Time is passing so quickly in lockdown. Every morning I receive text messages and phone calls from friends to check if I am doing ok. I tell them I am ok, I send pictures of the food I have cooked or funny videos I receive on Whatsapp to cheer them up. But I can't lie, most of the time I feel anxious about the future.
Living in quarantine is pretty much like living as an asylum seeker. The difference is you don’t have money to indulge yourself in different cooking styles and you can’t watch TV simply because you can’t afford the licence. You have only £35 per week to survive. Tens of thousands of people live on canned food donated by charities and sleep in the basement of a friend’s house or in a garage/ under a bridge. I am surprised to have realised that thousands of English people are homeless and they sleep in shop doorways, on park benches and friends’ sofas. Maybe I am lucky to have a roof over my head, and an Android phone that connects me with the world for one or two hours a day? Let me tell you about my daily routine: 9 AM : waking up: 10 AM: having a lie-in, procrastination. 11 AM: checking on social media to see what friends have been up to, and if they are doing all right. Sometimes writing a post on my Facebook or share something. Recently I wrote a dystopian story about European people seeking asylum in Africa and the Middle East because many countries will have gone under water due to global warming. 11.30 AM: making breakfast and meeting other ladies in the kitchen! I live in a Serco's shared house. 12:00: watching cooking channels on YouTube and choosing a cheap recipe for dinner. If I need ingredients, I go to the corner shop and if I can’t find them I just improvise. I can’t walk around looking for spices and veg and risk spreading the virus because I am too selfish to have a plain dinner. Adding chilli sauce will do the job. 2 PM: making phone calls to my family back home to check if they are ok. The virus is spreading across the world and it seems that governments are worried about the economy than about people getting sick. There is nothing I can do except ask them to take care of themselves. 3 PM: going for a quick walk in my local park 5 PM: having supper 6 PM: reading magazines, learning English, watching news to find out how close scientists are to a vaccine or a cure. Thinking and worrying. Speculating about the future. Thinking about the damage we have done to animals and our planet earth. We have messed up. Maybe this is a wake-up alarm. There is much to learn from a microscopic virus. 12 PM: praying and wishing for a better world after the crisis is over.
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