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Lockdown living: From a couple meeting for tea across closed border gates to a reimagined earth

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Illustration. Photo by Getty Images
Illustration. Photo by Getty Images

Here, we share three inspiring stories that have emerged out of difficulty.

Love knows no boundaries.

For eighty-five-year-old Inga Rasmussen from Denmark, seeing her beau has taken on a different routine. 

Each day, she walks with a chair in hand, to meet at the closed border crossing at Aventoft with 89-year-old Karsten Tüchsen Hansen from Germany. The two love birds sit on either side of the border barrier to snack on tea and biscuits together. Borders between Germany and Denmark have mostly been closed due to the increasing threat of the coronavirus outbreak. This, however, hasn't deterred their love.

READ MORE: Love at first flight - How a drone and a bubble secured a date for this couple during quarantine

Taking care of healthcare workers

Rose Parsons and her husband, who own an estate agency, are part of the people all around the world who are practicing kindness during this time of difficulty.

The UK woman posted this message on her Facebook page:

"So my husband and I run an estate agency. Our work has near enough dried up due to the coronavirus. We have about 20 studio and 1 bed properties in the Finsbury Park area with a Landlord contact of ours," she writes.

"We both have collectively agreed that we should help our NHS. We are not charging a fee, and the Landlord won't charge rent. Offered for 3 months, perhaps longer if needed. Just to help to get through this time."

READ MORE: WATCH: Spanish doctors dance to Beyoncé's Single Ladies in protective gear at hospital

The earth becomes cleaner

No one could have predicted that the flip side to a global pandemic would be pollution relief. Stories of a cleaner planet are being recorded the world over, and all because we're staying at home to save not only our own lives, but those of others too.  

In both China and Italy, the air is reported to be strikingly clean, with Scientific American reporting a dip in global greenhouse gas emissions. 

Among others, car manufacturer, Volvo Cars, is slashing emissions by 40% and working towards a carbon-neutral global manufacturing network by 2025. 

 "A cleaner earth is a beautiful earth, and I think we as humans are instinctively drawn to this," says Charmagne Mavudzi, Volvo Car South Africa's head of marketing and communications.

"Being witness to how the environment has changed since the world has gone into isolation is a testament that our behaviour can make a difference."

Levels of carbon monoxide were 30-45% lower in the atmosphere in China in February and early March, compared to the same period in 2019, reads a tweet from Nasa Earth.

China and India have undertaken tree planting and agricultural activity that has resulted in NASA recording a greener planet today, than 20 years ago

READ MORE: Coronavirus dating app launch - features video chats, hand-washing prompts and protective gear donation

For South Africans living in the city of Johannesburg, this has resulted in neat taxi ranks, de-clogged gutters, and scrubbed pavements, all thanks to efforts by the local municipality.  

How have you practiced kindness in any way during the time of coronavirus? Tell us about it here.

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