Coronavirus Stories - Reaching Out From Isolation

Edited BY G P Kennedy  For this week most of our storytellers will be casting their minds forward to late-August 2021. The idea is to give us all a little relief and release from the relentlessness of the Coronavirus Pandemic. In so doing we will venture into the minds of our storytellers as they share their hopes, dreams and aspirations. Perhaps you will be inspired to look beyond the confines of the pandemic... Gul - Istanbul, Turkey  This time next year, I’ll be working on a summer art project plus I’ll be putting the finishing touches to my autumn program Food at Cunda Island . I wish it were true! My freelance projects were cancelled one by one by last year due to economic recession. As if this was not enough, COVID-19 came over. So this - my early retirement status - was not my choice.  So, ins tead of working, I’ll be on holiday in this coast again and that time I’ll be with my friend from the UK. Forgive me if I appear as a travel agency or a travel blogger. I tol...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Ellie - Milan, Italy  Last year this time, I was in a long awaited bright clearing in my path. I wish I were in that spot again.     Standing between menacing rocks is not easy at all. I wish I could have the strength I had last year to keep them apart. I also wish I were on vacation in the Dolomites right now.    I was really looking forward to participating in a great artist residency this summer. Alas, it has to wait for some other time.  But the world will be so different.    I was also so much looking forward to an important and long awaited exhibition of mine to open. But alas, it has been postponed.  I really would have liked to be closer to family. I am so grateful to be living with part of them, but have been missing others.  And since flying is out of the question, who knows when this would be possible.  Finally, I was hoping to be in Texas. At some point - or another - this year. But that ...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Tassy - Karachi, Pakistan   It has been 160 days since the first confirmed cases were detected in Pakistan at the end of February. Estimates back then suggested a death toll of more than a 100,000 by now. Today however, we stand at around 6000 officially reported deaths on account of COVID-19.  Even though each life lost has been precious, we have been spared the kind of catastrophe seen in many other parts of the world.  The week seems to have gone quite fast. I guess this is partially because we had a 4 day-long weekend. The holidays were on account of Eid ul Adha, a major festival marking the advent of the annual pilgrimage or the Hajj in Saudi Arabia and the sacrificial feast.  A few friends of ours have travelled to the beautiful mountainous Northern areas of Pakistan to escape the heat and humidity of Karachi and I have to admit I was also a little tempted to get out of here.    My parents had a celebratory Eid dinner at the...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Hagia Sofia, Istanbul Gul - Istanbul, Turkey    I love my country but I am embarrassed by and deeply ashamed of its institutions. The worst feeling, I have had for a long time is that; the magnificent and precious Hagia Sophia, the symbol is Istanbul is a victim of today’s dirty politics.  Yesterday, a Turkish court has annulled the museum status of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which enables it to be used as mosque instead of a museum. Built 1,500 years ago as a Christian Byzantium Cathedral, now a UNESCO heritage site; it should’ve remain a museum out of respect for the country’s Christian minority and world history.    Many academics from Friends of Hagia Sophia have written an open letter expressing their concerns: “ Historical and archaeological evidence could be damaged, and works of art concealed. Hagia Sophia is too beautiful a monument and too precious a historical document to serve as a pawn in regional politics. Successive Byzantine,...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Sally - London, UK  This week has really, really gone slowly for me, but the world seems to be moving faster and faster.  Non-essential shops have started to re-open which means the roads and pavements are busier which people taking more risk and not observing the 2-meter (6 feet) rule.  Some of my friends have started to go back to work, which is great for them I guess; hopefully their employers have made it a safe environment.     Football (soccer) has started again, with no fans allowed in the ground, but the risk level hasn’t gone down!!  My colleagues who film the matches say its very surreal to be there when you can actually hear what the players and managers are shouting to each other instead of the deafening cheers are 50,000 fans.    Mané and Salah - two key players for Liverpool FC  Liverpool FC won the Premier League, which is brilliant as the last time they won it was 30 years ago. Unfortunately it broug...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Peace - Lagos, Nigeria  HUMANITY NEEDS A LARGE DOSE OF LOVE  As numbers reached 20,000 and Lagos state having more than 9,000 of the COVID-19 patients the Government this week started enforcing the use of Masks in public spaces and face shields to try to flatten the Curve many people don’t understand that COVID-19 is increasing in our communities as local transmission rates are at 50%.    The Black lives matter BLM around the world continued to make a point of asking Governments to realize that all humans are equal. The world over color, religion and tribe are issues. Tribalism is a big issue in my country Nigeria as well, Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa being the predominant tribes have deep issues amongst themselves.    The world needs a load of love, the whole world is at war with itself, the lockdown brought out a lot of pent up anger triggered by the killing of George Floyd and that seemed to spark the anger that many people had decided it wa...

Edited BY G P Kennedy   Ellie - Milan, Italy 1. Photo by Angelo Amboldi  Just like many other social waves, Italy is now also swept by the protests and debates on racism that started in the United States over the past month. At first, events and public discussions were simply meant to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter. However, very quickly the attention shifted to racism in Italian society itself, which has seen its significant share of violence and injustice. Racism here often is seen through the lens of the refugee crisis and so it can be masked as some other kind of social tension. However, let it not be mistaken: it is racism.     One of the focal points in which this has been manifested is the figure of Indro Montanelli, an influential journalist active between 1930-2000 and the subject of the monument in the photo above, placed in the public park in Milan also named after him. Montanelli volunteered as a conscript for Mussolini's colonizing campaign...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Today we have a feast of photos to support and illustrate our Stories from Tokyo, Japan ands Milan, Italy. It is interesting to see Ian and Minako's experience, from a place where the virus has been well contained, side-by-side with Ellie's perspective from a virus-ravaged Italy as it starts to emerge from its deep lockdown.                                                       Ian & Minako – Tokyo, Japan   We are both very well, sheltering from the rain and trying to stay cool in this muggy season !     The number of daily reported cases for Tokyo has increased slightly as society has opened up more to a 7-day average of 18. A significant proportion of the new cases can be traced to nightlife destinations in Shinjuku. In total, there have been 314 deaths in Tokyo so far.    Nationally there have been ov...