By Juliet O’Neill
Masks used to be for children’s play, for Halloween costumes or Mardi Gras parties, for doctors in surgery. In the last few months, masks have become a part of our everyday lives, facial armour against the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
In the heart of the ByWard Market, pedestrians are met by an official sign that they are entering a zone where they should wear a mask. Although the sign is on a street closed to traffic to allow expansion of cafes and shops and sidewalk space, pedestrian congestion often occurs.
Some of us have several reusable and washable masks in different colours and fabrics, purchased as you might a matching scarf or amusing t-shirt. They have quickly become a popular gift to give and to receive.
One of my behind favourites was a gift from a collection made in Egypt at Nagada, and ordered by a friend who knew the company, tucked in a building behind a mango tree, when she lived in Cairo years ago. For Canada Day, I ordered flag masks from Ottawa artist Megan Wilcox.
Masks are sold in many places in the Market. There are handmade ones at Planet Coffee for $22, ones imported from China at Milk for $12, and boxes of 50 disposable paper surgical masks at Brisson Pharmacyfor about $70.
In early March I snagged the paper ones for 39 cents each at Shoppers Drug Mart on Dalhousie Street. Customers were restricted to a maximum of ten each in those early days of COVID-19 precautions. That seems like a long time ago.
In the heritage 55 ByWard Market Square building, Tickled Pink sells safety masks for children and D’Aku Designs sells gorgeous masks or $12, some in matching sets with head wraps sewn with Ghanaian textiles by owner Florence Aku Sevor.
Matching masks and hats by Sue Scott are sold at her accessories boutique Eclection, which has been in the market for 35 years. The owners and staff are all artists and artisans.
The masks are not without controversy, even though science shows that they reduce the spread of the virus that has already infected more than 22 million worldwide and killed more than 787,900 people.
Masks have been mandatory indoors since July 7 by order of Ottawa Public Health. Luckily, many of us need wear one only for the short time we’re in a shop or other building or entering a restaurant.
Shahab Uddin doesn’t like the way it makes him look, but he wears his mask all day at his curry-in-a-hurry café, Shafali Bazaar, in the ByWard Market Square building. “It’s not easy but I have to do it,” he says. His wife Nahid Neagi prefers to wear a shield. She finds masks suffocating and gets headaches.
Their business has plunged, like many other in the Market, mostly due to the lack of tourists. They’ve been in the market building for 22 years and are working awfully hard to keep going.
At the only outdoor garden food stall in the ByWard market that is open daily, owner and manager Serge Cleroux doesn’t wear a mask. “You don’t have to if you’re outside.” His brother Fred Sinden wears one when interacting with customers, though he says he’s not convinced of the need.
The colourful stalls brimming with vibrant vegetables and berries, give little hint of the spiral down. Although he has little competition, Cleroux said business is down by about 60 per cent due to several factors related to the pandemic: little tourism, no public servants shopping on their way to and from work and income decline.
However, he is staying open to maintain his place in the Market for the future. He has been in the market for 30 years and his grandfather sold produce there before him. “If there’s no market for a year, most people don’t come back,” he says.