Weekend Chronicle Easter 2020
The Easter weekend is in and the naughty cream is upon us. Every Easter weekend is new, but this weekend has features that none of us have been involved with. By the way, 'krime' is the Langåmål target dialect word for cold or snuff, and covers all shades of flu. 'Ugly' can mean anything from ugly and disobedient to miserable or terrible. The corona pandemic is worse than the worst crime. As a comparable disease, one has to go back a hundred years to the grotesque ravages of the Spanish flu.
Just outside Långå village, the rest of the world begins and those who happen to live there must now stay at home according to the Public Health Agency's decision. It helps against the spread of infection and it removes the risks of being forced to burden the local health care in a place other than where you are registered. Every village and town must have enough of its problems. It is fair. The nearly one hundred thousand Easter celebrants who are usually in Härjedalen are welcome back next Easter! Next Good Friday is it 2 april 2021.
The entire installation of holiday homes, the appearance of ski slopes, egg, herring and other delicacies including après skim ice cream, that is, everything acquired and prepared to be experienced and enjoyed, it will not be used. All the snow there is, the dressy tan that was within reach, the community in the Easter celebration is not what it should have been. The ground sea trout swims around and doesn't understand where all the pikes have gone. The pan of soot simmers over occasional campfires and people wonder more than usual about the future. Especially those whose business is hanging on by a thin thread, thinner than the thinnest fishing line. Unemployment grows from temporarily closed factories, the treasury's floodgates open like a spring flood; the big question is how will it be and how will it go then.
In any case, we are lucky to live in one of the absolute best countries in the world. We especially notice it in situations like this. The rarely praised authorities prove to have competence and a sense of responsibility, and the unity of the politicians has the determination that the situation requires, clearly aware of the consequences for those who shoulder the economic, social and cultural welfare. We have, despite everything that is said, comprehensive and high-level world-class care where employees do more than their utmost with obvious risk to their own lives. After all, "we are fine fine", as we can say in Långåmål. The foundations of security give us a substantial dose of harmony and faith in the future.
The Easter weekend is one of Christianity's biggest holidays. The beginning of the Holy Week turns into the gloomy Good Friday, but on Easter Sunday it brightens and hope takes hold. The future returns with what we want it to have. This year we devote ourselves to more reflection than normal and of a different kind. We are facing dramatic stages where people risk losing their life's work, their jobs, their security and, in the worst case, their faith in the future. I am convinced that we in Sweden will get back on our feet, but it will take time which includes hard work, sacrifices and commitments.
At the same time, we can take the opportunity to think about what is necessary and perhaps even what is right and appropriate. Is it really necessary to go to an inaccessible area of Peru for a week at a 'healing and yoga resort', corona is evacuated from there with the help of the Swedish state and be pissed off at the Foreign Ministry because they don't pay up 20 000 and offers the plane ticket home at the taxpayers' expense?!
There is always a perfectly good alternative! Healing is English and means 'healing'. No one has to give up! Come to Långå! Långå fishing belongs to the natural medicine we may need more than before. Welcome when normal times have returned. Hopefully this summer!
With the wish for a meaningful and therefore Happy Easter!
Helgi Jonsson