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''' '' QUARANTINE QUOTE *
QUAGMIRE '' '''
QUARANTINE IS ONE OF THE MANY waiting rooms of life, and its own special circle of HELL for people raised with a illusion that we control our destinies.
We prefer to believe that anything can be overcome if we just try hard enough. But there is no trying in quarantine. There is only the sitting, and, if you wish to retain your hold on your sanity, the letting go.
What comes next? No one knows. That's why we have quarantine in the first place.
TO prevent the spread of the coronavirus, thousands of people worldwide have been put into quarantine - some voluntarily, in the comfort of their own homes.
Others in makeshift barracks with armed guards, or in hotels or on cruise ships. Their plans are upended, the future is uncertain, and for most of us, how rational we think we are about risk, no matter how calm we imagine we will be in a crisis, that's a recipe for freaking out.
Ask me how I know : In June 2009, my husband and I flew to Beijing with our three kids, then 3, 5 and 7, and my mother to adopt to another daughter, also 3.
We planned a few days to get acclimated before traveling to our new daughter's foster home, but on our send day there, after a visit to the gardens at Beihai Park, my husband's Blackberry rang.
It was a representative of the Chinese government, asking us to return to our hotel room immediately.
It turned out that the family in the row in front of us on the airplane over had tested positive for HINI - swine flu. What that meant in China, in 2009, was that we could expect to be tested, too, and then either hospitalized or moved to a quarantine facility.
We wouldn't be the only Americans in that situations - we had heard rumors that the mayor if New Orleans and his wife were the guests of the Chinese government. along with the entire marching band from California - but according to the U.S. Embassy, we would be the only family with young children in tow. The American officials did not know how that would be handled, but we were asked to cooperate, and we did.
I have been using the verb ''asked''. It is accurate, but only up to a point. We were ''asked'' at every stage, but there were no alternatives. And I say we ''cooperated'', and that is also accurate, but it's too quiet a word for our disbelieving reaction. It sounds terrible now - the opposite of what you would expect from a good global citizen - but we argued. We tried to negotiate, to bargain, How could this be happening? But it was.
In our defense, we were frightened, about our health, and about our kids. And we were angry, not at China, exactly, but at fate.
We prefer to believe that anything can be overcome if we just try hard enough. But there is no trying in quarantine. There is only the sitting, and, if you wish to retain your hold on your sanity, the letting go.
What comes next? No one knows. That's why we have quarantine in the first place.
TO prevent the spread of the coronavirus, thousands of people worldwide have been put into quarantine - some voluntarily, in the comfort of their own homes.
Others in makeshift barracks with armed guards, or in hotels or on cruise ships. Their plans are upended, the future is uncertain, and for most of us, how rational we think we are about risk, no matter how calm we imagine we will be in a crisis, that's a recipe for freaking out.
Ask me how I know : In June 2009, my husband and I flew to Beijing with our three kids, then 3, 5 and 7, and my mother to adopt to another daughter, also 3.
We planned a few days to get acclimated before traveling to our new daughter's foster home, but on our send day there, after a visit to the gardens at Beihai Park, my husband's Blackberry rang.
It was a representative of the Chinese government, asking us to return to our hotel room immediately.
It turned out that the family in the row in front of us on the airplane over had tested positive for HINI - swine flu. What that meant in China, in 2009, was that we could expect to be tested, too, and then either hospitalized or moved to a quarantine facility.
We wouldn't be the only Americans in that situations - we had heard rumors that the mayor if New Orleans and his wife were the guests of the Chinese government. along with the entire marching band from California - but according to the U.S. Embassy, we would be the only family with young children in tow. The American officials did not know how that would be handled, but we were asked to cooperate, and we did.
I have been using the verb ''asked''. It is accurate, but only up to a point. We were ''asked'' at every stage, but there were no alternatives. And I say we ''cooperated'', and that is also accurate, but it's too quiet a word for our disbelieving reaction. It sounds terrible now - the opposite of what you would expect from a good global citizen - but we argued. We tried to negotiate, to bargain, How could this be happening? But it was.
In our defense, we were frightened, about our health, and about our kids. And we were angry, not at China, exactly, but at fate.
My husband tested positive for the flu and was padlocked into a hospital room. The rest of us sat out a heat wave on the outskirts of Beijing in what had once been an opulent resort for high-ranking Communist officials and was now essentially a ruin, a guard with a gun at the entrance.
We spoke no Mandarin and had to guess at what was expected of us. Two young women with serious faces showed us to our rooms. They opened one door for my 7-year-old and another for my mother, seeming to expect each member to separate.
But no one objected when I kept both younger children in my arms and walked into only one room. They gave me keys. They pointed to bottles of water. And then they walked way.
The moment their footsteps disappeared down the hall my 7-year-old rushed into my room, crying. I pulled him in before anyone could see. There was a hole in the wall, he said, and mold all around it, and he was scared. So was I.
It's the fear that I remember most vividly. It wasn't just that I didn't understand what we were supposed to do, it was that I didn't know what was going to happen. Could we leave our rooms? Would we get in trouble if they found us in here together? What if I got sick? What if the children got sick? Would they be taken away from us? How long until we could go home?
I did leave my room. I couldn't keep still. I remember chasing the one English-speaking official into his office and cornering him, trying to force him to walk through the possibilities with me, as though by naming them, I could bend them to my will.
He shook his head, refusing to answer, and finally got up and left, waving off the crazy woman who couldn't just accept that we were at the mercy of events neither of us could control.
How, the look on his face demanded, had I reached adulthood without ever learning to accept that sometimes, you just have to ride the waves?
With respectful dedication to Mankind, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world, and author KJ Dell' Antonia.
See ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:
''' Sample-Stream '''
We spoke no Mandarin and had to guess at what was expected of us. Two young women with serious faces showed us to our rooms. They opened one door for my 7-year-old and another for my mother, seeming to expect each member to separate.
But no one objected when I kept both younger children in my arms and walked into only one room. They gave me keys. They pointed to bottles of water. And then they walked way.
The moment their footsteps disappeared down the hall my 7-year-old rushed into my room, crying. I pulled him in before anyone could see. There was a hole in the wall, he said, and mold all around it, and he was scared. So was I.
It's the fear that I remember most vividly. It wasn't just that I didn't understand what we were supposed to do, it was that I didn't know what was going to happen. Could we leave our rooms? Would we get in trouble if they found us in here together? What if I got sick? What if the children got sick? Would they be taken away from us? How long until we could go home?
I did leave my room. I couldn't keep still. I remember chasing the one English-speaking official into his office and cornering him, trying to force him to walk through the possibilities with me, as though by naming them, I could bend them to my will.
He shook his head, refusing to answer, and finally got up and left, waving off the crazy woman who couldn't just accept that we were at the mercy of events neither of us could control.
How, the look on his face demanded, had I reached adulthood without ever learning to accept that sometimes, you just have to ride the waves?
With respectful dedication to Mankind, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world, and author KJ Dell' Antonia.
See ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:
''' Sample-Stream '''
Good Night and God Bless
SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless
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