On Monday, February 10, this year, my six-year-old son, Nadom, accompanied me to the Kotoka International Airport to say goodbye to his mother, Angela, who was travelling to Italy to attend a month’s follow-up course in Vicenza.
We prayed at home before leaving for the airport. At the airport, we hugged, took photos and waved as Angela entered the departure hall.
As we stood in front of the departure hall, the least and remotest thing on anyone’s mind at that time was the coronavirus that had broken out in China. Most people, including us, had heard about the virus but it was the usual “a certain disease has broken out in China” refrain. Little did we know that just within a month, the virus would become a virulent pandemic named, COVID-19, that would touch everybody and everything in the world.
Before Angie’s departure, we had our individual wish list: Nhyira, our 10-year-old son, wanted all the fine clothes in Italy plus an iPad. Nadom’s wish list was a mere repetition of Nhyira’s, but with the slight modification that “Mama, bring me some pizza and ice cream from Italy”. I wanted her to visit tourist sites in Vicenza on weekends. “Visit the Palladian Basilica and the Palazzo Chiericati, elegant and imposing buildings designed by the 16th century architect, Andrea Palladio,” I told her. And her personal wish list was to make the maximum use of the course she was attending to get the best of it.
Her first week in Italy almost passed uneventfully, but because February 14 was her birthday, we called her and composed our own “Happy Birthday” song. So it added some excitement and shine to the otherwise uneventful week.
She spent her second week with my younger brother, Kofi, and my younger sister, Maame Serwaa and her family, who live in Italy. It was that moment that news of the coronavirus ravaging parts of Italy started seeping in. She called and informed me. She was alarmed, naturally. I was as well but I assured her to be optimistic.
The following Monday, the school/course authorities were concerned so they started speeding things up. After all, they couldn’t toy with the lives of 34 police personnel from 22 countries.
The course facilitators taught the participants how to observe basic protocols to avoid contracting the virus and advised them to stay indoors after each day’s session. News of the virus gradually spreading in Italy was now commonplace.
Every evening, in a video call, assuring Angela to stay strong and hopeful became part of my daily chores in addition to taking care of our two boys. She was, admittedly, scared but she made sure her kids wouldn’t see or sense her fears in the videos. As for the kids, they kept reminding her of their wish lists. She assured and reassured them.
As I drove the children to school each morning, we listened to the BBC on the car radio. China and Italy had by then become the poster boys of the pandemic. The children would ask me if their mum was safe in Italy, why wouldn’t she end the course and return, was she in a safer place, or her part of Italy didn’t experience the disease, would she still get them their iPad, clothes, shoes, ice cream and pizza despite COVID-19? I kept assuring them that all their concerns were legitimate and that God had heard them. Assurance was the least I could give my precious little ones. After all, it was the only thing under my control, all others were beyond.
The days kept crawling as they usually do when one really wants them to gallop like a horse.
The course eventually came to an end earlier than originally planned.
Since Ghana hadn’t come out with any official policy on isolation, quarantine, social distancing and a partial lockdown by then, I sought the views of two doctors on where my wife would lodge on her arrival. Based on their suggestions, I booked a place for her to stay on her arrival. So when she arrived on March 9, 2020, a taxi took her straight to the place I had arranged for her.
Three days later, I went to see/welcome her. We were glad to see each other. But I remained in the car with glasses rolled up. We spoke on phone though she stood just by. I remembered Patoranking and Sarkodie’s song “No kissing Me, No Touching Me,” as the scene being played out was the exact opposite of what had taken place a month earlier at the Kotoka International Airport when she was about leaving for Europe.
My wife had been to Italy and France, both had by then experienced COVID-19. So both she and I wanted to be sure that she was safe before returning home. At that time, the two of us didn’t care so much about our own lives as we did about our children. I fell on the two doctors again. They advised that she should go for a check-up. She did on two occasions. “Madam, since you are not experiencing any of the symptoms now, you can go home,” the hospital told her.
At least, if for nothing at all, we were confident now that she had a clean bill of health as far as COVID-19 was concerned. I informed my two friends, Colonel Dr Simpson and Dr Eugene Dordoye, that my wife was finally returning home after 12 days in “self-imposed exile”. The two noble gentlemen would from time to time, inquire of how “Madam is doing”. Two true doctors of doctors, I call them.
A few days after Angela had returned home with all her sons’ goodies except the pizza and ice cream, I left for Sunyani, where I stay and practise law. Days later, a partial lockdown was declared in Accra and Kumasi, Ghana’s two biggest and busiest cities. So for three weeks, I was locked up in “unlocked” down Sunyani since I can’t pass through locked down Kumasi to locked down Accra.
I planned, played, prayed, worked, walked, waited, and above all, stayed home, as much as possible.
Well, until the lockdown is over or COVID-19 loosens its grip on us, I take inspiration in/from Capt. Tom Moore’s saying: “The sun will shine on you again, And the clouds will go away.”
Capt. Moore, a 100-year-old British war veteran, set out to raise a thousand pounds to help frontline workers in the fight against COVID -19. He raised millions of pounds. That’s the spirit! Dum Spiro spero, meaning, “while I breathe, I hope.”
The writer, Sylvanus Nana Kumi is a trained journalist and lawyer. He practises law at “Enso Nyame Ye” Chambers, Sunyani.
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