I have long thought that having friends spread right across the globe is a special and important thing – I have made friends in many countries in many ways, even through simple acts like getting a hair cut or recognising people at bus stops – and I’m so grateful for social media platforms that enable me to easily keep in touch with people around the world.
This is something I feel more strongly than ever these days: we need to have contact with people in many different places so that we can have a better overall view of the world, so that we can understand multiple perspectives, and so that we don’t get too insular and self-involved. The Covid-19 pandemic has been unique in that it has truly affected the entire world, but it certainly hasn’t affected the whole world equally, and that’s where my friends come into it.
Faraway friends: Europe and Africa
One of my daily must-reads during lockdown was the Facebook posts my friend Jessica wrote from Spain. I met Jess when we worked together in Osaka nearly two decades ago, but we’ve stayed in touch since, and a few years ago she left the United States to live in Spain. Compared to Australia, the situation in Spain has been much more serious, and I learnt through Jess’s posts what it was like to not be able to leave home, apart from one short daily walk (to a maximum of 100m from her front door) to exercise her dog, and for absolute necessities.
Basically, she was alone in her apartment with only her pets for company, not much of a local network – she works online, and hasn’t lived there long – and the daily news in Spain was telling of thousands of new cases of Covid-19. This was so shocking to me – to date, in our entire state of Western Australia we’ve still had under 600 cases in total.
It felt so important to me to know what it was like in a country like Spain, through the eyes of a friend – and it helped me remain vigilant here. When their lockdown started to ease slightly, Jess posted a short video from her first run in the nearby forest with her dog. I cried watching it, imagining how Jess must have felt to finally be able to be properly outside, even though it was within restricted places and times.
I’ve also had regular FaceTime chats with my friend Eva, who’s German, but currently living in Morocco. In so many ways, Morocco is very different to Australia, and yet I’ve learnt through Eva that their reaction to the pandemic has actually been very similar – though stricter, even where she lives in the desert in southern Morocco. Particularly during Ramadan and Eid, restrictions have remained during those celebratory times presumably to stop people from travelling across the country as they would usually do during Eid.
Friends in challenging circumstances
Another daily must-read for me was the posts of photos and daily activities from my friend Julie in Sydney. We first met at a blogging conference some years back and became firm friends immediately, and have had the good fortunate to continue to meet up at numerous conferences since, and stay in touch in between.
Julie had to make the decision quite early to completely isolate her family: her adult son lives with cerebral palsy, and her parents, by virtue of their age in the vulnerable category too, live next door, and they usually see each other daily. Her entries explaining how they were spending their time while avoiding contact with any other people – the craft activities that made up their day, the car excursions (including car ferries, which looked fun!) to get out of the house, until restrictions were tightened and they were forced to remain even more firmly at home, the parade of friends who would wave from the drive way and leave inventive gifts to help entertain them – I couldn’t get enough of reading her updates, because she’s so positive despite any challenges that come her way.
Friends with a good sense of humour
One of my favourite daily pandemic reads were the posts from my friend Jean, who I first met at a conference in Bangkok, and have caught up with each time I visit her hometown of Melbourne since. She has a lot of sass and humour and at some stage began doing daily round-ups of the news of the world. On some days when looking at all the online news seemed too hard, I would just go to Jean’s update. She would always include the important stuff – with her very particular style of fun and sarcasm, which made even bad news somewhat entertaining – and I could feel that I wouldn’t miss anything really important, but that I didn’t have to immerse into all of the bad news every day.
So: go travelling and make friends doing it!
There are countless benefits to travelling but I’ve often said that the people you meet, especially the ones you stay connected to for years to come, are one of the very best parts. In turn, these friendships have innumerable bonuses, and this trying time has reminded me of that. On top of the friends I’ve mentioned above, I’ve learnt so much about what’s happening in the world from interactions with so many international friends on Facebook and Instagram, and the wonderful members of my Thoughtful Travellers group, too. There’s nothing quite like hearing about the state of the world from someone on the ground in another continent to really begin to understand what’s going on.
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