics…. …
Lockdown in a Refugee Camp
Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi The news of the moment is a disaster that’s putting our mind into the world of wonder and despair. Questions pending in the minds of Dzaleka residents are: What is the future of Dzaleka Refugee Camp –the home to 45,000 people who survive on donations and aid from the world? What would…
Sara’s lockdown experience
Birmingham, England For the last 2 weeks, I have not left my house due to the coronavirus. It has been good and bad in many ways. During the coronavirus I have done the same thing in my spare time, playing with toys and watching TV. The weather this spring has been very warm and sunny…
Palm Sunday 2020
Sunday 5th April 2020, Mauritius – Lockdown Day #17 It’s a beautiful morning with the sun shining brightly through my window and a gentle breeze moving the curtains. A perfect day to go to the beach. If only….. Today is the 17th day of lockdown. Only the 17th day. My memories of pre-lockdown life are hazy. It feels…
Adjustments and Silver Linings
Biggin Hill, England Ever since schools shut, life has been completely different. The first two weeks were incredibly stressful. Trying to comprehend what was happening to us, and restrictions on our lives building by what seemed like every 24 hours. Luckily, we still have some freedom. Up to an hour exercise each day. We doubt, however, this…
Corona Corona (a child’s view)
Nairobi, Kenya It was 20 minutes to lunch, and I was sitting in my Kiswahili class waiting for time to pass. Ms P was writing the assignment on the board when the Head Teacher walked in. “I have a very important announcement and will require all students to gather in the assembly hall”, she said.…
Holding out an olive jar
Buckinghamshire, England I live in a small block of flats, over a couple of floors, and get on very well with two of my neighbours in particular. Each of us live alone, so it’s nice to have kind and reliable people so close by. In normal times we’ll quite often go for an evening walk…
Lockdown in Rhyme
London, England I wish I could turn off the world and have a real lockdownWhere no one was bothering meWhere no child made a soundJust snuggled up to meWhile we watched the TVWhere the Tesco Man delivered everythingIncluding Beer, Chocolates and some proper Tea
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The Lockdown Lens 