hope and despair

With March nearly behind us, we can’t remember the last time we had looked forward to turning the calendar page with this much eagerness. Perhaps it was when we were approaching S’s due date before Munchkin was born. In April we’ll begin the two-week countdown to the end of the 30-day Manila quarantine decreed what seems like many moons ago. We’re not so naïve as to think that the city’s lockdown will come to an abrupt end on April 14; much more likely than not it will be extended. Still, we’ve now made it through 16 days, and the arrival of a new month is a milestone worth celebrating.

solitary confinement

As Americans under coronavirus lockdown in the Philippines, we feel like we are living two alternate realities. On the one hand, we are mortified by the news back home. With testing delays and half-measures contributing to the United States now leading the world in the number of confirmed cases, the American response seems critically inadequate. On the other hand, we are now two weeks into an increasingly restrictive “enhanced” community quarantine in Manila and feeling the acute pressure of draconian measures imposed on us. If the response in the United States has not gone far enough, the reality we are living suggests that it is also quite easy to go overboard in the other direction.

between a rock and a hard place

On the upside, we have made it through 10 days and are now one-third of the way through Manila’s 30-day lockdown with our sanity still mostly intact. On the downside, things are likely to get a lot worse before they get any better, and it seems rather unlikely that the quarantine will be lifted – or even relaxed – after only 30 days. We are continuing to live day-to-day, not so much because we want to but because it seems that every day brings with it a new set of restrictive measures that make us revisit our decision to remain in the Philippines.

ghost town

Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?
We danced and sang, and the music played in a de boomtown
This town is coming like a ghost town.
— The Specials, “Ghost Town”

A few days into our quarantine, we wrote about how it felt like the other shoe had just dropped: what had started out as a partial lockdown of Metro Manila had quickly escalated, with a curfew, the closure of most businesses and public places and, finally, the suspension of international travel. This beast, it turns out, has more than two feet, because the shoes keep on dropping. The latest restriction, imposed by our condominium board this evening, is a near total prohibition on exiting our residence compound.

in it for the long haul

Saturday marks the one-week anniversary of our final pre-quarantine date night, which feels like a lifetime ago. It was a week of constant flux and uncertainty, as the Philippine government tightened its lockdown, the Embassy endeavored to keep up with the rapidly changing regulatory framework, and the State Department issued its now-or-never travel advisory. Some of our colleagues and friends from the international community departed before the lockdown went into effect; many others were on the fence and scrambled to make a decision while air travel from Manila was still possible.

one day at a time

“Chunk it!” Munchkin’s favorite reading tool – trying to decipher an unfamiliar word by “chunking” it into smaller, easier-to-read portions – seems like an apt strategy for navigating these uncertain times. With the global pandemic still on the upswing, our 30-day quarantine may well be the beginning of a much longer period of imposed isolation. China is just now beginning to emerge from its two-months-long lockdown. Looking ahead to potentially many months of this new status quo is a depressing thought indeed. Focusing on the now and taking things one day at a time, on the other hand, is helping maintain our sanity and nurture the hope that things will turn okay on the other side of these dark, troubled times.

the first 48 hours

Day 0 – Curfew announcement, 24 hours to lockdown. No real panic, but depressing thoughts creep in. What to do with the kids for the next month weighs heavily on our minds. We live in a concrete jungle – one of the most densely populated cities in the world. There are plenty of great places to go hiking not too far away, but they all lie outside the Metro Manila area, so are inaccessible. With playgrounds and indoor play spaces also closed, either the kids will soon start climbing the walls or we will.

life in the times of coronavirus

Long before the Philippine president ordered a 30-day lockdown of the country’s capital and the region’s mayors voted to place the Metro Manila area under curfew, life had taken on a slightly surreal quality.

trip down memory lane

After an eventful week in northern Vietnam, we caught an early morning flight across the border to Laos. Two impressions struck us on arrival in Luang Prabang. First, after relying almost exclusively on Google Translate for communication in Vietnam, it was refreshing to hear English spoken widely. Second, because Luang Prabang is a backpacker haven, a powerful wave of nostalgia swept over us.