Apollo from Criciova

Apollo in Chizatau

In the cement mixer

This is Apollo ... from Criciova pictured in our garden in Chizatau. Apollo is the father of Eva and Edwin. Edwina fell in love with him at first sight. Mihai criticized me when I wrote about the arrival of Eva and Edwin Van Goat. He said it was wrong of me not to mention their paternity even if Apollo is no longer around. Apollo's original name was Gogu and he was supposed to be castrated the day we bought him. It's a procedure that is done so that the male goat smells less before being eaten. Then one has to wait for a number of months before killing him. He was so handsome that we called him "Apollo Gogu". We eventually had to sell him to a farm because one of the neighbors complained she could smell Apollo whenever she existed her home. I had a lengthy discussion with David on how are male goats are different from men. The primary difference is that goats pee on their faces to create a fairly powerful smell, which attracts the female, while most men do not pee on themselves -- since women would not find that attractive. Otherwise, goats have feelings and hang out together just like people. 

Grandma with Edwina and Eva

Since the pandemic whenever we traveled we took the goats with us -- because you were allowed to travel for agricultural purposes. David did not like it because he said the smell bothered him and because he thought they ruined his image -- David cares how he looks now, always combs his hair before exiting the house and even puts water on it to make it stick to one side (It's all about how he looks to the outside world, though, since he does not clean his room and throws his clothes on the floor and steps on them when inside and uses my room when talking with colleagues on Zoom because it's slightly less dirty; but he is rude to mom and grandma when asked to clean his stuff and so they leave him alone as part of being a teenager). Anyhow, we had to go without him a lot of the times.

Now, that Romania switched from "Starea de Urgenta" (Emergency State) to "Starea de Alerta" (Alert State), grandma is able to exit the house -- not just within a particular time frame, but any time. So, she and David were able to travel to Timisoara to help maintain property there. They did not take the goats with them, but brought the grass cut from the front of the house.

In this pandemic, it consoled me to know that we were traveling with the wife and children of Apollo  even if he is somewhere else now. Mom saw this as a joke. He is the handsomest animal we have seen to date -- he had that wild look about him that was so special while being patient and reasonably well behaved. The resemblance is not obvious when one looks at Eva and Edwin. They have blueish grey fur with a bit of brown and look almost like a cloud. When they were born on Easter Sunday I thought they looked like little Angels, which I suppose are close enough to Gods.

The police never stopped us during the emergency state when we had the goats with us. It must have been partly because one was allowed to travel for agricultural purposes, and partly because goats are still a sign of poverty as are children. So, with me and James and the goats well visible in the car, nobody wanted to ask mom any questions. It would not have been so if we had been in England or Spain, where children are demonized as vectors of the pandemic and animals can be a sign of opulence, but here people retained some tolerance -- mostly in smaller cities. We've heard that in Timisoara and Bucharest the police gave tons of fines, while in Lugoj they would mostly just ask people to fill out the form if they were found without it.

Real lord of the flies? The survival of the chicken!

There is a horrible book by William Golding about children marooned on an island. I've never read it, and I don't plan to read it, but I read about it. So what did the children do when left alone? Many behaved stupidly, some did not survive and some hurt each other. The book ends with the best of them crying for 'the loss of innocence'.

But would that happen in reality? A historian found a real story of six children stuck on the deserted island of Ata who survived for 15 months. They ate eggs, drunk the blood of animals instead of water when it did not rain, made a fire and took turns in keeping it alive for a year, and helped each other survive until a ship finally found them. One broke his leg, and the others put it in tree bark and leaves and did his share of the work while it mended perfectly.  Eventually, a ship arrived, and they made it home. And when they got home, they were placed in jail for stealing the boat that led to this whole experience. However, the captain that helped them escape paid for the boat, and wrote down the story and got a TV Channel to film the boys. Interestingly enough, their survival story was nowhere as famous as the dark version from Lord of the Flies, and the world forgot them. This realistic version must have been too similar to Robinson Crusoe to be worth remembering. I did read the Robinson Crusoe books -- he had it too easy -- marooned in a tropical paradise with tools and loads of things to use, while these kids appeared to be the real thing.

The island of Ata is still reported to be uninhabitable today. It did have a relatively prosperous community up to the mid 1800 until half of the inhabitants where taken to be sold as slaves, and the others left the island because they were worried for their safety.  What I find interesting is that the chicken survived. The human story is about the people who survived for a bit more than a year. The chicken reproduced for close to 200 years and they are mentioned only in passing -- to say that the kids built chicken pens and recaptured some of them. The survival of the chicken is what amazes me -- because we claim that domestic animals need us and yet we don't consider it a feat that they survived on the island -- in a volcanic crater -- about hundred times longer than some kids who fended for themselves. We take them for granted. 

We've taken our freedom for granted up to now, too. As the world imposes crazier and crazier rules, it scares me enough to think it might be easier to die than to survive a Russian+Chinese style captivity.  They are the leading powers after all. People are sure that children are irresponsible and silly, which could be why we are put in the same category as animals on declarations in Romania and have had fewer rights than pets in Spain. But if these 'responsible' adults who lead us bomb each other's countries until there is little left or find some other way to make the planet uninhabitable for people, it consoles me to think that there will be some chicken left behind who will be free to make it where we have failed. They'd be unable to tell a story our way, but perhaps they'd be there nevertheless.

COVID-19: the virus that ended freedom and dashed hopes

After a season of awful cold/flu symptoms, which consisted of cough, lots of secretions, tiredness and an on and off fever lasting for weeks and which might or might not have been COVID-19, my friends and I were looking forward to spring and summer. We are in the final year of middle school. My classmates were preparing to go to Germany as part of an exchange program, and I was discussing a potential internship in Germany, where I could learn more about methods to combat climate change. Edward and I even gave a talk on how to stop global warming at Cornell University last fall, and mentioning it seemed to impress people.

COVID-19 measures seemed far away -- people believed the measures were taken only in rich countries because in Eastern Europe there is little left to take. Tests were available only for people who arrived from abroad, and they were often placed in hospitals either for quarantine or when they tested positive even though they had mild or no symptoms. A number of cases were detected, but the number was much lower than in most other countries. Then suddenly in mid March when my friends and I were all finally feeling well, and preparing for final exams and for all the things we wanted to do in the spring, Romania followed other countries and entered emergency state. Schools closed with a promise to open soon, which did not materialize. Borders closed everywhere with a promise to re-open soon, which does not seem likely either.

On March 22nd the first COVID-19 death was recorded -- a man who came 'home' to Romania to die with terminal lung cancel, who was a certain bet for death. Quickly more recorded deaths followed -- most from patients with severe conditions -- many with infections acquired from hospitals; the patients had to go to the hospital due to various forms of cancer/strokes/need of kidney transplant or failure of other organs. In hospitals, there was little protective equipment available. These patients in various terminal states were easy and sure targets for the few tests available.

Suddenly, like elsewhere, everything closed and all our dreams and hopes were dashed. The scariest part is that since borders are closed everywhere, the EU might be splitting up. They don't have much power compared to other countries with guns that are being led by dictators (e.g., China, Russia, and even America have scary people in power, whose option is to either stay in power or perhaps die or go to prison).

We have some meetings on zoom with our school teachers and the school finally registered us on google classroom, but it's pretty hard to figure out what to do for each subject. We take pictures of hand-written homework, which cannot really be graded or read easily. The tests have no answers -- at least not those in German and we have not done much Romanian either -- and it's difficult to correct oneself or be motivated enough to keep sending these hard to read pictures. Of course, typing everything up is too hard, and we are not allowed to meet to hand things in person because it's not safe. I've done the required Math tests and most of the German tests, but I have only taken pictures of one of them. 

I was expecting a smart watch that my mom bought from Amazon in late February, but it still has not arrived. I've installed dozens of tracking applications on my phone, and none are able to track it anymore. Will our future be lost like my package? This track and trace approach of people coming from aboard created hatred towards foreigners and towards those returning from work abroad. People returning home from abroad are locked up for two weeks -- newspapers refer to them as 'vin leprosii' ('those infected infected with leprosy are coming') . The children and elderly cannot walk well when they come out of quarantine, but are grateful enough to be out that they do not complain. Studies estimate that the virus has already spread to perhaps either millions or at least hundreds of thousands who are already in the country and who are not being traced and cannot be traced because they are too many, but it's still important to trace those coming from abroad -- every one of them; they cannot and should not escape. Of course, now most flights are canceled and people can only go to work abroad in agriculture -- a form of modern slavery for which these new norms do not apply or are applied there but not here.

Adults everywhere applaud the approach taken by the world. They say that it is right. Can they be right when every thought and fiber in my being tells me they are wrong? Is there time to stop this hatred from growing and growing? Hatred towards foreigners, hatred towards children, who are the vectors of diseases and should be locked inside and allowed out perhaps an hour every day like in Spain, hatred towards old people, who keep 'us' inside? hatred towards anyone who is different? How much worse will it get? will I survive this hatred?  We are modern family who relied on air travel, and are split over several countries. I have not seen my father this year. Edward, my cousin, has not seen his since early January, which means he feels a bit better than me, but not much. Will we see them again? When? how? Will we be able to get outside the house without special papers after May 15? or will they extend this state when human rights are banned 'to protect' us?

I am half-Chinese and people scream obscenities at me when I pass on the street and often assume that I don't speak the language (I am fluent in Romanian, German and English and unfortunately I understand them better than I wish to; I speak no Chinese or any other Asian language). Human trafficking is not being monitored either. When a neighbor who is six threatened to call police to a group of cat-callers, they said they'd give a girl to the police officer and he won't do anything to them -- and if he is not good, they'd take him away from his family, too. Human trafficking happens at world-level, but people don't believe it can be true in their country and/or don't care to believe there is no consent involved especially if it's a girl/young woman who is being sold. Men like to believe women enjoy that sort of trade. Just like with climate change, there is a hope that it's better with everything closed. But is it? there is so much money involved, and so little monitoring, but perhaps, more sick rich people with switch to virtual interests and be afraid of humans.

Now the news is all about counting the COVID-19 victims. Nothing else matters much -- neither predictions of hunger of biblical proportions, which will kill more people than COVID-19 and in more painful ways, or the environment or the tsunami of hate unleashed by COVID-19 measures. These 'warnings' make it to the news for a bit, but there is not much done: e.g., the world still throws away tons of food even though people go hungry in lots of places; the EPA has been lifting rules and restrictions and so studying the climate is no longer relevant or desirable just now -- even though it still affects our future. It is like in the story of bottled water, when people were convinced to be afraid of tap water -- everywhere. Then fear was used as tool to sell something of, often, lower quality for lots of money to replace the water from the tap that was almost-free and certified to be safe to drink in most places. Bottled water sells a dream on its label -- water from beautiful areas with mountains and clear streams -- a dream of health and safety. Now, human interactions are dammed, and are expected to stay so for years -- to keep us safe and healthy. Can this be good? Is this the kind of future we should build? what will they sell in this brave new world?

Easying Lockdown - Phase 0

Denmark and Austria were the first countries to ease lock-down measures. Denmark opened schools more than two weeks ago, while Norway opened schools starting on April 27. They have also started to open more businesses. Denmark reports there is no acceleration in the virus spread. Both Norway and Denmark are still less liberal than Sweden.

The Czechs also report that the spread of COVID-19 is contained as the country reopens. It will be interesting to see if restrictions played 'the role' in this positive outcome or if they've had immunity to COVID-19 due to a missed wave in December/January/February.

Spain, France and Italy have started to ease restrictions. Towards the end of April Spain finally allowed its children (under the age of 14) to go outside for an hour a day (Edward was pretty unhappy about this restriction), and now, adults are allowed to exercise, too -- within limited hours as well. The deaths in France, Spain and Germany have fallen under 300, and every infected person infects less than one other person, which means the number of infections is going down. France plans to ease lock-down starting on May 11.

Germany is set to reopen smaller museums, galleries, playgrounds and zoos. They never locked people inside in the first place.

The UK still has a relatively high death rate. However, Boris Johnson reports the NHS is doing well and not overwhelmed. The number of deaths have been around 700 for the past few days. The UK is set to have the highest death rate in Europe -- to be fair -- they have much worse weather than the other competitors for this spot, i.e., France, Spain, and Italy.

Some states in the US are opening as well and some seem to add restrictions -- but there it's too early to tell what the effects will be. The numbers for countries who are easing lock-down measures in Europe are encouraging so far.

Poland has started lifting restrictions on April 20 and is allowing people to go outside, e.g., parks, forests -- without masks as long as they keep the 2 m distance. The ease of restrictions in Poland is relevant to Romania because they have very similar numbers. Romania has not eased any restrictions officially.

In Romania, schools and factories remain closed. We have seen more small stores open. The number of cases has been going down, and the number of deaths still hovers around 30. They have taken aggressive measures surrounding the 1st of May -- to make sure people don't celebrate by going outside. It's still unclear that going outside hastens the spread of the virus as long as social distancing measures are obeyed. The number of fatalities are under 800 with many suffering from severe pre-existent conditions.  

Given that the first COVID-19 death was reported on March 22 -- a patient who came home to die from terminal lung cancer -- and that about 800 people die daily from all causes combined, the number COVID-19 deaths is not high. Many believe we had a worse than usual flu season and that many of those cases where COVID-19.