Johannesburg – The new normal, I’m afraid, is a myth. Old habits die hard and many people simply refuse to embrace change.
It’s been a year-and-a-half since we’ve been living on the shadow of a pandemic and everyone should be familiar with the non-pharmaceutical protocols essential to avoiding being infected.
Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, wear a mask, sanitise your hands remain the mantra even as vaccines are being rolled out.
However, a cursory look around my surroundings tells me these hygiene protocols have been thrown out of the window.
For instance, take Mamelodi Sundowns, my favourite Premier Soccer League team.
After acing the fourth consecutive league title this week, the players and officials rushed in embrace and hand-shaking as soon as the final whistle whirred. By the way, this old normal is not unique to Masandawana. Since professional sport resumed last year with spectators barred from attending matches, the players have gone about their business as usual.
They continue to spit on the field of play and celebrate a goal without maintaining social distance.
It happens all over the world despite many athletes contracting the coronavirus. Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma may have relented and lifted the tobacco ban imposed last year, but smokers are still sharing a skyf with abandon.
Puffing and passing the zol around is the order of the day even as the third wave of Covid-19 looms.
That’s not all. When restrictions were placed on the conducting of funeral rites with limited mourners, there was hope that black communities would trim the extravagance at the events.
However, at the few funerals that I’ve attended, the slaughtering of a beast and the feasting continues as normal.
I have a childhood friend who never misses a funeral and is accomplished at felling the customary cow a day before the burial.
During these times of economic hardships, it would not be presumptuous to surmise that many attend the funerals for that plate of nutrition.
The grave-diggers have also taken a knock as their services are no longer required as municipalities bring in the excavators to dig the graves. As you would know, the diggers would usually be provided with a calabash of their favourite brew and a dish full of pap and vleis, as well as being remunerated by the mourning family.
The old normal is what they are hankering after.
The camaraderie at the gravesite wherein men would take turns with shovels to cover the grave is what they miss the most.
The post-funeral parties also continue to happen as the police have lost interest of monitoring the funerals and despite President Cyril Ramaphosa warning that after-tears occasions are the superspreaders of the virus.
The old normal definitely refuses to die.
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