Spanish Quarantine Day 3: We make Inspirational Signs
We’re still on quarantine here in Andalucia, and they’re taking it pretty seriously. People at the beach on the coast are being given tickets for being out and sunbathing. A woman was fined for being in the park with her daughter. A friend posted on Facebook yesterday that he thought the restrictions weren’t going into affect until Monday, and tried to go for a bike ride, and got yelled at by three people including a police officer. He quickly rode home, shamefaced.
We live out in the countryside, so it’s not as hard, but it’s still weird not having any structure to our days from external sources. There’s no school pickup, no grocery shopping, nothing that gives shape and form to our days. We create the structure ourselves by coming up with a daily schedule, both for our daughter’s school, and for ourselves. School is sending activities to do each day, and the children are all leaving messages for each other on our WhatsApp groups.
Through all of this, I have fallen deeply in love with Spain in a way I never did before.
What I love isn’t just the sense of solidarity that everyone has, but how they still manage to find community in the face of being separated. Spanish people are incredibly social, and tactile. Grown men hug and kiss each other. Teenage guys hug when they see each other on the street. This is a country that loves touch, and they are used to spending long evenings at the cafes on the street, drinking wine as the sun sets.
Now that’s taken away from them, and they are locked up in their apartments in cities, or isolated in the countryside. But they have still found ways to keep in touch and create community. There are regular sing-a-longs where people go out on their balconies to sing to each other across apartment blocks. Children throughout the country are creating signs saying that everything will be okay if we stay in our homes, and hanging them from the windows. And every evening at 8pm there is a national pause to appreciate the doctors, nurses, police, army, and retail workers who are still going to work and keeping things running. You can hear cheering and clapping throughout the cities, and even out here in the countryside we’re part of it.
It’s beautiful to see, and to be a part of.
We got in on the Inspo Sign action by making our own yesterday, and walking to the end of our lane to put it by the street. Our lane is private and leads to just two houses, so I’m fairly certain that was legal for us to do, but I’m not 100% sure, to be honest!
Our daughter’s teacher has set up a WhatsApp group for the children to send projects through every day, so we’ll see how the first day of school at home goes!
