Lockdown, Vol 4 - Part Two, Some Semblance of Normalcy

"Eee-ooo! Eee-ooo!"

At any time of day the cry of a peacock can he heard echoing through our house. It is a bittersweet reminder of when we were able to travel outside of Colombo, before restrictions against inter-provincial travel and before the lockdown. Our journeys to the beaches, mountains, or rainforests of Sri Lanka were often accompanied by the cry of peacocks. So much so, Peter has become a master of imitating their calls. Which now erupt from his room at any time of day, sometimes in the morning when he first gets up, sometimes in the middle of a class Zoom meet, or lunch. 

The kids are settling into the first full week of online school. They adapted quickly, absorbing the disappointment into their systems and channeling it through their fingertips, onto the keyboard keys, and into the computer. Clementine seems to require slightly less daily assistance or reinforcement. Or we've just gotten used to it. She's doing millions, hundred thousands, ten thousands, hundreds places in math, so ar least it is something I can understand.  Peter is in some sort of pre-algebra wherein the word problems would be irritating if they didn't offer an amusing distraction at the end of a busy day. Think riddles along the lines of, "Betty has four more sisters than Pedro who has two less brothers than Will. How many cousins does Jim have?" type nonsense that can only be solved through trial and error so much as I can tell. 

Over the week, I came to the realization online school is only disappointing when compared to in-person school. There are a lot of different types of learning. Homeschool, lifeschool, vanschool, wanderschool, boatschool, roamschool. Each has its own unique benefits. The current discord, I think,  is that we keep comparing online school to the alternative. Well, that and the fact the kids are home all day, staring at a computer screen which requires running a cafeteria and making sure they get outside when school is out. 

The later is often satisfied by running over to our rec center for some pool time. Inspired by the recent Olympics, Clementine has taken to perfecting her synchronized swimming routine.

Her new routine can be seen here.

It rained on and off yesterday evening. The intermittent spitting and spewing of tropical bands marching down the street. In between two, Elise heard some commotion outside just before she received a text message from the next door neighbor. Evidently, the Sri Lankan neighbors had tied up a thief to the light pole outside our house. 

A small crowd had gathered under the street lights, some wearing light blue surgical masks, most had the masks dangling uselessly under their chins, shirtless in the orange glow, and darts of rain arrogant against the night sky. The thief hands bound behind him. He was, indeed, tied to the cement column. 

The pandemic and the lockdown were bound to push the most despairing to do things they may not otherwise do, resort to the most desperate acts. Abandoned construction sites laid open to the world are too tempting for some to ignore. This guy had spent the last couple of days stealing from several sites around our house according to the raw report from the housekeeper who works next door. 

A maskless man emerged from the small crowd, stepped toward the helpless burglar, and started smacking him on the face. I stepped from our gate where Elise and I and the Sri Lankan housekeeper from next door had been looking on and yelled for him to stop and wait for the police. The housekeeper told me not to do it. "They are bad men, sir," she said. "They are not good men." 

Their heads slowly rotated toward me like owls.. A few in the crowd wandered away. The man stopped. One of the security officers from my work happened to have stopped by the neighbors house for a drink. He came out under an umbrella in the rain and told me to just let them be. "It’s mob justice," he explained. "They won't kill him. The police are slow here. Nothing will happen to him. The worst is, he'll go to jail and get Covid."

I went back inside, feeling icky. I felt icky -- embarrassed maybe -- that I had tried to interfere at all. I think I would've felt worse if I hadn't done anything. 

The lockdown continues, extended a week. The quieter city streets made way for a small herd of escaped cattle this morning, moving slowly by our house like boats that had slipped from their moorings. There were even loose ropes hanging from their necks. It wasn't normal, but you could see how it could become so if the lockdown continues.