Today we walked clockwise round the exercise yard.
The brave soul who was first out through the door broke with convention and turned left rather than right. Eighty-two paces; sixty circuits. But now with a completely new outlook on life.
We saw a new side of Auckland – parts of the city we hadn’t previously been aware of. New buildings; three more cranes; the University of Otago (what are they doing in Auckland anyway?).
It was strange, but even after four days it felt strange, unnatural to be going this way round the circuit.
Perhaps we all need something like this to shake us up a bit, to break us out of our ruts, to help us see the world differently.
A complete circuit is 82 paces (87 for Lois). Each circuit takes about 40 seconds. Sixty circuits in each 40-minute exercise session. Four thousand, nine hundred and twenty paces. Anti-clockwise.
The outside decking area beside the pool and gym (both of which are out-of-bounds) has been made available for the inmates to exercise on (‘Walking Only, No Vigorous Exercise’) supervised by a member of the New Zealand armed forces – presumably making sure we don’t escape or break any of the social-distancing rules.
We are allowed to book into one 40-minute exercise slot per day and have to get in early to book for the next day as they quickly fill up.
There is another, smaller exercise yard in what was the main entrance to the hotel. You don’t need to pre-book that one, just turn up and take your chances. But given that it is only about 20 paces around, with no plants or view of the sky, it is less popular anyway.
We have got into a pattern of a 40-minute slot on the pool deck each morning before breakfast. Round and round. Anti-clockwise. Eighty-two paces. Sixty circuits. And then a short spell in the entrance lobby after supper.
Today, being Advent Sunday, Lois and I decided to break our not-so-long-established routine and mark it by joining a virtual day retreat from Los Olivos in Spain.
The day itself was grey and wet (at least until mid-afternoon) and being trapped in our quarantine room there was little to distract us from our quiet contemplation.
At least that was the case up until about 11am when the peace was broken by Santa Claus floating down the Mayoral Drive right outside our hotel, to the sound of brass band playing Jingle Bells (slightly incongruous in the warm summer rain) and followed by a giant inflatable Peppa Pig, Thomas the Tank Engine, dancers, elves, bag-pipes and the entire ensemble of the Auckland Christmas parade.
Still, apart from that interruption (and another to go down and have our day 3 Covid swabs), the day was peaceful and inspiring. Daniel Muñoz, the retreat guide, led us through reflections on images of Christ (Imago Christi) as portrayed in historical and contemporary art.
I reflected on how so many of the historical images of Jesus portray him as a handsome, fair-haired westerner, and have created an image which I now find unhelpful and misleading. On the one hand portraying a non-threatening, impotent focus of adoration; separate, somewhat ethereal, content to receive our worship without changing anything. And on the other hand, a figure head for white supremacy – the God in human form – white, male, self-assured.
What a far cry from the Jesus I see portrayed in the gospels.
So here, drawing on more contemporary portrayals of Jesus, are some of the images I reflected on today and which have made me stop and think about who Jesus really is:
A multi-cultural Jesus – meeting people where they are, as they are. Ordinary, human, earthy.
Jesus the pain-bearer – getting alongside those who are suffering; suffering with them. And somehow, through that, transforming our pain.
Jesus Christ the subversive revolutionary – challenging the powers and structures of our world; confronting injustice, oppression, violence and greed.
Jesus the liberator, the life-giver – loving life; laughing, loving, living; setting people free; leading us on to God’s new creation.
I have decided that the way to get through these two weeks
in quarantine is to be disciplined.
Being confined to our hotel room for two weeks it would be
all too easy to become languid and while away the days through sleeping,
eating, drinking, reading and watching mindless TV. But no, that is not in my
(or Lois’) nature, so a clear routine is called for, along with a defined set
of achievable (but stretching) tasks.
So far, allowing for a minor jet-lag effect, we are on track.
The plan:
Get up early and listen to the (world/UK) news
with a cup of tea
Spend some time in prayer and contemplation
A 40-minute slot walking round the pool-deck exercise
yard
Breakfast
Spend the morning on academic pursuits
Mid-morning excursion to the lobby to indulge in
a barista coffee (brought back to our room for consumption though)
Continue my academic work
Lunch
Cup of tea and a siesta, preceded by jointly
reading a chapter of To the Land of Long Lost Friends (Alexander McCall
Smith’s latest Mma Ramotswe novel)
Some more gentle academic reading in the
afternoon
Mid-afternoon cup of tea and a puzzle or two
Write and publish the day’s blog
Watch the evening (New Zealand) news with a
pre-prandial glass of wine
Supper and a glass of wine
Short excursion to the ground-floor exercise
yard
Relaxing evening playing a game of Ticket to
Ride/Bananagrams or watching a Brit-Box or i-Player film/documentary/comedy (with
another glass of wine for good measure)
To bed and fall asleep reading the latest
chapter of my novel (currently The Plague by Albert Camus – very topical!)
We’ll see how it goes – watch this space!
(PS hopefully Lois’ expectation isn’t too much at odds with this!)
I realised, after posting yesterday’s blog, that I’d got it
wrong, and we were actually still on day zero. The New Zealand quarantine
regulations stipulate that those entering the country must spend a minimum of
336 hours in managed isolation – which might conjure up an image of all those
troops of corona viruses carefully synchronising their watches before setting
out to invade an unsuspecting traveller: 336 hours; 20,160 minutes; 1,209,600
seconds.
With that in mind, the earliest we will be allowed to leave
this hotel will be 12.20pm on Thursday 10th December, exactly 336
hours after our flight – EK448 – touched down at Auckland international
airport.
The flight itself had been remarkably comfortable, even if
rather long. New Zealand is a long way from the UK, so it always takes a long
time. And this time it seemed longer than usual, given an 8-hour stop over in
Dubai and a further brief stopover in Kuala Lumpur. Checking in at Birmingham
airport was a strange experience – never have I seen the airport so empty, and
once checked in, we whisked through security to wait for our flight.
The first two legs had been daytime flights, and I took the opportunity to read, in its entirety, a book on safeguarding in the Church of England for my PhD. That, and two inspiring but challenging films: Harriet – the true story of Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who went on to rescue dozens of slaves, leading them to freedom along the underground railroad in 19th century USA; and Ken Loach’s latest film – Sorry We Missed You – a harrowing story of a family struggling with the gig economy. The reality of life for so many families living on the edge, and now made worse by the pandemic and lockdown, is something that is hard to face.
Once again, I have been left with that unanswerable question – why am I so privileged while others have to live with such inequity?
The last stretch of our journey was a night flight, and I lowered the tone somewhat by watching Charlie’s Angels, for a bit of mindless escapism. With a nearly empty plane, Lois and I were both able to stretch out on two separate rows of seats for as good a sleep as one can possibly expect on a flight. This pandemic may not be good for the airline industry, but it does make for more comfortable flying.
So here we are, properly completing day one of our quarantine. Refreshed by a good night’s sleep. Engaged by a day of reading, writing and a little bit of arithmetic thrown in. 28 hours down. Only another 308 to go. 😊
So, after 39 hours’ travelling, we have arrived in New Zealand
and are lodged in the hotel room that will be our sole living space for the
next two weeks.
Getting here in these times of Covid has not been
straightforward. Having avoided the worst of the pandemic, New Zealand Aotearoa
is keen to stay that way, so is only allowing New Zealand citizens into the
country – and, fortunately for me, their spouses. To board a flight you are
required to have a managed isolation certificate from the NZ government
specifying the date of arrival and flight number.
We set our dates, booked our quarantine and our flights –
with Lufthansa, via Zurich and Hong Kong. Within 24 hours they’d cancelled the
flight to Zurich, and with no alternative we had to rebook – this time with
British Airways/Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong. Two weeks before we were due to
travel, they, too, cancelled the first leg of the flight. So, after a bit more
scrabbling around we found new flights with Emirates, via Dubai. The only
problem being that our managed isolation certificate still showed the old
Cathay Pacific flight number.
And there was a glitch in the system. New Zealand
immigration told us they couldn’t change the flight number and that we just had
to persuade the airline to let us on board and all would be well once we
arrived on Kiwi soil. Emirates, meanwhile, were adamant they wouldn’t let us
board without the correct flight number on the certificate.
Less than 24 hours before we were due to leave, the NZ
authorities fixed the glitch and we got our updated certificate. So, armed with
that, our passports and marriage certificate (which proved essential for
proving my legitimacy to enter the country), we finally boarded our flight.
And here we are – tired, isolated, and very pleased to be here.
I realise I have been very quiet throughout this pandemic. Partly that has been deliberate – not wanting to add my noise to all the many wise, witty, woeful and other opinions on Covid-19 and its impact. Partly it has been because I, too, have been trying to make some sense of it all. And partly it is just that I haven’t felt motivated to do so.
Anyway, today I wrote a letter to my MP, about some of the things that have been stirring in me as I look ahead to coming out of lockdown.
What do you think? Are these things we should be pushing for, and if so, how can we do so more effectively? I’d really like to hear others’ views.
…
Taiwo Owatemi, MP
House of Commons
Westminster
…
23 April 2020
Dear Taiwo
I hope you are keeping well and safe, and coping OK with all
the new ways of working and additional demands placed on you by the pandemic
and lockdown. Thank you for all you are doing locally to support our
communities during this vulnerable time.
I have been impressed by the support that has been shown to
our NHS workers and other essential workers during this time, and by the strong
sense of community and caring for our neighbours that has emerged. At the same
time, it seems to me that the pandemic has brought to the fore many of the inequalities
in our society, and the failures of our current economic and political models
to address these.
It is striking that, in response to the pandemic, the
government has mobilised resources, invested in our public services, and taken
on board policies that the Labour Party, the Green Party and others have been
advocating for years.
As we look ahead to a time beyond the constraints of the
lockdown, I am concerned that our government will focus solely on trying once
again to boost our economy, falling back to old policies and ignoring the
failures in these highlighted by the pandemic. We rely, therefore, on you and
your fellow opposition MPs to hold the government to account and to push for
better policies that will benefit all. I feel strongly that we need to be
calling for these now, at an early stage before too many decisions are fixed. I
would particularly encourage you to push for a change in policy in five areas:
That the government continues to invest strongly
in the NHS and our other public services. As a paediatrician, I have seen
first-hand, the damaging effects of years of austerity on our NHS. I have been
deeply concerned at the way nurses, social workers, teachers and other public
service workers have been devalued. It is all very well for the government to
encourage people to clap for our nurses, and to give badges to our social
workers, but this will only have any meaning if it is backed up by meaningful
pay-rises that persist after the immediate situation, and a sustained
investment in services to turn around the impact of high case-loads and
stressful working conditions. And this needs to extend to all essential public
service workers: we need to move away from the denigrating terminology of ‘the unskilled
workforce’ and show that we value all those who keep our country going, not
just during a crisis, but on an ongoing day-to-day basis.
That the government radically steps up its
commitment to and investment in protecting our environment. In particular, that
it should take this opportunity to adopt a green new deal. One of the
unexpected benefits of the lockdown around the world has been an improvement in
our environment, with cleaner air in cities, massive reductions in carbon
outputs, and a recovery of some of our damaged biodiversity. It has shown what
could be possible if we took the climate emergency as seriously as the Covid-19
emergency. Rather than reinvesting in environmentally-harmful big infrastructure
projects such as a third Heathrow runway and HS2, in fossil fuels and
industries that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels, we need our government
to be investing in new green technologies and green jobs. The Conservatives
were deeply inadequate in their commitments to the environment in their
election manifesto; we need to call them out on this and to get them to commit
to the kind of initiatives and the levels of investment that the Labour Party
and others were calling for. In particular, having shown that it is possible, we
should be pushing the government to commit to a net zero-carbon economy by 2030,
not 2050.
That the government invests in and supports
local businesses and small-scale enterprises. Following the 2008 financial
crash, the government bailed out the banks, which were the cause of the
problem, not those who had suffered as a result of it. Since then, the
Conservative government has continued to give tax breaks to big multi-national
corporations and to favour the wealthy. There are big companies and wealthy billionaires
already calling for bail-outs and providing persuasive arguments as to why they
need those. Unlike many smaller family-run businesses, these companies have the
financial resilience to weather this storm. Sadly, though, and again unlike
smaller businesses, it is the big companies and the wealthy who have the power
to influence government. As we come through this crisis, we need our government
to give ongoing and meaningful support to those who most need it. That is the
only way we will see a sustained and worthwhile improvement in our society.
That the government seriously considers
introducing a universal basic income. In spite of the government’s rhetoric, we
have not all been in this crisis together, nor have we all been equally
affected. It is the unemployed, those with unstable income, workers in the gig
economy, single parents and other marginal groups who have been most affected,
who don’t have the privilege of working from home, and who have not had the
financial resilience to cope with several weeks or months of lockdown. It was
clear, well before the Covid pandemic, that our benefits system is broken. This
has been made even more obvious by the impact of the lockdown. We need to
ensure that all in our country have the means of sustaining the essentials of
life, including housing, food, heating and clothing, whatever individual or
societal circumstances they may face, whether that is flooding, illness,
disability or a loss of employment.
That the government commits to a sustained and
increased level of support for overseas aid and development. Given the impact
of this pandemic on our economy, I am sure there will be calls to protect our
own and to leave other countries to deal with their problems. This would be a
disaster. Whether or not the virus takes a strong hold in the low-income
countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and South America, these countries will
suffer far more than the wealthy West as a result of the global economic
downturn. And it will be the poor in these countries who suffer most. The
pandemic has demonstrated that we are a global community, and we can not afford
to ignore the needs of our neighbours who do not have the same privileges we
enjoy. There have been some in the Conservative Party who have called for a
reduction in the 0.7% of GDP which goes to overseas aid and development. This
cannot be allowed to happen. If anything, we should be increasing the proportion
of our wealth which goes towards supporting those less well off than ourselves.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you will
be able to pick up on these points and find ways to raise them with the government.
