Dear kids,

At this very moment, history is being made. The times that you are living in right now are going to go down in the pages of history. Forever. Infact, in the future, your history teacher might just set you your coursework in regards to this. I’m talking about the Corona virus Covid19 pandemic. And wouldn’t this post be a great first hand experience to refer to when learning about how life was living under the lockdown.

So, let’s start from when this pandemic was even classified to be a pandemic by WHO, the World Health Organisation. Daddy had been reading up news and keeping us informed about a deadly virus affecting the population of China, specifically the inhabitants of Wuhan City.  Very far away from where we were in UAE. This was during January 2020. 

Life for us in Dubai was pretty much normal. School- Work- Malls- Eating out- Beach, the regular stuff. Around mid- February, news channels were broadcasting more serious news about the country of China being under complete lockdown to contain this Covid19 virus. More news started emerging of small groups of people in other countries appearing to be infected by the virus. We were getting wary and always carrying sanitizers with us to places we visited. The malls and supermarkets were still running full with people. Infact, for the leap year weekend in February, we even visited Motion Gate at Dubai Parks and Resorts, always making sure we were sanitizing hands after every ride. That was the last proper outdoor activity we had in a large crowd.

Start of March, things started to take a turn for the worse very rapidly. Cases of Covid19 infections within UAE were being reported. The cases were in small numbers at this point; such as 15 people. The first government announcement made was that all nurseries in UAE were being closed indefinitely. Teachers at schools started preparing educational material for distance learning should the same happen for schools. It did. By 5th of March, all schools and universities were closed for four weeks. The first two weeks were going to be Spring break holidays and the last two were going to be for learning from home. This was then extended to the end of the academic year, which meant no exams for higher grades and also no annual school concert. Something mummy and daddy were looking forward to very much. 

What followed the school closures were closures of all gyms, cinemas, amusement parks, gaming centres, spring camps, restaurants, malls and eventually the metro too. All places of worship were asked to close until further notice, and the words in the Azan (call to prayer) changed from ‘come to prayer’, to ‘pray where you are’, ie pray at home. Eventually, travel restrictions were placed to enter/exit the country and the ‘Work from Home’ rule was implemented.

Starting 26th of March, the National Disinfection Programme started, in order to sanitize all streets of the city, meaning everyone had to stay indoors and only leave if they had a permit with a valid reason. 

For us at home, this whole pandemic and the lockdown that came with it brought about lots of new changes. For the first time, Azmu, you had a go at ‘distance learning’ for the rest of the academic year, which meant your teacher would email weekly teaching plans for you to study at home. You and I both would complete the set tasks, and send pictures of your work back to your teacher by email. You didn’t have any video conferencing classes, but you did try it out just to see your teacher and friends. Daddy worked from home for a few weeks, and definitely had video conference meetings, with us in the background. Having daddy around 24/7 was great fun and a lot of help for mummy. 

At first, we weren’t under complete restriction to move, so during the evenings, after dinner we would go out for a walk around our local neighbourhood, but after the restriction came about that activity changed into another one. One where daddy made Karak Indian tea and we would enjoy it on the balcony. Leaving home for essential work meant wearing a face mask, disposable gloves and entering the lift by touching the lift buttons using our elbows. Once inside, we’d use the disposable toothpicks to press the buttons and dispose of in the dustbin provided.

Even though we couldn’t dine out, we ordered in takeaway and continued to enjoy our favourite restaurant meals every weekend. For the rest of the week, we ordered groceries to be delivered at home from large supermarkets and our local one too. We stocked most of the cardboard boxes from our grocery shopping for crafts. We made so SO many crafts and mummy had to throw some out too because the collection was getting out of hand. With no trips to the barbers, mummy even had a go at trimming daddy’s beard.

We watched YouTube videos to do physical exercises and kids yoga. We made videos on Tiktok, an app where you lip sync, dance and/or act to music videos. We baked cakes and bagels. The two of you splashed in the mini bath tub in the mornings, and painted in the balcony in the afternoons. We played lots of games in the living room; making a tent, made a hopscotch out of tape on the floor, playing the floor is lava, treasure hunts, sticking yarn across the corridor and trying to get through while pretending it’s laser, etc etc. We watched a lot of Netflix movies and cartoons. We also video called your grandparents a lot, comparing how they were spending their lock down days. 

We’ve always washed hands and kept everything hygienic and clean, but now we were finding ourselves washing hands even more. There were some shops experiencing shortage in stocks for hand sanitizers. Luckily, in Dubai, the shops were always stocked up well for all products , including toilet rolls. I mention this because believe it or not, in some countries people were panic buying and stocking up on toilet rolls. I hope some of the memes about the toilet rolls are still present for you to watch and laugh at!

However, not all was always light hearted. The news were filled with grim news about positive cases of Covid19 rising exponentially on a daily basis and also the number of deaths. A million people had been affected within 100 days of the first corona virus investigation, and thousands dead. The virus has affected everyone, from middle class white collar workers to the Prime minister and movie stars, from the aged to the very young, from those with chronic diseases to even the healthy ones. Reading about family members unable to bury their loved ones upon their death because they have to be in isolation, and temporary mass burials for the unidentifiable bodies has been heart breaking. 

I’m not sure what the future holds, but as of now the pharmaceuticals are researching on vaccines and/or medications that can help get this Covid19 pandemic under control. But one thing is certain. It’s that the heroes and the front line soldiers in this pandemic are the hard working health workers- the doctors, the nurses, the physiotherapists, the pharmacist and all those who are so bravely going to work everyday, just so that we can have a fighting chance to live. During this pandemic, around the world, people have come out in their balconies and front gardens , and clapped at set times to honour the courageous work being done by these key workers. We as a family have also clapped, whistled and banged on metal plates in our balcony , at 8 pm to thank the healthcare workers around the world and especially in the UAE. 

There’s still so much more I could go on to say. About how the earth is healing, the air clearing up and videos of animals walking about freely in cities. About how it’s tough, to stay indoors indefinitely, to stay positive, to stay motivated. About how people are connecting across social media, about the kind charitable acts we read on the news, about the creativity and talent we are seeing despite being locked down. But most of all I want to tell you about the shared collective ideology of making the most of this time we have right now, at home with our family. And so, dear kids, when you read this in the future, know that even through social distancing and home isolation, we made the best use of this time. We were healthy. We had fun. We were together.

Love,

Mummy & Papa

Did you enjoy reading that?

If you enjoyed reading this letter, you may also enjoy reading about these moments from our lives:

Letter to Azmu on her 2nd birthday, 3rd birthday and her 4th birthday

Azu’s Birth story– from NICU to home

Follow my motherhood journey and all the daily craziness we get up to on my Instagram page and Facebook page.