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Thoughts on COVID: a look behind the scenes
I’m not a political scientist, epidemiologist, infectious disease specialist, or a person even remotely qualified to answer questions about COVID-19. But I’d be lying if I said that my life hasn’t been somewhat affected by this global pandemic.
On March 5th, my husband and I took a plane from Toronto to Montreal, then Montreal to Casablanca to celebrate our honeymoon. Little did we know but we were coming home to a country scrambling to respond to a global pandemic.
When we left, there were very few reported COVID cases in both Canada and Morocco.
So we assumed we were coming home to business as usual. At first, the impact was harmless.
Every train, plane, and hotel was heavily discounted, and everything that is often swarming with tourists was a little too quiet. The only locals that seemed concerned were the merchants working at souks and people with jobs in the hospitality industry.
Morocco is a country that’s heavily influenced by its history of being both a French and Spanish colony, along with its proud Muslim majority.
This meant that every local I spoke to had a family-first and faith in things “working themselves out somehow” way of seeing the world.
While our friends and family were panicking about what this all means, we were temporarily sheltered by the Moroccan weather, culture, and unconditional kindness of everyone we met.
While the market crashed, sporting events were cancelled, and beloved public figures got COVID-19, none of the things I was hearing about seemed real.
Instead, I dismissed the entire thing as vastly sensationalized and exaggerated by the media and random people on social media.
Then, two days before the scheduled flight home, the Canadian embassy tweeted about the Kingdom of Morocco’s choice to cancel flights and boats going to and from Canada. This included 25 other countries. That night, my husband and I stayed up late frantically searching for updates. Then we contacted Morocco’s Canadian ambassador.
