Week 3: Stuck on a strange ride
It was a medical visit but Antionette Tafeamaalii, 31, sat in her car like she was waiting for an order at a drivethrough as the nurse in protective clothing approached the driver’s window.
Everything during the lockdown is more complicated.
Just a few weeks earlier, nurses might offer a few words of warning, or comfort, as they prepared you for an injection. Tafeamaalii, of Waikanae, is still young but immunocompromised with rheumatoid arthritis – she needs a flu jab.
The nurse came out, fully geared up, and asked if she was Antionette.
Yes.
Without niceties, or even any further words, the nurse jabbed a needle into her arm, slid it out, then moved on to the elderly couple in the next car. Welcome to week three of the lockdown. Even injections got strange.
It was Tafeamaalii’s birthday last week. She got to watch her twin sister unpack lots of presents on a video link from Australia, where there are still plenty of open stores. Cool, thought Antionette.
People are starting to feel frustrated; they used to have control in their lives but now they – we – are all waiting on the Government’s decisions. It is a mental challenge now, she thinks.
Her partner Peter Younger works from home and has to leave their son Jackson, 18 months, every day and go to work in a room in the house, shutting the door behind him. This upsets Jackson. Younger moved his office to the next room so Jackson can’t hear him working during the day.
Zephaniah Joe, 12, started working this week too – back at school, even if it is via the internet from his family’s lounge in their rural home near O¯ taki.
He is glad to be back. He and his three siblings are working out of the same house; Zeph plugged into Zoom lessons with his entire class. The good thing about working at home is at morning tea and lunch you can do more work because there’s not really anything else to do.
Easter was strange this year. It was a special day on Sunday for Christians like Zeph – but there was no church.
Instead, he stayed home and finished homework, put himself through fitness training and then climbed to the top of his favourite tree and built a hut.
Potter Anneke Borren, 73, is building ever-more pottery bird-themed whistles in Paremata. She’s up to more than 150 whistles now, all crafted with her own hands during the lockdown. Three weeks in, she realises the lockdown is a marathon, and she is dedicated to the honouring her family’s long-term motto: A Borren is courageous and never gives up.
Nevertheless there is a certain tired resignation creeping in after three weeks. But her work with clay was an antidote.
Lockdown might be a marathon but creation is no slog. It’s a fantastic feeling, a sense of freedom, and an escape, which is otherwise impossible in the time of level four.
Wellington bus driver Tigger Wells has seen a few more passengers than he had a week ago. However, there’s no escaping it – numbers during level four are still tiny. On average, he carries one passenger per trip.
The peak number of passengers at once on Tuesday was something like five, six people, peppered out across the seats.
It’s strange on buses now. Wells was driving the No 83 bus in the city and saw someone running across Manners St. Why does anybody need to run? Time is no longer of the essence – there’s no actual schedule for most people any more.
Wells said every day in week three was like Christmas Day, when the streets are empty and time just drifts.