It is March 13th, and I am running out of a couple of supplies. Tissue paper, flour, napkins, and toothpaste. I have been squeezing the life out of my toothpaste tube, too lazy to walk a few meters to the supermarket. I figure, it still has two or three more uses in it even if I have to slice it open and scrape out the contents.

I grab my laptop and head into the living room, turn on the TV and load up the YouTube app on the firestick and find my favorite music playlist.

You see, I like working with some background music. It helps me concentrate on what I am working on.

Moments later I decide to fire up the ol'Twitter app and that is when I see it. The country had just announced its first official case of Covid-19 a few hours back.

I felt nothing. No panic. No surprise. Just nothing.

It was just a matter of time. In my mind, at least, I knew that the virus was already within our borders and all we were waiting for was the official announcement.

• The question was, how was everybody else going to react?

I put on a warm jacket and slipped into my crocks and headed out in the direction of the supermarket?

Was the hoarding already underway?

As I stepped through the main entrance I was surprised. Hardly longer queues than the normal rush hour period. No mountains of tissue paper in trolleys or people fighting over essentials as I had seen on Twitter.

Maybe the first wave of Covid hoarders had not arrived.

I grabbed a couple of basics that I badly needed for the short term knowing there was no way that I would be hunkering down in the city in the coming months.

It was already conclusive that major cities were hotspots for the virus and I would bear a higher risk of catching it if I stayed.

March 27th - It is time to leave the city!

March 26 - the day before.

It has been slightly over two weeks and I have not left the house - social distancing and all. I am in my element. I prefer it like this being slightly introverted.

I wake up, eat a banana or two to boost my energy and spend a whole hour dancing along to Rhumba fitness dance videos, do three rounds of 15 push-ups, sit-ups and leg-ups before jumping into the bathroom.

The apartment feels surreal. It is uncharacteristically quite. Many families have already left for the countryside.

• The evening of March 26th proved to be quite eventful.

At around 5 pm the predicted heavy rains started accompanied by strong winds that threatened to pull the electricity poles right out of the ground. It was apocalyptic.

Consequently, the lights went out.

• 11pm:

The rain has not abated. I go to check from the window the conditions outside and notice that the balcony has flooded and a bit of water was rolling over the door boundary into the living room.

Thankfully, I caught it right in time before it made it 20 inches from the door. I grabbed a bunch of worn down clothes and padded them around the balcony door and grabbed a bucket and drained the balcony as much as possible like a sinking sailor on the high seas.

10 bucket loads later I had barely dented the pool of water and the rain kept falling as heavily as before but thankfully the strong winds that contributed to the flooding had faded.

• 1:30 am, March 27th:

I gave up and left the mess to a higher power and headed to the bedroom, dressed down to my knickers and got under my warm duvet.

I had to get some sleep since I would be driving to the countryside the next day.

• 10am:

Gratefully, the rain had slowly petered off into the early morning and no water was spilling into the house from the balcony.

However, there was no way I would leave that mess unattended so I had someone come over and install a drainage pipe in the balcony.

The meteorological department had forecast the heavy rains lasting more than a week. I would have come back to a mold-infested house if I dared to leave without having the problem addressed.

• 2pm:

I packed a bunch of warm clothes, a bunch of supplies and leftover perishables such as fruits and groceries(onions, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes) into the boot of the car and kicked off the 3-hour trip to the countryside.

Bunker Location

Well, not much of a bunker but good enough.

We are lucky enough, as a family, to have a second well supplied home on the slopes of the mountain away from the CBD of our small active town.

The compound is quite massive as it accommodates a large coffee plantation, an equally large farm producing maize, sugar cane and nappier for the dairy cows.

Another potion of the land is dedicated to the commercial production of Tamarillo/Tree-tomato fruit.

Add that to the 31 egg-laying chicken, kitchen garden producing fresh greens, massive water tank being serviced by pumped river water as well as rain harvested water, it is the perfect dystopian survival hidey-hole.

Any close contacts with the Coronavirus?

Gratefully, so far nobody has tested positive for the virus among close family and friends. Still, I have read on local forums of people with friends who have been isolated after coming in from overseas.

There is a mandatory quarantine in effect at every port of entry into the country to reduce imported cases. However, the coronavirus has already reached community infection status meaning that the virus is currently spreading within the population.

A 5 am to 7 pm curfew is currently in effect country-wide but that comes with traveling challenges for those still going to work.

In a middle-income economy, there is a large section of the population that cannot go without working or else they starve and as expected there has been plenty of push-backs.

The police have overstepped their mandate and civility beating people with batons and whips which has escalated the push-back.

Its quite the powder keg and it won't take much to send people over the edge as more people test positive for the virus.

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Finally, I can't end this post without a word of condolence to those who have been hit hard by this pandemic. Italy particularly has seen its aging population decimated and has left deep emotional and mental scars.

All I can advocate for is social distancing, sanitizing and washing hands regularly and avoid going to crowded places such as clubs and malls.

This is not exactly full-proof recognizing that we all have different financial statuses and most people will be forced into situations where they will have to risk getting infected trying to secure a meal for their family.

Yet there is a neanderthal section of humanity that is rolling around as if nothing is happening, going to raves and holding large parties carefree.

Those zombie movies seem to have been quite accurate on that.

We can only hope a cure or a vaccine becomes available so we no longer have to stay in our homes and get back to our new normal.

Stay safe. Stay optimistic.