No matter which side you take in this psychological war we are in - for this is what we are in right now - one thing we can all agree on is maintaining optimum health. My main focus since it began was nutritional health and securing year round low cost food. Having experienced a country’s stability collapse before (I was an expat in the Kingdomn of Saudi Arabia before 9/11), I believe I felt some degree of resilience borne of that time, to get through this new challenge. One thing living “abroad” does is breed self-confidence. Now lest anyone think I sound over confident at what I just said, when the Pandemic broke here in Germany I told my kids in a total bow of humility “Kids, sometimes we adults can lead the way owing to our life experiences. This time however, we guys in charge don’t actually know the answers to your questions either. Please go easy on all of us in charge, and that also goes for your teachers, headteachers and doctors who are as confused as we are.”
Now some degree of “normality” is returning to Germany. Our obedient Germans have all been dutifully wearing their masks on trains and in supermarkets, and overall there has been no trouble here. My wife was briefly chastised for sneezing in one of the cheaper shops, but otherwise it has been orderly as Germans live and breathe “Ordnung muss sein”. There is some derogatoriness in the modern “just in time” world about being a “prepper” but one might argue that the Germans with their cautious ways have been prepping for 100 years! :)
So, as the “Germanosphere” opens up (I include Austria and Switzerland in this group as they all have a certain mindset in common), it will be instructive to copmpare how they cope compared to the US and the UK. My German wife and I spend hours teasing each other in silly games about which one does whatever better (the argument ends when I bring up “winning wars”). However, aAs far as health I think the Germans win hands down. Don’t forget being central Europe they are on major trade routes between Scandinavia and southern Europe, so during this crisis the food lorries have been flowing well. My greengrocer with whom i have developed a close relationship, says that the supply of “far” foreign foods may become more limlited and things may be more expensive but we will still all eat.
As regards psychological health, the BBC article by Kate Silverton who always exuded an air of veracity, my family has been coping reasonably okay. I am a male carer for them all, have had this role since my teenagers were small. As an ex IT guy I found myself the home network repairer and webcam/audio troubleshooter for my wife’s conference calls to the office where she is a manager. The most common sentence is “Daddy can you restart the wifi?”. I watch their health daily from small stomach growls to small coughs. I try to jump on these quick. I believe the secret of health is not treating “dis” ease but maintaining stable metabolism as a means of preventing health breakdowns, both mental and physical. If that sounds a little Oriental it is because it is. I practice an amateur Qi Gong routine daily. This explains my choice of picture for this post.
So the Bavarians in their wisdom decided to return the kids for the last few weeks of the year in two shifts, Group A and Group B. Luckily my two were in the same group. My daughter has coped okay but my son has been feeling unwell all week. Dizzy, nauseous, he has been home a lot. I think this is because they start school every two weeks - all that getting up early is a shock to the body from endless summers lying in bed (which I believe is important for kids’ development, let them sleep!). Starting school every 2 weeks must be awful for the body, like September 1st every fortnight. Once you’re used to it you gain a rhythm, but to live like that? Nope. My mother was a night nurse at a mental hospital 28 years, and I believe the constant grind of shifts messed up her circadian rhythms and eventually wrecked her blood and caused the leukaemia she eventualla died from.
So, we have a few more weeks to run until September when we must pray for some degree of “old” normal” This ridiculous expression “new normal” is pathetic. As an old housewife said to me in the grocers shop in German recently, “We have survived the last war, we’ll survive this”. Tough words,.
“Servus”, as they say in Bayern.
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