Tuesday 20 October 2020, Day 30 of Level 1, Day 208 of Lockdown 😷

Corona Gratitude 🙏

#Grateful for the lovely rain which fell overnight; for a cooler but sunny day; for not having to write a story today, having written two yesterday; for two lovely walks through Camps Bay, one combined with a shop at a Woolies, happy to see so little litter; for a lovely chat to Elna Schütz, a freelance writer for Daily Maverick; for a lovely meeting with Michael Duffet, a freelance producer for Carte Blanche in preparation for an interview about one of my Blog court case victories; for dancing to Dansdag on Kfm; for the noisy Ghanaian apartment renters above me having checked out today 👏👏👏👏; for the City of Cape Town promising the end of water restrictions and the lowest water tariff from 1 November; and for being happy and healthy. 🙏💙

Elna is also German, and is writing a story about a topic which I wrote about on my Blog, and is interviewing me aboutbit for a story she is writing. She explained the ‘168’ of the Daily Maverick weekly newspaper name: it’s the number of hours in a 24/7 week! 😱

Michael Duffet is an animated person, asking a lot of questions about my Blogpost of 2013, with increasing evidence against the dishonest Marketing promises made by an institution. Michael loved the name of my SwitchBitch books, and that the Blogpost appears in the Book too. I might get some PR spin off for it in the program. 💙 The Story still comes up on the first page of Google after 7 years!

I’m adding this post by Lina Mallon 😢😢😢😢😷🥵:

‘Dear South African Government,
dear Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane,

I am writing this letter today as a foreign, german citizen, sitting on my packed bags, less than 36 hours before boarding the plane that was supposed to take me to Cape Town.

So you decided to put Germany on the high-risk list yesterday, the 19th of October.

You decided to give no warning.
You decided to give not even 24 hours to adjust.
You did not inform our embassies or ambassadors upfront.
You did not properly inform or brief airlines or officials, not even in your own country.

I may say, you just decided to blindside us.

You invited us tourists, travellers, into your country.
We followed. We booked accommodations, leisure tours, business workshops and plane tickets. We made reservations and appointments. We invested our money in South African businesses and the struggling tourism sector. We invested time and effort in the organisation. We invested patience and most importantly, we invested trust. We acknowledged the risks, but we trusted your plan.

You now decided to take this trust away.

You leave us with lost money, lost plans and many of us with worry. Not just us travellers, homeowners, returning visitors and supporters of this beautiful country. Not just those who were eager to support South African business or work on mutual relationships and opportunities during this challenging time. But also your people, all those workers, founders and employees in the tourism sector who were counting on us. Counting on our return.

Yesterday, you promised to welcome people, who are intending to stay longer than 3 months. What about more than 100 passengers, that have been denied to enter SA, to come back to their part-time homes.

Yesterday, you promised that the Department of Home Affairs, is prepared and will escalate all applications for permission to enter SA (considering business, health or funeral matters) thoroughly and within 24 hours.
What about all those hundreds confusing automatic mails being sent out to so many of us, stating that the inbox for those matters is indeed full or false.

The Department of Home Affairs is not prepared.
You did not prepare your people.
You did not prepare us.
You did not inform us.
You did not even give us time to adjust.

You did invite all of us back in – to now leave us in a situation, where we feel whether cared for or considered.

You did promise to give your people their country back, only to disappoint thousands of them, who were just starting to recover from months of loss, loss of money, loss of jobs, loss of perspective.

You took the trust away. And without trust, there is no relationship. I feel you weakened ours significantly – and you are about to damage it beyond your current consideration.

I ask you to reconsider.
I ask you to care.
With all due respect,
In my name and all those who are with me,

Lina Mallon’

SA Corona Status: 706304 cases 18656 deaths 😷😢

FitBit 12000 steps 8,5 km 👣

Lovemylife❤️

 

The Corona Virus Lockdown (Level 5), announced by our President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier to commence on 27 March and to continue until 16 April, subsequently extended to 30 April, lowered to Level 4 from 1 May, lowered to Level 3 from 1 June, lowered to Level 2 from 18 August, and lowered to Level 1 from 21 September, is an unprecedented event in my lifetime. I am posting my daily Facebook post to journal this Corona Lockdown Journey, perhaps to serve as material for a future Book.

Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.chrisvonulmenstein.com/blog Tel +27 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@Ulmenstein Facebook: Chris von Ulmenstein, My Cape Town Guide/Mein Kapstadt Guide Instagram: @Chrissy_Ulmenstein @MyCapeTownGuide

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