Corona 19 - Social Distancing brings Communities Closer
Having lived in a number of apartments and townhouse complexes over a number of years, my wife, two sons and I are fortunate to now live in a leafy Johannesburg suburb and the one thing that has occurred to us, unlike in previous dwellings, is how little we know our neighbours.
We have lived here for almost 5 years, and we have tried on occasion to do a street braai (I for one was guilty of not arranging), further attempting to enjoy an odd beer, and have had the odd formal meeting over the years, but if the truth be told, we don’t know one another. We wave over the wall, or a cursory greeting while driving down the road but we actually just stick to ourselves.
Then came lock-down. I suppose you would imagine this would result in less contact, but in fact it has proven to be the complete opposite. Our neighbours are now sharing ideas on helping others who have their own business, or where we can buy essential food supplies and even including people’s birthdays and celebrations.
One of our neighbors son in law is a specialist physician at the Charlotte Maxeke, so it has become a street daily event to go out at 7pm and make a noise or cheer to mark our deep gratitude respect and admiration for workers in healthcare and essential services facing and defending the front line during this trying time. We have had drums, vuvuzelas, dustbins and the noise of bottles (courtesy of the recycling bag on the pavement) being banged together to make a wonderful noise.
More importantly, during these evening celebrations we have got to know more about our neighbours, their families and pets as we all stand in our driveways with a drink in hand and chat. This is in one week versus the 5 years living here.
And then on Saturday, our direct neighbour, aka THE RUNNING MANN, undertook a huge and grueling challenge to raise awareness and funds for a charity Just the One Foundation, which he has supported for 13 years.
He decided to do an Iron Man in his garden.
This was made up of 3.86km swim (351 lengths of an 11m pool); 180.25km ride on an exercise bike; 42.2km run (325 laps of a 65m x 2 driveway)
If you might recall the weather was probably the worst we have had in ages, and the idea of getting in the swimming pool at 7am took a brave man. The Running Mann completed this amazing challenge in 13 hours and 28 minutes, while having breakfast and a cuppa tea in the pool, doing some ironing of shirts during a change over, and doing a braai during the run. Eskom also came to the party by giving him a power outage for the final part of his run.
He received ample support and some joint participation from the street as everyone encouraged one another to do 2km run or jog in their own gardens. Being a direct neighbour, I had the option to encourage him personally, by standing over the wall (through the electric fence) and give him that all deserved cheering and distraction whilst he made his way through the many, many laps of the driveway.
Most importantly through this achievement, the Running Mann was able to raise over R 35, 000 for High School & Tertiary education for high aptitude children who would otherwise not have access to a decent education.
As a neighbour and co-founder of 4C Recruitment, we are proud 4C Recruitment Charitable Trust could contribute some money to Just the One Foundation to the value of R5000.
4C Recruitment was started as a recruitment consultancy with an innovative approach, aligned to the global shift towards socially responsible business practices that are about uplifting communities and society at large. We are proud to have been a part of The Running Mann’s incredible achievement and hopefully in a small way helped to contribute towards another Child’s education.
It is disappointing that in life, that it takes disastrous events to increase patriotism as people see that they share a common humanity that can unite them. In our street, it has certainly brought many of us closer together, as we hold out for a positive outcome from this global epidemic. We anticipate that our lifestyle after COVID-19 Lock-down is going to be different. One thing we need to continue to do, is keep building on our neighborhood friendships and look out for one another, rather than returning to the courtesy nod.