Metro Manila Community Quarantine - Day 511
We have been under one form of quarantine or another for exactly 73 weeks now. Dang. That's a long time. And now we're back under "Enhanced Community Quarantine" here in Metro Manila. So that's really not fun.
Over the course of quarantine, I've seen a lot of restaurants and other establishments in the area close down, and feels like a seriously bothersome indicator of the state of things. And while we mostly prepare our own meals, we have invested a fair amount into supporting restaurants we really like, such as Sariwon. This has resulted in essentially weekly orders just to feel like we're doing something to help them stick around.
We do have a history of feeling like we were responsible for the death of other restaurants that we once loved but stopped patronizing even before the quarantine. More on that in a future blog post, maybe.
This morning one of our long-time masseurs contacted us to ask for help. His dad is in the hospital apparently, and the only description he could share is that "may butas puso niya". We haven't seen him since before the lockdown since he returned to his province as shit started to go down. But over the months of quarantine, we have been sending him money here and there to try to help him out because he has been a pretty decent guy.
We can't help everyone. But we can help someone.
And he's not alone. We've had more than our share of friends and contacts that we've ended up needing to extend help towards. Most of them have either lost their jobs or have lost the circumstances that would allow them to work. Entertainment spaces remain closed. In-person business is limited. The list of affected industries and individuals goes on and on and on.
We're lucky that we're generally okay. We're lucky that to some degree the lockdowns are mostly inconvenient but we're still able to function. We're lucky that we're actually in a position to help others, even in our small way. It's not everything, but it's something.
But for how much longer can this go on?
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