I first started blogging on this platform back in 2012, I planned to restart blogging in 2018 but only managed one post. Let's see if I manage to keep up momentum this time.
We are in very frightening times right now, the Coronavirus, Covid-19 is now a global pandemic and most countries are trying just to survive and "flatten the curve", but others, where it hasn't begun to strike fully yet, seem to be living life as normal. Here in Johannesburg it does seem not to have impacted people's lives that much yet. There are, to date, 116 cases in South Africa but the masses are still using gyms, going to work, eating out in bars and restaurants and many are writing insensitive and ignorant flippant remarks on social media. Sure there is some stockpiling - with the ubiquitous toilet rolls being absent from supermarket shelves, together with hand sanitiser, anti bacterial soap, long life milk. Today I saw people at Woolworths filling their trollies with braai meat and wine.
With two of my tribe self-isolating: my husband having returned from New York City and my son from the UK - both considered hotspots, we are very conscious of how this deadly virus can devastate many thousands of lives and abruptly end lives of the elderly and vulnerable. Our families are in the UK and naturally we are worried about our parents and other elderly and vulnerable family members and friends. At the testing centre this morning we heard people saying this was a "rich person's disease" and this just isn't helpful or accurate.
With two of my tribe self-isolating: my husband having returned from New York City and my son from the UK - both considered hotspots, we are very conscious of how this deadly virus can devastate many thousands of lives and abruptly end lives of the elderly and vulnerable. Our families are in the UK and naturally we are worried about our parents and other elderly and vulnerable family members and friends. At the testing centre this morning we heard people saying this was a "rich person's disease" and this just isn't helpful or accurate.
Now we have three children at home and all of them doing distance learning, and felt that I needed an outlet to just feel free to write and express myself. Most of this will be design-related, but not all. Five years' ago I was part of the UN Emergency Mission fighting the Ebola virus, where the deaths were gruesome and the mortality rates much much higher - over 11,000 people died as a result. I saw so many dead bodies over my time there, that towards the end of 9 months in the highly-charged distressing environment of West Africa, one became numb at the sheer volume of deaths which happened every day. I remember small tiny babies who tested positive and I would return weeks later and some had survived against the odds, but many perished the most gruesome grissly death. Then you think about the stigma attached to those first responders, and shudder when you think that those who stepped up to help work against the virus and help those who were suffering, were subsequently ostracised by their communities and literally cast out by their own families. Here are a couple of shots of my Ebola mission days in Guinea Conakry, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
I remember at the time of being sent to Liberia for three months I was in the middle of a very tactile, luxurious project on Somerset House in London. I was in the throes of finalising my Vectorworks detailed plans and finishing off some hand rendering to my sketch up 3D models. Yet driving through the streets of Monrovia from my accommodation to our HQ, I literally passed bodies which had been thrown into the streets. Needless to say, I presented my mitigating circumstances to my design school and the University kindly let me defer my assignment. I was so thankful as at the time: my design studies felt so trivial and ridiculous compared to what I had been sent to West Africa to work on. It was such a rewarding mission, a traumatic one, yet a riveting and distressing one. You can imagine that it's hard for me to simply draw under a line under my previous career and simply be an interior designer. We are all different, coming from different backgrounds, with different experiences and priorities. What we need to be now is to be kind and respect others and be mindful of the sensible things to do and those to abstain from.
I remember at the time of being sent to Liberia for three months I was in the middle of a very tactile, luxurious project on Somerset House in London. I was in the throes of finalising my Vectorworks detailed plans and finishing off some hand rendering to my sketch up 3D models. Yet driving through the streets of Monrovia from my accommodation to our HQ, I literally passed bodies which had been thrown into the streets. Needless to say, I presented my mitigating circumstances to my design school and the University kindly let me defer my assignment. I was so thankful as at the time: my design studies felt so trivial and ridiculous compared to what I had been sent to West Africa to work on. It was such a rewarding mission, a traumatic one, yet a riveting and distressing one. You can imagine that it's hard for me to simply draw under a line under my previous career and simply be an interior designer. We are all different, coming from different backgrounds, with different experiences and priorities. What we need to be now is to be kind and respect others and be mindful of the sensible things to do and those to abstain from.
Fast forward five years and I'm helping my children home school and writing about design. Talk about the sublime to the ridiculous. Next post will be more cheery... I hope ... Stay safe. xo
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