Day 20: Dreamcatchers for Cats

Day 20: April 15, 2020
Global cases: 2,082,418; Deaths: 134,560
Egypt cases: 2,505; Deaths: 183

Hoda Mostafa
Associate Professor of Practice
Director, Center for Learning and Teaching

What day is it today again? Thisday, thatday, anyday?

As the days turn into weeks, the many faces of my days and roles merge into a quilt of little mismatched pieces. I struggle every morning to remember the day of the week. I miss the variety, seeing people on campus, chatting and snacking over coffee every morning at Mounira’s desk otherwise known as CLT Central.

My day starts with a check-in with the team from the Center for Learning and Teaching. My other family. We spend the first few minutes saying good morning, checking in on our projects and updates and most recently welcoming our newest member, a new CLT baby!

My work family has never been more important to me than during this quarantine. We are all in the same boat and are entrusted with the same task. We “get it” and spend our work days thinking of ways to make this emergency remote teaching period smoother for everyone. I am super proud of the whole team and blessed to work with them.

My kids are also home which is heartwarming. I haven’t spent this much time with them since summer and of course back then they were running around with friends, outings, on erratic sleep cycles and more. They are “grown-ups” now in a sense, with the exception of my not so little bundle of joy who is still in grade 5. They are super independent as long as I water and feed them three times a day (plus snacks). My ideas for snacks, desserts and lunch menus is slowly running out, I can barely keep up with the shopping list as they eat their way through our fridge and cupboards.

“Mom what’s for breakfast?” is soon followed by “I feel like something to eat but I am not sure what exactly? What do we have?” I wake up each morning to the disaster area that is midnight snack time.

My little one has decided that cooking and baking is a great way to spend our free time but that also involves more online shopping for ingredients (thank goodness for online shopping which is my newfound hobby). Plus kitchen clean-up is definitely not his forte. I have been avoiding their bedrooms/habitats and have not tried to ask them to tidy up. I am choosing my battles as long as their rooms don’t end up being safety hazards requiring a HazMat suit.

I guess I have always been a multi-tasker, not because I think it is particularly effective, but because I really had no choice. Having so much work to do daily means that I am up and ready to start at 9am but often work throughout the evening and weekends as well. To relax, I have discovered the joys of online shopping for puzzles, baking ingredients and crafts.

I made my first dream catcher and am still working on my 1,000-piece puzzle that my eldest said he would help me with. Not sure how that will turn out …our cat loves the dream catcher though.

So now about the cat. To add to the excitement of a full house of four grown (or nearly grown) men, my middle son decided to get a cat right before the quarantine, which was not on our radar and was shot down as an option at our last family meeting. Nevertheless, Hanafi the Cat showed up a few weeks ago with my middle son stating that “It is easier to ask for forgiveness than convince you or ask for permission”.

Although he thought this was epic, I am not so sure I handled that one according to my best practice parenting handbook: so Hanafi joined the family. Hanafi is now Fifi after we discovered she was a female calico cat (long story). There is a lot to say for the love and positive energy a pet can add to the home. She is now part of our family and I have a fellow female in my camp so thank you Fifi!

For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.

I do have mixed emotions about being home and working remotely. We are blessed that we can keep working and earning when so many others are out of work or struggling. We are blessed that our community so far has not had any serious infection with COVID-19 that I know of. Yes, I have friends in the medical community that have contracted the disease and thankfully recovered, and I scour the news every day for updates and models for when and how this will all end. Sometimes too much news can be toxic so I unplug regularly and resist social media.

We are all experiencing various degrees of missing the social and human interaction. I am blessed to have my family and friends even though I can only see my parents and distant loved ones online. It is a new normal that doesn’t somehow feel so normal to me.

I think many of us are having these moments of reflection and “aha” moments. I am starting to think that humans are really bad at several things. We tend to forget too quickly and have selective memories; we abuse our planet endlessly and then watch with wonder at how the skies are now clearer and global pollution is down. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that human behavior is a big part of the problem.

I am hopeful though that this time, just maybe, we will learn some lessons as a species from this grand experiment we are all part of. Maybe somewhere a few wise leaders and people will take a new approach and make radical changes. Life will keep teaching us these lessons until we learn.

I try not to worry about the world post-COVID, maybe because of a naïve hope that when we get there, humanity and our planet will be the better for it and will figure it out. In the meantime, I am trying to make the best of thisday and thatday with my dream catcher, family, friends and our cat Fifi.