Sylvia's Journal

When my trip to West Africa was postponed, most of us were indeed thinking of temporary postponements, not cancellations. But how quickly things changed. 

Between arriving in DC and leaving everything seemed to be upended – VUCA times indeed: volatile (yes), uncertain (yes), complex (yes) and ambiguous (yes). Our daughters felt we were socially irresponsible to even be away from home, ride the Metro, visit musea. We didn’t think so. They rolled their eyes – baby boomers were not taking the corona virus seriously – we thought we were safe and careful. Sita took her kids out of school – I didn’t see why. Now I do,

We are humbled of course because we didn’t see the Draconian measures coming, but also proud that we raised kids who are more socially responsible than their parents. 

We have friends who overwinter in France who are now imprisoned in their AirBnB. Europe is locked, as much as one can lock an entire continent.  Now our much anticipated trip to Holland to celebrate our 40^thanniversary is hanging by a thread. The hotel manager and I are in contact about whether to cancel or not. He wrote me, “if you don’t know what to do, it’s best not to do anything.”  We will go one week at a time – but even that may be too slow, the landscape seems to change by the day.

I have already canceled our AirBnB and plane trip to Grand Junction where we were to attend the wedding of a dear friend at the end of May. The couple canceled rather than postponed the event. They made a trip to their townhall where there were pronounced husband and wife – no party, no honeymoon. Oh, all those disappointments, or as John Adams wrote in his diary: “Griefs upon griefs! Disappointments upon disappointments. What then? This is a gay, merry world notwithstanding.”

On March 6 I should have left for a two week trip to West Africa. The trip was postponed which was both a relief but also complicating my life and reducing my first quarter earnings by a considerable amount of money. 

It was not a difficult decision to make. Imagine being on a jumbo jet with a few coughers or sneezers and maybe even someone with a fever. Canceling a trip costs money and so people get on a plane when they shouldn’t. I was trying to imagine the public health officials at Niamey International Airport as we stream out of the plane and one, it only takes one, person turns out to have a fever – would we all be quarantined at the airport? Would we have to camp out there, or only the people who can’t afford a hotel? I decided that I didn’t want to find out how that would work.

Axel had planned a trip to Washington DC to see some friends while I was away – and maybe enjoy some spring time which is still so far away for us here in Massachusetts. Since my schedule was all cleared for my West Africa trip I decided to join him. 

After a failed start on March 7, (Axel forgot his wallet), we tried again on Sunday, International Women’s Day, with a woman at the wheel!

We drove to DC in our new car, an electric blue Toyota RAV4 Hybrid that we leased after our Subaru lease was up. After nearly 40 years of being a Subaru family we stepped over to the competition for the simple reason that Subaru didn’t have any hybrids within our budget. We are now the owners of an SUV, I am embarrassed to say. It seems nearly everyone is now driving SUVs; the carmakers must have listened to Americans who seem all to want big cars – this makes being in a small car increasingly dangerous. Our new car feels like a tank. 

New to the Hybrid experience, we competed with each other about who got the highest ‘eco’ score, a feature we don’t really understand yet, but higher seems better. We drove to DC on one single gas tank, which is no bigger than the one in our Crosstrek, which would have used two.