April fool; May we rise.

As we take stock of the last 30–45 days, we will look back at this time marked by the Coronavirus pandemic across generations, with mixed reactions. Mostly characterized by our collective worry and anxiety, anguish, mourning, the admiration and heroism of our health professionals, researchers, emergency staff, teachers and auxiliary support in hospital cleaning, logistics and delivery workers to some of the mouth-agape, sometimes bewildering, leadership responses by government officials across the world.

April usually starts with an April fool’s joke with somewhat global participation. I have had many a childhood friend prank me in the past, and yet this year April 1st 2020, no one had time for that. Little mood for jokes during these times as we stand collectively transfixed by the devastating global economic effects of attempting to slow down this pandemic’s spread. With us muttering quietly to each other so… what is next? Travel, physical proximity and closeness to our community members have been interrupted at some level (I’m still living in a country in “lockdown”) because we are all social distancing.

I have connected digitally (via Zoom, Instagram Live, Meet, Hangouts, WhatsApp, Messenger, Hopin.to, whew….) with my network of mentors, friends, family, and professionals and the general consensus is that social distancing is not normal; we are just not made this way. And yet, for our individual and collective safety, we must still heed to professional advice and be cautious of not only contracting the Covid-19 disease and effect by crippling our national health systems with overwhelming number of patients. The cumulative costs are being churned out by data scientists (conspiracy theorists) and infographed minute-by-minute updates on social media. Whew.

As we head into a new month, my humble submission is for us to find ways — whatever that looks like for each and every one of us — to rise. May, should be the month we acknowledge the daunting challenge we all face dealing with a global pandemic with community healthcare systems that were propped up by as if on fragile stilts.

1. Find your tribe, huddle (digitally) and let’s pull together ideas for our own community interventions to our problems. I’m participating in a webinar that jump-starts my May 1st on Zoom with my Global Shapers in South Africa tribe, on “The Impact of Covid-19 on African Businesses and Economics” and you may join-in here:

More deets:

2. If you haven’t already, kindly subscribe to the?? “Unpacking Africa” show, now on Apple iTunes Podcasts (please leave a review and positive rating to improve discoverability globally); connect us with fellow podcasters by having them fill this form here; and guests whose perspective help with the mission for empathetic listening as we unpack Africa’s ecosystem [email protected].

My last play on words, I promise: May ?t?h?e? ?f?o?r?c?e? ?b?e?.?.?? our coming days be much better than the past ones in April has been. Bless.

Be safe, be well, be loved.

Originally published to Unpacking Africa newsletter’s 15,000 + subscribers on May 01, 2020.