Memoirs From Lockdown

Libero Vitollo Wild Nature

The year 2020 will always be in our memories. It was the year that the whole world was just down because of the outbreak of the coronavirus known as covid-19. The virus broke out of a laboratory somewhere in China called Wuhan in 2019 but the spread became enormous in 2020. That year, when all workplaces were locked up except for offices rendering essential services and employers had no funds to pay salaries, it became difficult to feed because finance to procure most household needs was scarce.

I, for one, fathom many things I could do while observing the new normal. Social distancing and avoiding places where a large crowd was gathered were top of my list. This was the year I found blockchain blogging and cryptocurrency. It was cheap to live and to earn more via platforms like Hive, and Read. cash, and noise. cash, and many more.

Since no one knew how long the world holidays posted by the lockdown season would take, I resolved to get involved in farming. There is farm produce that would help keep food on the table and ensure my family does not go to bed on an empty stomach.

Nature posed the first benefit to me. It began to rain. It was the season when maize planting was at an advantage. So, I planted as much maize as I could. What never ceased to amaze me was how the maize grew and got mature, ready to eat and share with neighbors This, I did without any sense of regret.

Meanwhile, just behind my farmland was a swampy forest. I never knew another treasure was just there, untapped.

One of that early mornings when left home to weed the grass that was taking over a portion of my cassava and melon farm, some grasshoppers began to fly towards the swamp and black fishes in the swamp ate them up for breakfast.

It was at that moment that I discovered that there was fish in the swamp. I wanted to be sure. In the evening of the same day, I went to buy hook and fishing lines to try out my newfound career, fishing.

The next morning, before cock crow, I left home and headed to the farm. When I got there, I put some bait around the hook that had been firmly tied to the fishing lines and moved toward the swamp. I threw the hook into the stream and before I could go to set another line, the first line had started to dangle. A huge black catfish had been caught in the line.

Before I concluded my work on the farm that day, a basket of diverse kinds of fish was waiting to be taken home. It was one of the memorable experiences of the lockdown season. I sold some off on my way home and took enough for our personal purpose back home.

My home is close to the police barracks. That's one heck of a place you don't want to raise your wards. We are always indoors because of peer influence which could be very disturbing around here. Sometimes, the policemen's children acted as spies that would relate to their police fathers what was transpiring around the area.

Several weeks after I shared my experience in farming to a bosom friend, he wanted me to come around his home that has almost the same features like mine to teach him how to go about farming and fishing things Inhad done.

While we were discussing via phone, he spoke about how bushy the virgin land around his abode was. I told him it is a goldmine and that he should do everything within his power to get the place cleared. I never knew that one of the police officers' kids was eavesdropping on our conversation. The little boy informed his police father that my friend at the end if town had a piece of land where gold was discovered. Perhaps, the little boy misinterpreted what I meant by goldmine to his father.

My friend went to the said parcel of land the next morning and started clearing the bushes to prepare the farmland for planting. Few moments after he started clearing, a police van arrived at the scene and asked him to step aside.

He was shocked at why the officers asked him to step aside. They took the farming tools from him and started clearing the bushes searching for gold. The officers did not stop until they were done clearing the bushes. They have unknowingly done a great job for my friend, one that would have cost him a fortune to get it done.

No one would pray for such a time again. The coronavirus season meant different things to different people. For me, it was a time for self discovery.