Day 18: The Relish of Checkmarks!
Day 18: April 13, 2020
Global cases: 1,923,987; Deaths: 119,618
Egypt cases: 2,190; Deaths: 164
Dr Mona Amer
Associate Professor of Psychology
Chair of the Department of Psychology
The previous night’s news stories still hover densely around me when I wake up. As I un-furrow my brows the worries come tumbling out of my forehead and gather into a zestful pool on my bed. I toss the sheets aside and tell myself today will be different. It will be calm and productive, not paralyzed and aimless.
To clear out space in my cluttered mind, I create a game called “ten tasks”. Over the day I have to complete 10 pending tasks, starting with the most time-sensitive. I keep adding rules like: At least two tasks should be things I have been avoiding. Or, after each sent e-mail I need to shake myself out of the scrunched-up ball at my desk and do something healthy like stretch or eat fruit or pray. Another rule is that I have to connect with people in between, so I call up my dad in his apartment downstairs to see how he’s doing, check in on my mom, message a friend.
Keeping score works – the relish of scratching another checkmark helps me push through as the day drags on. Finalize membership on a faculty review committee. Check. Write up explanations to the frequent wrong answers on the “quiz” so that students will be better prepared for their papers. Check.
Write a scholarship reference letter for my previous research assistant who got accepted to graduate school in the UK. Check. Set up the folder for my research team to start designing the survey. Check. Review and rank potential journals to submit a paper to. Check.
Somewhere along the day I realize that all of these tasks rest on our faith that there will be a tomorrow. How callous and audacious we are in the face of this virus!
In the evening, I join my parents for dinner, and as usual, the virus takes a seat at the table, too. We churn around in the same uncertainties. When will people we know get sick? Will there be treatment? When is the best time to travel to the US? Will Egypt become like the US? Is it safe to get the man to fix the curtains? When will a vaccine become available? What if one of us gets sick?
The discussion turns to the thanaweya amma anatomy lesson that my mother had watched on TV, which reminded her of medical school. It reminds her of her twelfth grade biology teacher who doubted her intelligence because my mother kept trying to stifle a giggle throughout class. It was the fault of Amal, a girl sitting behind my mom who used to tickle and poke my mom and whisper scandalous comments under her breath. When my mom was recounting the tale, she kept poking my father to explain what happened and he kept jumping in his chair and laughing. I was stunned watching this – my mom and dad were 17 again, not in their 70’s.
For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.
With the space in my heart a bit lighter, I later call up my sister in Ohio. She tells me they can’t make it over to Egypt because her daughter’s passport has expired. My sister is not allowed to enter their local post office to renew the passport, because the agent there knows that she was sick. He says he wants proof that she doesn’t have coronavirus. She says, “if they refused to test me before because a fever and cough wasn’t sick enough, do you think they will test me now when I’m better!” She called the national center to complain, but they say that it’s the agent’s right to protect his staff.
I contrast the strictness of their post office with the looseness of the TV series film crews that continue to swell around the midan near our home in Maadi. For weeks neighbors have yelled at them and called the police, but police can’t force them to leave, let alone force them to wear masks or socially distance. They have a tasreeh – permit. My sister says, of course they have permission. Between fear of the coronavirus and fear of a Ramadan with no tamsaleyas – soap operas – well, we know the end to that story.
It’s near midnight and I realize again that I need to pirouette and tightrope down the narrow stretch of empty floor to reach my desk. What was previously meant to be a little bit of spring cleaning had become abandoned and reckless piles that have seized most of the floor. I muster a bit more energy to sort through clothes and stuff some black bags for the charity organization Resala.
Underneath one of the piles I discover the gifts I had gotten for friends during the last Umrah. Although I still can’t find matching bedroom slippers, the pathway in my room widens and I can find a bit more space to walk forward on.
