Thoughts on COVID: a look behind the scenes

Aéroport Mohammed V de Casablanca: The last flight to North America before the Moroccon borders stop allowing planes and boats to and from over 25 different countries. This line-up consists of travellers far from home and eager to get home to their families.

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.