Stuck in a Pandemic: A Journal on How my Keen Sense of Adventure is Keeping me Safe and Afloat
By Amy Luz U. Catalan
One practical advice that I often give myself is to step back and adapt to survive. That’s how my brain responds whenever I encounter a challenging situation, and this thinking has proven to be valuable, especially, in a pandemic. This has always been my mantra whenever I face personal challenges. I’ve tested time and again that my survival depends on how I assess and work within each situation until I come out triumphant or unscathed, like in an adventure. This is when I stop moving and thinking for a while to observe my surroundings, take an inventory of my tools and the people around me, device a daily plan, execute it with caution by expecting mishaps along the way, prepare possible remedies, remain composed, and continue the adventure.
❤️ Moving In
When the opportunity presented itself to teach in Iloilo City, in the University of the Philippines, I hanged on to it like what I did to the rope of a zip line that brought me from one hill to another in one swooping motion while screaming all the way until I landed on the platform. It was my friend, Dr. Lovella Divinagracia, who opened this venue for me. I entered the hallowed grounds of UP, thinking that if working here was part of this grand adventure, then there wouldn’t be any hindrance. That was exactly what happened.
In the days following my acceptance of the position, I revved up my brain and hatched on an itinerary for the BCD-ILO-BCD trips to take so that I could avoid overcrowded seating and to ensure that my commute between the islands was pleasant all throughout. My travel plan from the 3rd Saturday of September and every Saturday thereafter was to come to Iloilo every Friday morning, sleep at the Sentro ng Wikang Filipino (SWF) guest room in the evenings, hold classes from 8 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon on Saturdays, and after classes, take a taxi to go to the port and wait for the 8 pm trip back to Bacolod. I would arrive at home around 11:30 in the evening with my cousins waiting up until I was ready to sleep. For many weeks, I carried my luggage back and forth, endured the exhausting trips, yet it was one adventure that I was willing to risk. However, I finally decided to make my life easier by permanently settling in Iloilo City on November 15 of last year. This was also due to the promptings of Dr. John Barrios, the Department Chair of the Professional Education Division, stating that I needed to hold ten hours of student consultation every week. I didn’t hesitate to acquiesce because it was to be part of my work.
It was a breeze finding a temporary place to stay in the city. At first, I stayed inside the campus where I was allowed by the head of the Sentro ng Wikang Filipino (SWF), Dr. Julie Ramirez, to rent the guest room that I used every Friday until I could find my own place. I stayed there for five months, and it was such a blessing that I only had to walk to the office to do my work. The cafeteria served hot meals so I didn’t have to worry where to get breakfast and lunch. In my room, I had a water heater for coffee and tea or for an occasional supper of boiled eggs and oats if I was not too keen on taking it at the cafeteria because they close at 5 pm. I felt at home on campus that I, oftentimes, just stayed in my room, even on weekends, wrote and prepared for my classes while listening to music as a form of relaxation.
❤️ Moving Out
However, the COVID-19 outbreak and the eventual campus lockdown forced me to relocate earlier than I had planned to a hometel in Ledesco Village, Jaro from March 16 until 28. The room reservation was facilitated by Dr. Divinagracia’s family, whose daughter Tara was working with Red Doorz at that time. She secured an airconditioned room with two beds, a TV, and its own toilet and bath. At that time, only three rooms were occupied in the entire building because the management stopped receiving guests to adhere to the government mandate. Even the Korean restaurant where I ordered bibimbap for lunch on my second day closed after three days since there were no customers. At this point, it was up to me to cook the groceries that I bought a few days before. I used a rice cooker and a water heater to get by. At that time, I had five kilos of rice, a dozen eggs, a pack of noodles, two loaves of bread, five cans of Spam, twenty liters of mineral water, and more importantly, coffee, milk and sugar. Since it was a small room, I had to make use of the space between the beds as my makeshift cooking area where a small table and my cooking tools were placed. The only methods that I used to cook were boiling (rice, eggs) and steaming (Spam). Frying was out of the question because the smell of oil would suffocate me. It would seem like I was camping on top of a mountain with the cool air blowing around the place, only that it was too confined of a space that I sometimes found myself gasping for air.
Much as I enjoyed “playing house” for almost two weeks, I decided not to stay there for a very long time due to the expense and the distance to commercial areas. During that time, I sort of panicked because even jeepneys, taxis and tricycles were not allowed to ply the streets. The nearest commercial area was a 7/11 convenience store and I had to walk around two blocks to reach it. I did not like the idea of walking under the heat of the noonday sun since I woke up late everyday on those days. Sleep did not come easy back then when my mind swirled with end-of-days scenarios, an offshoot of having an active imagination.
❤️ Community Spirit amid a Pandemic
At this time, while I was adjusting to settle down to a new routine in the hometel, the entire city of Iloilo was also undergoing its own struggles. It was placed on a community quarantine by the Inter-agency Task Force for COVID-19 and by Mayor Jerry Trenas who was holding his office competently especially during the first two weeks since everyone in the city was told to stay in their homes. The senior citizens and children from 21 years and below were not allowed to go out. Quarantine passes were distributed to those who were able to go out and did the necessary activities of marketing and purchasing medicine. This measure was to control the flow of people who went inside the inside the commercial areas. For my part, I only went out once a week to buy groceries and medicine. I had to be careful in maintaining physical distancing while masked and readied my hand-held alcohol sprayer. I sprayed on any object that I touched, more so, the shopping carts and the handle bars of the doors that I came in contact with. I felt like a paranoid. Once I back to my pad, I took showers and soaked my clothes in detergent powders to wash after. With the groceries, I made sure to wipe each item with a soapy wet cloth until I was satisfied with the shiny and clean appearance of the bottles and cans, as well as the plastic packaging of bread and fruit. It was not an easy task. But I did not complain, because the city of Iloilo showed me how to cope in this trying time.
How amazing it was that the entire city functioned like a clockwork! Businesses donated essentials like alcohol and masks when they ran out in pharmacies. Seamstresses produced personal protective suits for the frontliners. Students of the University of the Philippines who were stranded in the dormitories produced facial protective masks to make productive use of their time. The Genome Center of UPV also helped in establishing testing centers around the city and the Chemistry Department produced alcohol as well. The community spirit in the city was unparalleled, and that was when I came to realize that I would love to live in a city like this: a mixture of urban and rural life with a highly-functioning local government unit and a population of progressive, generous and kind Ilonggos.
Although I would feel lonely at times, the only consolation that I had was the television that allowed me to watch the news around the city and the whole country, and the internet connectivity that gave me access to sites that kept track of the daily press conferences of the city mayor and the means to keep in constant communication with my family, relative and friends. By then, I felt relaxed and relieved just by thinking how this city could survive any pandemic or calamity by the strength of its government, the institutions in it, and most importantly, its people.
During those critical weeks, I kept in touch with my family and relatives in Bacolod and Bulacan. I’ve soon realized that I was alone here, and there was nothing that I could do to go home and be with them because the borders were shut. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like an adventure anymore. I got worried. Not for myself, but for my family in Bacolod and in Bulacan. I also contacted my relatives in the US. They were fine and healthy, and they reminded to me to do the same. The only words that I said to all of them was “I wish to see you when this is over. Please take care of yourself.”
❤️ Feeling at Home in La Paz
On 28 March, I finally moved in to this pad in La Paz, near Dr. Divinagracia’s residence and all the other commercial establishments, including the famous La Paz market. I redecorated the place like a Bohemian haven, with a living space on the floor where I could sit down and read or write. But after a few days, I got sick. I had a cold with cough and sore throat, the very symptoms of COVID-19 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). I got terrified. For the first time in my life, I felt scared for myself. But it was not COVID-19. My doctor in Bacolod, a former student in the University of St. La Salle, Michael Thomas Salvador, assured me when I asked for a prescription on what medicine to buy. I stayed in my room for several days. It was around this time that I was able to get in touch with some friends back from my De La Salle University days as an undergraduate student from 1989 to 1993, and just recently, friends from the Centrist Democratic Movement who were my companions on a study tour in Germany in 2011. I was relieved. I found myself reminiscing some good old days. Perhaps those nostalgic chats helped me develop stronger immunity against the cold because after several days of talking and laughing with them, I recovered. Just when I recovered fully from my cough, I’ve developed a dance schedule that gave me the exercise that I needed. My favorite tune to dance to has been “Smooth” by Santana and Rob Thomas. It’s a Latin beat and it has been the only song that could wake up my senses.
While I’ve been trying to gradually feel at ease at my new place, the city has also been loosening its quarantine rules. I’ve began to settle into a routine: Mondays are for laundry which is picked-up from my place and delivered the following day; Tuesdays are for online grocery shopping that makes it easier for me to buy my food and medicine that are delivered a few hours after, and Wednesdays are for cleaning my pad and arranging my stuff to have a semblance of order in my living space. Sometimes, I go to the nearby market and buy some fruits. On Saturdays, I hold a class in the afternoon with Master of Education students. Every Sunday, I join the Ikthus worship from Bacolod City because that’s the church that my niece and nephews are attending. They are actively serving over there and I even see my nephew, Sem, play with the music ministry sometimes.
I have considered this place as my new home. It provides privacy and assurance that I am healthy and comfortable even though my family and my relatives are far from me. And though I relish sitting and enjoying the company of my cousins in Bacolod, and eating out with my nephews in Bulacan where they order mostly fried chicken and rice, I still enjoy the solitude that this pandemic has given me. I remember when I spent my Christmas break at home in Bulacan, I cherished buying groceries and cooking for the family. I guess it was one of the ways to make-up for the lost time of being away for the rest of the year. Sure, I enjoy my solitude especially when I have work, but I also love being with family and the warmth in my heart that they make me feel.
❤️ The New Normal
The pandemic has created a sense of uncertainty and anxiety around the city. It’s more than three months that the quarantine changed the social landscape of the place, and it has also changed my daily routine and the way I interact with friends around me here in Iloilo City. The usual carefree attitude that I enjoyed all my life has now turned into cautious and measured behaviors that I somehow managed to turn into personal adventures. As I continue to perform the usual tasks as a teacher, I do not allow myself to experience boredom even when I am alone. I usually tap on my imagination to come up with creative ways to ease away a sense of dread or whenever I feel bored and quite depressed.
These days, the new normal is no longer the right normal for me. It is totally a different way to live when I could no longer freely enjoy the outdoors or the malls because of the rising cases of infection around the place. Whenever I go out, I have an arsenal of protection in my bag and I observe health protocols that need to be strictly followed. I think that it’s better to be extra careful, especially when interacting with others as asymptomatic cases have been detected among the increasing number of cases within the city. For all I know, I might be asymptomatic as well and I might risk infecting others if I don’t seriously wear a mask or observe physical distancing.
There really should be physical distancing. But this doesn’t mean that we no longer engage with our family, relatives and friends. We continue to be loving and kind even though the only way to communicate with them is through the gadgets and technology that we have in our hands. We still spread the sunshine by supporting those who need it, most especially those who are affected by the pandemic within our own circle.
This narrative is not done yet. This is still a work in progress as I want to continue telling a story about this pandemic knowing that it still rages on in the city, and more cases are being tallied on a daily basis. However, I am optimistic that there have been some progress in the management of the patients and those who come back from Manila and other nearby provinces. More cases are being recorded and reported everyday due to local transmission and LSIs, but nowadays there have been many recoveries in the city as well.
This story will not end until the pandemic is over, but I cling to a better situation within the city and the province. I am hoping that this will happen around the country, especially in those places that have been hit the hardest by the disease. Resilience is in our blood. We never lose hope. We fight on until we win.
