Taking an afternoon stroll in the small park near our house in Montreal, it is tempting to think that normality is within reach. The city has finally shaken off the last vestiges of its long winter. Leaves have sprouted on trees almost overnight.
Grass is filling out patches of brown earth. The warmth of the Sun is invigorating, more so following weeks of confinement and the season’s shift. It feels like the first sip of water after days of fasting and privation.
More restaurant and cafe owners are opening their storefronts for takeout. You can pick up a coffee from Starbucks (at the entrance, after dropping your contactless credit card in a clear box to a masked barista) and sip it on a park bench. Most people walk around in solitude or in pairs, and maybe a third are wearing masks.
There are occasional glimpses of people flouting the rules of gathering too close. Some chat while their children frolic with squirrels nearby.
A young man and a woman sit together on a bench, talking, and then walk off in different directions to their respective homes.
The halting return to normality is startling because the province of Quebec is the scene of Canada's worst coronavirus outbreak.
There are signs that the danger is abating, but until a few days ago, it was one of the hardest hit places in the world, with Montreal at the centre.
There have been over 44,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and over 3,600 have died in Quebec. Over half of the cases, around 22,000, are in Montreal, as well as two thirds of the deaths in the province.
The daily death toll has slowed down but Montreal alone, at 2,200 deaths, accounts for over a third of Canada’s coronavirus fatalities.
There appear to be two main reasons for Montreal's predicament. Last month, the Montreal Gazette published an expose that revealed the deadly mismanagement and abandonment of elderly people at a nursing home in the city where the virus had spread.
I am reading that it is too soon, that there will probably be another wave and another lockdown
Subsequent revelations showed similarly dire conditions in other nursing homes in Montreal and other cities in Canada.
Deaths in those homes account for a scandalous 80 per cent of all deaths in the country, and there are 126 retirement homes and long-term care facilities with at least one confirmed case of infection by the coronavirus in Montreal.
The percentage is much higher than in Europe, and those conditions affect the elderly, the most vulnerable among us.
There is also a class component to the crisis. Lower income areas are more deeply affected, which echoes the inequalities that have come to the fore in the West because of the pandemic, such as the disproportionate number of deaths among African Americans in the US.
Despite all this, somehow, the death toll is stabilising. Quebec as a province has reopened businesses and daycares, and Montreal is supposed to follow suit next week with the reopening of retail stores, and daycares in the beginning of June.
Social distancing is supposed to be observed in all these situations. Emergency services have not been overwhelmed so far.
Montreal is so eclectic that it is hard to really describe it in a way that broadly captures its essence. But there is an unpretentious joy and embrace of living within it (despite the winter months) that is difficult to capture unless you have experienced it.
The hum of conversation and the giggles of children in the park in the late afternoon in summer, the buzz of the Old Town, an espresso with cannoli in Little Italy, the light show in the Notre Dame cathedral, and the music all around.
The walks in the park, the gardens flowering again in the front yards, the takeout meal from your favourite date night restaurant, the tentative steps that we associate with normal, are seduction incarnate to souls hungry for the evolutionary imperative of social contact.
Is it the right thing to do? I am not an epidemiologist, though what I am reading tells me that it is too soon, that there will probably be another wave and another lockdown.
There are all these conversations happening about the "new normal," a phrase that's already become cliched, about the future of work, about whether we'll ever have offices again, how classes at McGill University and Concordia will resume in the autumn, about handshakes and masks and whether you should worry about delivery packages, if you should order in, and where you can find Lysol wipes, and on and on.
But it is easy to drown out all that for just a moment when you pick up the scent of grass through the haze of hand sanitiser. Because that whiff is a fitful glimpse at the light at the far, far end of the tunnel, and it is a little easier for a moment to have to be so far away from loved ones.
I just hope we take it slow, so we do not have to mourn so many between now and when we get there.
Kareem Shaheen is a former Middle East correspondent based in Canada
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Result
Crystal Palace 0 Manchester City 2
Man City: Jesus (39), David Silva (41)
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
BMW M5 specs
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor
Power: 727hp
Torque: 1,000Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh650,000
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Profile of Foodics
Founders: Ahmad AlZaini and Mosab AlOthmani
Based: Riyadh
Sector: Software
Employees: 150
Amount raised: $8m through seed and Series A - Series B raise ongoing
Funders: Raed Advanced Investment Co, Al-Riyadh Al Walid Investment Co, 500 Falcons, SWM Investment, AlShoaibah SPV, Faith Capital, Technology Investments Co, Savour Holding, Future Resources, Derayah Custody Co.
Know your camel milk:
Flavour: Similar to goat’s milk, although less pungent. Vaguely sweet with a subtle, salty aftertaste.
Texture: Smooth and creamy, with a slightly thinner consistency than cow’s milk.
Use it: In your morning coffee, to add flavour to homemade ice cream and milk-heavy desserts, smoothies, spiced camel-milk hot chocolate.
Goes well with: chocolate and caramel, saffron, cardamom and cloves. Also works well with honey and dates.
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UAE SQUAD
Khalid Essa (Al Ain), Ali Khaseif (Al Jazira), Adel Al Hosani (Sharjah), Mahmoud Khamis (Al Nasr), Yousef Jaber (Shabab Al Ahli Dubai), Khalifa Al Hammadi (Jazira), Salem Rashid (Jazira), Shaheen Abdelrahman (Sharjah), Faris Juma (Al Wahda), Mohammed Shaker (Al Ain), Mohammed Barghash (Wahda), Abdulaziz Haikal (Shabab Al Ahli), Ahmed Barman (Al Ain), Khamis Esmail (Wahda), Khaled Bawazir (Sharjah), Majed Surour (Sharjah), Abdullah Ramadan (Jazira), Mohammed Al Attas (Jazira), Fabio De Lima (Al Wasl), Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain), Khalfan Mubarak (Jazira), Habib Fardan (Nasr), Khalil Ibrahim (Wahda), Ali Mabkhout (Jazira), Ali Saleh (Wasl), Caio (Al Ain), Sebastian Tagliabue (Nasr).
8 traditional Jamaican dishes to try at Kingston 21
- Trench Town Rock: Jamaican-style curry goat served in a pastry basket with a carrot and potato garnish
- Rock Steady Jerk Chicken: chicken marinated for 24 hours and slow-cooked on the grill
- Mento Oxtail: flavoured oxtail stewed for five hours with herbs
- Ackee and salt fish: the national dish of Jamaica makes for a hearty breakfast
- Jamaican porridge: another breakfast favourite, can be made with peanut, cornmeal, banana and plantain
- Jamaican beef patty: a pastry with ground beef filling
- Hellshire Pon di Beach: Fresh fish with pickles
- Out of Many: traditional sweet potato pudding
The biog
Favourite book: Animal Farm by George Orwell
Favourite music: Classical
Hobbies: Reading and writing
THE BIO
Occupation: Specialised chief medical laboratory technologist
Age: 78
Favourite destination: Always Al Ain “Dar Al Zain”
Hobbies: his work - “ the thing which I am most passionate for and which occupied all my time in the morning and evening from 1963 to 2019”
Other hobbies: football
Favorite football club: Al Ain Sports Club
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Company profile
Name: Back to Games and Boardgame Space
Started: Back to Games (2015); Boardgame Space (Mark Azzam became co-founder in 2017)
Founder: Back to Games (Mr Azzam); Boardgame Space (Mr Azzam and Feras Al Bastaki)
Based: Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Industry: Back to Games (retail); Boardgame Space (wholesale and distribution)
Funding: Back to Games: self-funded by Mr Azzam with Dh1.3 million; Mr Azzam invested Dh250,000 in Boardgame Space
Growth: Back to Games: from 300 products in 2015 to 7,000 in 2019; Boardgame Space: from 34 games in 2017 to 3,500 in 2019
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Also on December 7 to 9, the third edition of the Gulf Car Festival (www.gulfcarfestival.com) will take over Dubai Festival City Mall, a new venue for the event. Last year's festival brought together about 900 cars worth more than Dh300 million from across the Emirates and wider Gulf region – and that first figure is set to swell by several hundred this time around, with between 1,000 and 1,200 cars expected. The first day is themed around American muscle; the second centres on supercars, exotics, European cars and classics; and the final day will major in JDM (Japanese domestic market) cars, tuned vehicles and trucks. Individuals and car clubs can register their vehicles, although the festival isn’t all static displays, with stunt drifting, a rev battle, car pulls and a burnout competition.
Veil (Object Lessons)
Rafia Zakaria
Bloomsbury Academic
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sukuk
An Islamic bond structured in a way to generate returns without violating Sharia strictures on prohibition of interest.
SPECS
Engine: 4-litre V8 twin-turbo
Power: 630hp
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: 8-speed Tiptronic automatic
Price: From Dh599,000
On sale: Now
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Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
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