When I hear news that restrictions on leaving home are gradually being eased all over Asia and Europe, I think we might be getting a glimpse of what will be coming soon, and I just keep on hoping that a novel coronavirus vaccine will be found. In Brazil, the infection is still spreading, while political turmoil is continuing, including two new Ministers of Health in a month. The pot banging, an outpouring of discontent, is continuing just about every night. In São Paulo, we have entered the ninth week since we started staying at home, and the economic turbulence is really causing growing anxiety.
Recently I have been getting a lot of notifications about fundraising websites. The Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Japonesa e de Assistência Social (Brazilian Society for Japanese Culture and Welfare) has also been appealing for support for Corona no Paredão (Corona Barrier) since April. Donations are distributed to families living in the favelas. A “favela” is a slum where people have illegally occupied the land and live in dense clusters of several hundred houses or more. According to 2018 data, 11% of São Paulo's population, more than two million people, live in favelas. You can give aid to people in favelas via various websites, for the novel coronavirus.
At the entrance to my local supermarket, they even have a box saying “Doe Aqui” (Donate Here).
Recently many of the notifications on Line and WhatsApp have been requests for me to buy goods from people growing all sorts of things. Food can’t be stored for a long time, so they are drawing attention to these sales at particularly low prices.
I have been buying things like shiitake, king trumpet, and shimeji mushrooms.
The family of a friend grows orchids and is giving them out at very reasonable prices. They made a gorgeous present on Mother's Day the other day. Apparently, the number one present this Mother's Day was flowers. Now that the shopping centers are closed, flowers are probably the best present.
There are many other people growing flowers, and word about them being available for sale is traveling to me via all kinds of friends. I am also happy about this because they all deliver to your home.
Since we started staying at home, a movement has sprung up urging people to “Help the small and medium stores in your neighborhood when you order a delivery."
My Facebook friends have created a group for the area where we live, and we have started posting a lot of different information. They have also started asking about stores, clinics, dentists, and so on that they are looking for. Even if you don't find a shop, you can find a person who sews and sells cloth masks privately, or someone who makes food and sweets, and lots of other people. This has the double benefits of helping local businesses and being able to get your household jobs done in the area where you live, so more and more people are joining the group.
In São Paulo, the stores are still closed, but pharmacies and supermarkets are open, so there's no need to worry about everyday needs. Around the time we started staying at home, there was no toilet paper, alcohol gel, or kitchen gas cylinders, but that soon returned to normal. Apparently, the things that are generally selling in larger volumes at supermarkets are soap, detergent, rice, feijão beans, pasta, and game software. At pharmacies, sales of things like vitamin C, gargle, Tylenol, and propolis seem to have increased. On the other hand, sales of clothing, cosmetics and beer have decreased.
Brazil is now ranked fourth in the world for the number of people infected with the virus.
We will all continue to live our lives together, helping each other out, in many different ways.
