Rat leaving sinking ship

Rio de Janeiro, April 2020

It has been raining all night and day and actually a perfect moment to go hiking around Rio’s nearby jungle trails , despite quarantine, as the fear of getting assaulted by bandits from the favelas is reduced to the max. The Cariocas, Rio’s inhabitants, hate the rain and don’t make a step out of their homes.

Tonight though, I am leaving with one of the last available weekly flights back to Europe. In contrary to the plan of staying until june with my sister and her twin boys, I am obliged to return instead of staying stuck for indetermind time as the current situation in Brazil is politically turbulent and far away from having reached its peak in terms of coronical infections. Even the german ministry of foreign affairs is writing me emails asking to go back as they don‘t want to deal with eventual sick patients in need in a country of lacking well functioning health system.

I feel like a rat leaving the sinking ship. Leaving behind my family who need to stay here hurts tremendously.

But aren’t we pragmatic and logical when it comes to difficult situations to ensure survival of our species, our own kind? We can‘t allow ourselves to make decisions based on emotions. If missusing the term of social darwinism under an ideological aspect , like done during the first half of the 20th century, I would be definitely a member in society to be neglected and left behind. I am not healthy enough and far too old to reproduce healthy progeny. Whereas the scientific approach of the theory of evolution by natural selection can be used to understand the social endurance of a nation, of an intact society or community.

Therefore, in many latin american countries, Europeans and Asians are marginalized due to fear of having imported the virus, ergo protection of one’s own kind. And I will be forced to undergo a strict 14 day quarantine once back in Berlin, as coming from a foreign country, ergo protection of one‘s own kind.

We have all been coronarised. Very much looking forward to see how our world will look like in aftermath of pandemia.

In honor of nature