Day 109: What Will Change After Lockdown?

Day 109: July 13, 2020
Global Cases:  13, 229, 600; Deaths: 574, 979
Egypt Cases:  83, 001; Deaths: 3, 935

Lobna Nabil
Officer, Executive Education
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy 

We have been in a strict quarantine following the outbreak of COVID-19 since March

Since then, our lives – or I would say mine, at least, has changed dramatically in terms of how I do my daily activities. I am an active person who has various activities to perform every day from going to work in the morning, doing household chores, working out among other activities on a daily basis and over weekends.

Given the current situation, I thought that I wouldn’t be able to perform my daily activities in the confinement of my place’s walls and in solitude; albeit it turned out to be feasible with some rewarding outcomes. 

At the start of this lockdown, I had been enrolled in a diploma at AUC and all of the classes were transferred virtually. It was a bit challenging at first to navigate through the online learning experience and bit by bit, I absorbed the idea and it has now successfully come into fruition consummating the online course with smoothness and satisfaction.

What I am trying to say is that at the beginning of this pandemic, I was feeling helpless and frustrated that some of my routine activities had to be on hold, including my regular visits to my parents and my weekly social gatherings with friends or acquaintances.

My head was crammed with negative thoughts that this pandemic would halt my plans and would prevent me from seeing my beloved ones, especially that it so happened during Ramadan to disrupting our livelihoods, and the warmest times with our families and friends. 

Gradually, I started to contemplate that I can, in fact, manage my day to some extent in terms of the chores and even connecting with people taking into consideration that now there is no squandered time spent commuting – almost everything has gone virtually! The bright side is that I now had the time for things I wouldn’t have the time to do or think about in the whirlwind of life.

For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.

One other positive aspect of this pandemic is that I can see people now strolling down the streets for long walks embracing nature, a phenomenon that ceased to exist in the presence of massive and extravagant shopping malls that devoured our time over the weekends, tramping their alleys aimlessly. We finally have the time to retrieve the simple daily activities that we had almost forgotten about in the midst of our busy lives. 

Now, the question that is repeatedly asked in my mind, what will our lives be like after this long hiatus from the so–presumed “normal”? Will we reconsider how and where we spend our time and energy? How do we make the most of our times then? 

Hopefully, we find the silver lining of this pandemic.