Global Village - Storytelling Brings us Together

  Edited BY G P Kennedy Gul, Aegean Coast, Turkey  The weather is very nice in the days; the evenings are quite cool. We have three electrical heaters. I hope they’ll be enough when the weather actually gets cold. Like we made jam in the summer, now we are making some pickles and olives. I’m doing these for the first time in my life. I wouldn’t believe it in a million years.   Pasha, the sweet dog, is 7/24 with us now. We’re trying to find out what he likes eating. We guess the people who looked after him went back to their winter home. We go on long walks with her, play in the garden. But she doesn’t let the cats in the garden. We are unable to feed any cats.  This place has gotten more crowded now. Those who returned to their homes in September came back here, as big cities are really bad in terms of coronavirus. Now, there are cases in our little town center, we’re extra careful.  THE NUMBERS JUMPED FROM 6,000 TO 30,000  The coronavirus situation...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Simon - Perth, WA  What’s on my mind? Anger.  Anger at this Pandemic and the damage it has done and the damage it is yet to do. All the people that have become infected and died, many of whom could have been saved if only governments had acted sooner and more decisively to lock down and make the hard decisions. And anger at all the people who refused to take the necessary precautions and infected others.  Anger at the massive profits made by companies such as Amazon and Facebook at this time. Seems like a Pandemic is the next best thing to war for making a ton of money.  Anger at this stupid obsession with celebrities and what they are wearing and whom they are sleeping with. Who bloody cares? Billions of people suffering from poverty, famine, and homelessness and that’s what’s important is it?  Anger at the obscene amount of money made by companies, banks, and individuals, many of which pay little or no tax due to a few clever lawyer...

Edited BY GP Kennedy Ian and Minako, Tokyo, Japan Joy and gratitude are on our minds.  You may have noticed that we are a very positive couple. Of course, we've been recording life in Japan during this pandemic so that’s not all good and it’s far worse in many other parts of the world. But we don’t dwell on the past or the negatives. We try to focus on the present and look forward to the future with optimism.  Gratitude. We are grateful that we are in a safe, warm, dry home surrounded by good, kind, generous neighbors and friends at a safe distance.  We are grateful that our families are also well, caring, and keeping in touch. We are grateful to the farmers for continuing to provide us with all the food we could wish for along with the shop workers, transporters, delivery people, and everyone else involved. There are so many people we should appreciate; utility workers, transport staff, health and social service workers. Also, artists and creatives of every kind are...

Edited BY G P Kenndy Tassy - Karachi, Pakistan - Seeing my son who I haven’t seen for one year. Counting the days till he gets home in two weeks, and planning all the things we will do together. - How quickly am I going to get my hands on the Covid Vaccine, and whether we will be vaccinated by next summer. - How to structure my yoga classes for my student with severe back issues for this coming week.  - When this dreaded virus is going to go away. - A filling in my tooth by the dentist next week. Ugh! - Deciding which seeds to grow in my garden in the part of the vegetable patch that currently lies dormant. - How to have a difficult conversation with someone I know and have been putting off for a while. - What to cook for dinner tonight... - Whether we will be able to attend my son’s graduation next summer? - Whether we will be able to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday in June, with my sister's family and my family? - My own health and surviving this Covid crisis. - The health of my...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Gul - somewhere in Turkey SPORTWASH AS PURE HYPOCRISY  At the end of Turkey’s Formula 1 race last Sunday, they showered the podium with Sprite instead of champagne. Lewis celebrated his 7 th title with some sticky Sprite and he didn’t say a single word about it.  Imagine winning such an incredible race and reaching 2 billion viewers but the Turkish government breaks the tradition in the F1 podium ceremony. Technically Turkey is a secular country and booze is very legal. Not using champagne, which is traditional to celebrate winning F1 races, made Turkey look more socially conservative than it is in practice.   Turkey’s ruling party AKP government has already been increasing the taxes on alcohol and blurring out alcoholic drinks in TV programs and movies. But, traditionally Turkish people like their drinks,  Mercedes owner Toto Wolf said in an interview later on ‘ We -Hamilton and himself - are flying home together and there’s gonna ...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Sally - London, UK  This is a hard one for me as my mind often races in every direction. It’s full of thoughts and feelings but COVID-19 has filled any empty spaces I had left.  I um-ed and ah-ed for ages on what to write about and came up with NOTHING.    Basically, since March this year, I have had approximately 10 days of work and I should have had all the time in the world to do all the things I wanted to do but never had the time, but I feel like I have done nothing, zilch, zero, nada.    Yes, I have been bringing my daughter up and keeping her entertained, fed, exercised, and educated.  I constantly see other people's social media photos of the work they have done on their houses; the redecorating; the building work; the daily exercise routines; the kilograms they have lost; and the muscles they have gained. I sit here happy that I have had 5 minutes of fresh air, 3 meals that weren’t just crisps, and a shower....

Edited BY   G P Kennedy    This week we take a break from regular reporting of life during Coronavirus. We are giving our Storytellers an opportunity to express themselves and blow off a little steam by asking the question, What's on your mind? There are no rules or limitations to Storytellers' responses - they are free to write, well, whatever is on their minds. Ellie - Milan, Italy When the pandemic started, I had reached a threshold of irritation about physical human contact. Just plain old bumping into people had become unbearable after months spent in crowded trains and, worse, people running to their supposed exits or platforms in the Milan subway. Perhaps that was on my mind because it's a topic I am researching. I was out and about all the time and the lack of bodily distance was overwhelming. Now, the impossibility to connect with the world - the world at an intimate level of perception is what bothers me the most. I haven't seen family and friends in a ...