Unlike in tropical parts of the world, places situated in the Northern hemisphere, have a very solid cultural attachment to weather. In fact, life in these places largely depends on weather conditions. That explains why weather reporting is and has always been an integral part of news, not only in the news media, but all other types of media.
In this part of the earth, Winter, the coldest (roughly from October to February) season, is naturally the most dreaded. During Winter, life is somehow grounded. Life is reduced to school, work and movement from one place to the other for necessary business. Fewer recreational activities happen and dwellers who neither go to school nor work, stay home most of the time. Most activities that happen in Winter, take place indoors.
Even when people would have loved to interact socially, cold weather wouldn’t permit them do so. Perhaps, snow which is Winter’s commonest biproduct, makes life so miserable during this time. “It’s worthless marching in snow just to go and attend an event,” one Columbus, Ohio city dweller told Apex 1 Radio. She questioned rhetorically: “What’s the point in doing that?”
With this, the hot season is the only option to make up for months of inactivity. In a typical African diaspora community mindset, the hot season is the period that covers Spring and Summer. Long before this time, organizers schedule events of all sorts – weddings, ordinary meet-the-friends parties, music concerts, community park walks, barbeques, pool parties, excursions and the list is endless.
Usually, Fridays and Saturdays are the peak days, but in places such as Maryland in the United States, everyday in Summer is a party day. Months earlier, organizers book and pay for event venues and start sending out invitations, everyone, struggling to get the highest number of attendees to their event. By the end of every hot season therefore, an event calendar of the next one is full – the scenario every year.
Spring and Summer of 2020 were not different. Virtually all Saturdays from March to August had been marked for events at an event venue Apex 1 Radio sampled for this report. “My venue had been booked for three weddings since 2018,” the owner of a renowned party hall in the Columbus’ Northside told us. “There is one taking place on June 13, the next on June 27 and another one on August 15,” he revealed further.
The event venue owner explained that had the organizers not come for the hall in 2018, they wouldn’t have been sure to have it at the time they needed it. “The rest of the Saturdays and Fridays for the season are all book, equally,” he told Apex 1 Radio.
Other event venue owners we have talked to, have similar stories.
Now, will these events take place? “It’s the most difficult question to answer,” EN responded. EN, as the young African preferred to be called for identity protection purposes, planned his wedding for April this year. “We are confused – after putting in so much in terms of preparation and getting up one morning to have to face a health crisis that puts everything on a hold, is inexplicable,” he regretted.
“As at now, it’s clear that my wedding cannot take place as planned – it’s shutdown everywhere and when things will return to normal, is still a mystery,” EN said. EN went further: “My fiancée and I feel terrible about this, but what can we do, other than hope things get better and we are able to reschedule.”
Like EN, there are scores of other event Summer event organizers with the same feelings. No one knows exactly when the Coronavirus will be a thing of the past, neither can they conjecture the posture of Summer 2020. Suspense, isn’t it?
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