As we are in confinement like everywhere else since the end of March, I can’t teach at the association where I work and we can’t attend our Burmese lessons.
Therefore, we were trying to decide how we could help the community and get to know our neighbours in spite of the situation. Initially, we wanted to organise a meal and invite everybody, but with Covid, we had to cancel.
This is why I started making masks for the neighbours. One day, David was talking with a local friend and told him I was making masks, and asked if he wanted to have some. He was very enthusiastic and asked for a hundred. At that time, I had done about thirty that I had distributed to the neighbours. David told him that it was probably all right, but that he would check with me. I could hear the conversation from a distance and told myself “oh wow, that is a lot of masks!” This is when we realised making masks was very useful and that we should make even larger quantities, not just for the people around us. Recently, for example, I was able to contribute 200 masks to a distribution campaign organised by the association where I usually teach.
I started making an elaborate mask with a nasal bar and a filter pocket, but when you have to do a lot, it is more appropriate to choose a simpler model. I am really thankful to the person who sold her sewing machine to me, because is really useful and is being used to its full potential.
All in all, it’s just great to be able to get to know the people around us and really motivating to be able to participate and help the community during this time of “waiting”.
On a more meditative note, it was also very interesting to see the different points of view between our countries where there is this debate of yes/no whether I should wear a mask. The contrast is between an individualistic society where „if this is not useful for myself I don’t do it“ and here, in a communitarian society, where the question is not really there, because if I can protect others then it’s logical to wear a mask.
