Staying at home, life under lockdown

There are many things we take for granted and do without much thought. One of them is being at home. We grow up in homes and we live in homes. When we became old enough to go to school, we would go back home every day after school. If we were in boarding school, we would go home for the holidays. When we started working, we went back home each day after work.

Yet going home is not an activity one would note in one’s diary or put on the list of “things to do”; unless one plans to “go home” in between the day’s activities, for a specific reason. In that case, the important thing to note would be what one was going to do at home, rather than the act of going home itself.

Going home is linked to “leaving home”. One “returns or goes home” because one would have “left home” at some point. In Luganda, when a visitor is leaving, he or she says Kankomewo (let me come back), implying that in order to be able to “come back”, he or she has to “leave” first.

What is “home”? A home is defined as a living space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for an individual, a family or a household. It is not until going home is taken out of the activities to do and replaced by “staying at home” that one realizes the big gap that comes into one’s daily activities.

The commands: “stay”, “stop” and “don’t move” evoke apprehension of possible danger. One would think that being commanded to stay at home would be welcomed. The reaction, however, is quite different.

Maybe it is because of the apprehension of danger attached to the command, or the realization that one cannot behave as one normally behaves – coming and going as one pleases. There is a feeling of “imprisonment” in spite of being in one’s home.

There is a quote I saw somewhere which says: “The magical thing about home is that it feels good to leave, and even better to come back.” When the “leaving” is denied, then so too the pleasure of “coming back”. That is how punishing home arrest can be. Think about it.

When you are told that you will not be allowed to leave home for 14 days, for example, one wonders how they will survive. The trick is to take it one day at a time, like going for a long walk. If you want to enjoy it, do not think of the end point, but rather, one short milestone at a time. Focus on the objects directly in front of you and when you reach them, pick new ones; and so on and so forth.

In staying at home, the focus should be on what you want to do within the hour; or during the morning hours. When those are done, move on to the next hour in the afternoon, then the evening and finally, at night. Before you know it, the day will be over.

When people stay in close contact for extended periods, they are likely, at a certain point, to start irritating each other. The situation is made worse if the close contact is forced and cannot be avoided. It is even worse if the living space is limited in scope. The issue of space size is very important for harmonious group living.

Just before I retired from the World Health Organization, I attended briefings on how to prepare for retirement. These briefings covered virtually every aspect of retirement including accommodation.

The head of WHO’s mental health division told us that while the tendency is for people to plan for downsized accommodation – moving from a house and into a one or two-bedroomed apartment – he did not recommend such a move. He explained that we were going to be spending about twice as much time with our spouses and the last thing we needed was to be bumping into each other all day. How right he was!

Unfortunately, most people are not privileged with extensive living space and have to make do with whatever they have. Children would be at school during most of the day while many adults would be busy with either formal or informal employment.

When these avenues of leaving “home” or living quarters are denied, and schools and places of work are closed, life can really become hemmed in. When we read about people being put under house arrest, we normally do not regard it as a punishment until we experience it first-hand.

It does not matter how comfortable the home is. The restraint of not being able to leave at will brings about the feeling of being imprisoned. Staying at home turns into a punishment.

I have worked from home for the past twenty years because my office is at home. I had never had any psychological problems with this working arrangement but since the total lockdown, I have felt like a prisoner. Previously, I could leave the office at any time, something that is not possible during the lockdown.

If you Google the word lockdown, it is described as: a prison protocol that usually prevents people, information or cargo from leaving an area. The protocol can usually only be initiated by someone in a position of authority. A lockdown can also be used to protect people inside a facility – or a computing system, for example – from a threat or other external event.

In terms of buildings, a drill lockdown usually means that the doors leading to the outside are locked and no person may enter or exit. A full lockdown usually means that people must stay where they are and may not enter or exit a building – or rooms within said building. If people are in a hallway, they should go to the nearest safely enclosed room.

A total lockdown order implies staying within one’s home perimeter with no visits to or from the neighbours. For urban dwellers, one is lucky if they have reasonable outdoor space to accommodate the number of people in the home – allowing for individual space as desired. For rural dwellers, a total lockdown may not be experienced as drastically.

The Covid-19 pandemic precipitated the first global lockdown in recent memory. Countries were placed in a state of lockdown and stories of increased domestic violence and spousal abuse abounded.

People that lived in the same house for years with apparent mutual tolerance suddenly found themselves constrained together; twenty-four hours a day, day in and day out. It takes strong understanding for tensions not to arise under these circumstances. If relationships were already strained but social distancing kept them going, stay at home directives could have been the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

Young school-age going children shouted with joy on hearing that they would be staying at home. But after a couple of days, they realized that staying at

home was not the best way to spend their days; especially without playing with their friends and doing all the things children do at school, away from the prying eyes of their parents and guardians.

There is talk of schools using the current communication technology to arrange virtual classes. This sounds good and logical, but only up to a point. In many countries, most of the population does not have internet connectivity, let alone electricity and computers. Children in these communities would lose out on the on-line educational arrangements.

The situation may be different with adults constrained to work from home. This may be one of the social changes due to the covid-19 pandemic. Think about it. As leaders grappled with how to handle the pandemic, some came up with laughable suggestions.

For example, before motorcycle taxis were allowed back on the road to carry passengers, they were told that among the standard operating procedures (SOP), they had to wear masks and helmets (fair enough), have sanitizers (important under the circumstances), and believe it or not, keep a written record of the passengers they were carrying – name, residential address, destination and telephone number; in case they needed to be contacted tracing. What a joke! It just went to show how often we are detached from the realities of life.

University students, especially those in the final year, became apprehensive over their examinations. The thought of being denied the right to negotiate the final hurdle after such a long educational journey was extremely hard to take.

When the “stay at home” directive was enforced, it meant total separation from friends and family – apart from those living under the same roof. At the height of the global lockdown, in some countries, people were allowed very short and limited time to exercise outside their lodgings.

In some countries, old people were not allowed out of their dwellings at all. We have a friend – over 70 years old – who lives in Germany and whose daughter, living in the same residential village, was not allowed to enter her mother’s flat. Instead, she would walk to her mother’s residence and wave at her while standing outside the window of her apartment. This is true house arrest and extremely difficult to get used to. Think about it.

Reaction to the start of a lockdown is informed by the way it is implemented. To avoid public outcry, authorities had to impose it piecemeal; one or two weeks at a time. But at the end of each period, good reason is given as to why it should be extended a little longer. Before you knew it, two or three months had been spent under lockdown.

Locking the country down and constraining people to their homes has taught them that a lot can be accomplished without congregating in communal workplaces. Organizations, companies, and social groups took the initiative to organize meetings online, drawing in more people than would have been able to turn up to an office or clubhouse-based meeting.

Rotary club weekly meetings drew in Rotarians from all over the world in online virtual fellowships. These were previously unimagined virtual activities such as fundraising runs and the installation of new club leaders, etc. Social chat groups blossomed with the lockdown and people chatted with each other more than ever before.

On the other hand, when religious places of worship were ordered closed for people used to going to places of worship on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays, virtual services were introduced. It was a new world when one had to attend the funeral of a relative, friend or neighbour. There was no going back to the “old days”. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed all that. Staying at home was not a choice but a new necessity of life.

On a lighter note, when you stay at home all day for an extended period of time, there is an opportunity to bond with your dwelling place – your house. Forget the people in the home.

Bonding with the structures that constitute the dwelling place, you notice deterioration here or there; the need for paint work and crusted dust in places you had forgotten existed. This can be depressing or invigorating, depending on the depth of your pockets.

Total lockdown means that there is no Kankomewo (let me come back) because there is no leaving. It is not a situation one would like to live in for an extended period. It can cause social conflicts, depression and even worse. Think about it.