The Cursed Season

I don't really know how to write about the lockdown without it becoming an account of my so-called first-world problems, but a few people have asked for my perspective, so I shall begin where the most boring stories start: at the beginning.

Before we'd even confirmed the details of this trip, I knew something insane was coming. For the most part, I kept the news of our adventure secret, fearing that the big something I was anticipating was that it would all fall through and we'd look foolish. Even once it was confirmed, I spent every day overriding a consuming anxiety in my gut with all the positive outcomes this journey could offer, but when I packed, I packed for the apocalypse. I brought books I've wanted to finish, pots of ink I wanted to practice drawing with, sentimental pieces of jewellery that I never wear. I asked myself over and over again “what would I want to have with me if I wasn't coming back?”

We arrived in Goa during a downpour. Being the end of October, the monsoon should have long since passed, but we didn't know there was a cyclone coming. Our second week in Goa was absolute chaos. The ocean swallowed the entire beach with its roiling waves, deep-belly rumblings of thunder providing the soundtrack to the destruction. Uprooted palms took out telephone lines, cars, houses. It was an apocalyptic start to our trip for sure. Of course Goa set back to rebuilding as quickly as possible. October is still early, so there was time to recover – many more tourists yet to come and spend their rupees. What we call “the season” normally runs from October until April, May is too hot for most, and from June onwards is consistent and heavy rain. There were considerably less visitors than in previous years – the closure of a certain bankrupted flight operator left hundreds of regular season-pass holders stranded to face their northern winters. So we found ourselves milling around the yoga complex, sometimes with company, sometimes without.

Palolem Beach, December 2019

Palolem Beach, May 2020

Patnem Beach, May 2020

The news is seldom of interest to me, so I can't pinpoint when the coronavirus entered my consciousness exactly, but I do remember discussing it around the breakfast table in the yoga village, probably some time in December. We had moved out of the village to make space for paying guests, but took advantage of our free meals and laundry facilities there. Obviously you meet a lot of travellers in tourist hotspots like this, so we started to hear a little more about it more often. In January, a girl cut her trip short after news that her father in Hong Kong had become ill. She was under instruction to return with as many masks as possible. By February, an American expat living in China extended his stay by 3 weeks after hearing about the Wuhan lockdown, thinking he would give the dust time to settle before heading home. Typically, February would fall under “high season” and it certainly was busier – in the bars and hostels, on the beaches and definitely in the yoga schools. There was a conspicuous absence of people with Chinese features at this point, and those who share similar facial characteristics were subject to nasty comments or worse: a friend of mine from an Eastern border state with high, wide cheekbones and beautiful oriental eyes was shoved to the ground at a party after defending herself (and all Asians) angrily from accusations that she was bringing the “Chinese disease” to Goa.

And then it was March. Coronavirus was the only news. We ordered appropriate masks online, anticipating navigating crowded airports for our upcoming flight to Thailand. Goa was one of the first places to restrict travel so nobody came in to replace those who left and we saw the streets get emptier and emptier. Overnight, a class of trainee yoga teachers halved as they were booked onto emergency flights back to Germany. By mid-March, there was no point in showing up because there was no-one to teach – that's when it started to feel real, but we continued visiting the yoga village most days for food and news. To draw awareness to the seriousness of what was turning out to be a major global pandemic, the Indian PM set a date for the Janta curfew. On March 22nd, all of India would be requested to remain indoors between 7am and 9pm. Since that meant we would have to feed ourselves for a day, we decided to drive into town to get some “proper food” as the little kiosks around our village are stocked mostly with instant snacks and travel-size toiletries, nothing fresh and not much wholesome. The supermarket was at capacity and completely depleted of fresh fruit and vegetables. It seems the locals knew something we did not, because at the end of our eerily quiet Janta Sunday, the PM announced that the curfew would extended for another 48 hours. No businesses may open, no people may leave their homes. At this point I looked dejectedly at our 5-litre water bottle which was already half-gone and the bag of “emergency lentils” we'd managed to get from the supermarket. The 14-hour curfew had become three days with no warning, no chance to prepare. The community group on facebook was more active than ever – people had arrived from other parts of the country with nowhere to stay, people had flights that they couldn't get to or had been cancelled at short notice. When the PM made his 3rd announcement, that we were now in a 21-day full lockdown, the group went mad. Expats who have made their permanent homes here had gone on visa runs they couldn't return from. There were people like us, whose visas would soon be expiring and whose onward flights had been cancelled. No word from the government came about how we should survive, which shops could open, which hours we could visit them, so Dwayne took a chance and went to visit our local store, which had a queue outside for the first time ever. All he could get was some water and a few packets of noodles, but it was enough.

One of the busiest shopping streets, all shut down.

We heard reports from town that people out on the streets were getting chased down by police wielding lathis – bamboo canes made for administering physical encouragement to miscreants. Scooter-riding was prohibited, any essential journey you were making apparently was to be made on foot – perhaps to make it easier for the police to catch you and find out why you were outside. Finally the government issued some instructions about which shops may open at which hours and tried to organise food deliveries, but panic had addled peoples brains and many complained that they hadn't had any access to provisions, although I suspect this is more to do with personal ineptitude than actual shortages. I couldn't believe the stories I was hearing from people not even 2 streets away from us: hostile locals, aggressive police, nothing to eat or drink. What a different inner world they must have to be projecting such misery on themselves, I thought, or maybe we were just lucky. Our neighbours kept the same polite distance they always have, but sent granny up occasionally to hammer on our door and present a curried offering, Dwayne had yet to encounter any police and although the food we had was basic, we were in no danger of starving.

At this point, I should maybe shed some light on our living situation: our apartment when we moved in was furnished but not equipped, so while we have the luxury of a king-size bed and a brand new whirlpool fridge, we also have to make do with tote bags as pillow cases and one frying pan on a 2-ring gas cooker. We “forgot” to return some of the plates that the offerings from downstairs came on so we can eat like civilised people. I wake up early to wash the sheet in our laundry bucket so we can put it back on the bed in time. The only other inconvenience is a lack of WiFi and cell signal that it is only accessible at certain windows in the house.

Front Verandah View

We had been munching on yellow dal fry (spiced lentils, basically) for about a week when Dwayne heard about an unofficial store on the street behind our palm grove – essentially piles of stock that had been offloaded in an empty apartment when the order was issued for businesses to close and had been operating under the radar ever since. What a rich bounty of contraband it offered too – tobacco, beer, chocolate and to my delight, instant cappuccino sachets – at a premium of course. What we really wanted though, was fresh produce. A fruit vendor sent out the message that he would be stationed at a particular location but by the time Dwayne arrived, he was down to his last few shrivelled onions and a hopelessly oozing bag of blackened bananas, which he gave for free as a sort of consolation prize. In the spirit of India, we passed that sacred offering on to the cows.

The day of our intended departure to Thailand came and went, as did the expiry date of our visa. We had applied painstakingly for an extension, which was granted only until the end of April. A second attempt at extension was denied without justification. People's flights were cancelled, or were rescheduled so rapidly that some people woke up to the news that a bus would be arriving to take them to the airport in a matter of hours. News from around the country detailed the pandemonium of vendors' carts of fresh fruit being tipped over in the street, deemed illegal by power-hungry police. Lathis were being used indiscriminately on Indian natives who failed to adhere to the rules, along with other obscure punishments (such as performing squats while chanting “I am an enemy of society”) and tourists who felt above the law were made to write lines like errant school children. The saddest were the deaths of migrant workers who had no choice but to attempt to walk hundreds of kilometres home after the suspension of railway operations.

It seemed like the government was encouraging everyone to return home, even the ancient couple downstairs must have gone to join their family elsewhere. We were alone in our apartment, at the dead end of a crumbling village road. During this time, we seriously considered repatriation, but anticipation of what South Africa could be heading for made us hesitate. The food situation here had improved considerably and we were able to buy fresh supplies regularly from the little stores hidden around the neighbourhood; some kitchens were open for sneaky takeaways. When we saw the price of R75 000 per ticket for a 40+ hour journey that would inevitably end up cancelled, there was no longer a decision to make and as predicted, when the 21 day lockdown ended, we launched straight into what they called Lockdown 2.0, another 21 days which would reap panic as those who had patiently waited for things to return to normal realised that normal would not be returning any time soon. In this time we had to apply for another immigration document – an exit permit granting us two penalty-free weeks after the proposed end of lockdown (May 3rd) to get out. Since one of the conditions of the lockdown was that only one member per household should be allowed out a time, Dwayne had been the only one to leave the house. In 42 days, I had been out of the house a sum total of 2 times, not counting my forays onto the roof for the occasional yoga practices. Walking through the deserted streets of a tourist town was unsettling, a feeling intensified by the half-obscured faces of anyone who found themselves with reason to be in public. Mud-brown and sagging surgical masks and restyled saris are the local population's response to viral threat.

Patnem Beach, May 2020

10 days ago, having been declared a green-zone and completely devoid of Covid19, Goa entered Lockdown 3.0 with much more lenient rules than other parts of India were facing. We are now allowed to roam the streets and beaches freely, although the remaining unlicensed restaurants still hide behind stacked up walls of sunbeds should marauding policemen happen to glance in their direction. In the late afternoons when sweaty, brooding clouds start gather in the hills we ride borrowed bicycles alongside a near-deserted stretch of highway to buy what we need for the next few days. It's exhilarating and I feel like my heart is learning how to beat again. With our February/March earnings seemingly quarantined indefinitely, our budget is long exhausted, so we continue to live modestly from savings that I gained access to only after weeks of tedious attempts at communication with my notoriously unsympathetic South African bank. When the idea of another biryani or dal fry or egg-fried bread is demoralising, we indulge in an illegal take-out from a familiar place that we frequented in what I think of now as “the before-times.”

We are expected to fill in the same visa form for a fourth time, which will permit us 30 days after the restrictions on air-travel are lifted, but the combination of server overload and intermittent 2G internet conspire against us and after 5 mind-bendingly frustrating attempts I have been unable to submit anything to the Immigration Office. Since the news this morning announced 7 confirmed cases arrived along with the softer border restrictions, I can't imagine that our relaxed rules will continue much longer, nor do I think I need to act with urgency regarding our visa forms as no-one seems to be going anywhere anytime soon. It seems like my long-standing wish to witness the summer monsoon will be fulfilled after all and we will be left with no choice but to continue doing what we've done so far: reading, sleeping, stretching, learning, watching, wondering and waiting.

The Way Home, Monsoon Coming Soon