In The Trough

This week, paranoia and fear hit English Village. Scared to leave their rooms, teachers took voluntary unpaid leave rather than work with their colleagues. Other teachers were villified for walking their dogs and sharing meals with friends. Management was charged with reckless endangerment and a petition was started. Masks were brought out. Today, the village is eerily silent; yes, ladies and gentlemen, the dreaded pox has arrived.

The deadly swine flu (well, 2 people did die last weekend in Korea...) was brought into the village by six teachers here to train on a drama course, after they went home for the weekend and contracted the disease. They continued to walk around for another two days before leaving for good; on Sunday four EV drama teachers were isolated and tested for the flu, their first tests came back positive on Tuesday; schools withdrew their kids within hours and the Village was closed to day visitors. On Wednesday one case was confirmed. On Thursday afternoon, the regional government had an emergency meeting with EV Administration and teachers were sent home for the afternoon. Still in training for a phonics programme, 20 of us continued to attend the course, and being the largest group we were the first to be told that quarantine was going to be applied to all teachers - so of course, the minute the course ended (a day early - cram those phonics...) we all rushed out to catch taxis and lifts with friends to the local shops where we stocked up on pot noodles, eggs, milk and beer - all the essentials - before the edict could be made public. Luckily nobody ran screaming down the streets when they saw us - they were obviously the public who hadn't yet seen the local newspaper, or the KBS reporters hanging around at the closed EV gates.

So quarantine kicked in Thursday night and we're all locked up for the duration. By lunchtime on Friday, I was already suffering from cabin fever... Apparently there's a limit on the number of movies you can watch in one go. The village is so quiet - not even the usual people wandering past my balcony or congregating on the benches to chat. Everyone is wearing masks when outside, and we have nurses coming daily to our apartments to check temperatures. Of course, we figure that if any one of us has it, the rest have already been exposed, so at least I've had Cait and Leigh with me all day - we've decided to fight the boredom with milk tarts, yoghurt cakes, and scrabble. Hooray!

We also - I have to admit - had a bit of a party last night in Harry's apartment. Hey, whatever works to make us feel better about being stuck here for a week!