Mercedes Pescador - Let them all tell you what happened

For 41 days now, my 11-year-old son is getting his virtual lessons at home. They are too long so he says he would prefer to go to school. Besides, he misses being with his friends.

This is my second quarantine. I have an 11-week-old baby who suffers an allergic rhinitis which he has inherited from me, and today I had to take him urgently to the paediatrician for the hexavalent vaccine against rhinitis, I couldn’t go earlier due to the pandemic. However, there’s such a scarcity of vaccines that I had to order privately the ones for rotavirus and pneumococcus, spending 85% of my salary on vaccines, medicines and private consultations (as I don’t want to expose my baby to the virus taking him to a public hospital), although the money can be reinstated. Luckily, I get my full salary during my 112 days maternity leave. I live with my parents, whose business in the municipal market had to close a month ago, so they depend on my salary and some savings. The prices of the basic shopping basket are rising and there’s a shortage of face masks and alcoholic gel.

And furthermore, there is a dispute between the government and the members of congress about the extensions of the quarantine. Only one member of the family can go out to do the shopping, but it gets crowded as many people still don’t believe in the danger of COVID-19.

The government gave an aid of 300 dollars to the majority of people who don’t have a job, and the workers like me who contribute with AFP have asked they should give us back at least 30% of the savings from our pensions. Congressmen have been postponing this matter, but yesterday the minister of Finance and Inland Revenue spoke to explain that our savings didn’t exist anymore because the previous governments had spent them, so the amounts they gave us to date was fictitious.

March 10th 2020

7:50 a. m.

The razor was sliding smoothly on my cheek, I was just about to finish the outline of my beard and then I would go to work, but the day had very different plans for me. While I was walking in the street, the news was travelling fast. People were still making plans, without waiting for what was to come.

When I walked into the small office, the manager was on my seat looking worried. I felt a chill down my spine. After an apology and a distant greeting, I left through the same door I had walked in just ten minutes ago. The government was ordering the closure of operation and, because of my position at work, I wasn’t essential, so they had to give me “holidays” without pay.

In the evening I was looking at the ceiling, thinking of a way to get money. A call on the mobile interrupted my plans. «I’ve been thinking for a while, I don’t feel good, you know? about yesterday’s fight, I don’t think we can make it work. I’m sorry, please take care of yourself». These were the last words from the one who wouldn’t continue to be my girlfriend.

April 27th 2020

12:00 p. m.

I’ve been learning a lot in silence and solitude. We repeat again and again «when this is over», as if we were in prison. We live from dreams and we go to bed with memories: feeling the grass, the wind, dancing until dawn, walking in the city. Me? I learned to let-go of the things that are not possible any longer, and to have patience, to talk to myself and to listen to what I need but don’t want, what is really needed.

I abandoned myself, in the silence.

70 days in lockdown can go a long way. At least, to appreciate twice more the trips on the train, the evenings in the bookshops, the laughs with friends under April’s sun, and that lost spring which we will never get back. Also, to miss a routine which, even though before we thought it was a bit dull at times, has turned out that it was a real privilege. Something which, with the passing of months, seems more and more distant in our memory.

We have got used to be alone and isolated. To wear face masks. To spend hours and hours hooked on apps and video calls so we don’t lose contact with those that used to be our “close circle”. About what is to come after, there’s a lot being said and written, more than enough, maybe. For now, the only thing we know, besides if we are going to be more or less people, is that we are going to live worse. At the same time, we are guessing that many companies, many businesses, specially small and medium sized, will disappear. And that, the same as in the 2008 crisis, finding a job is going to be a high-risk sport not just for one but for more than a hundred thousand.

We’ve also had the chance to see, once more, the incompetence of our governments. Specially those who spend too much time quoting Gramsci or Friedman to cause sensationalism. Maybe in four-years-time it might be harder than expected to reach the sky. It might happen that protesting for the sake of protesting, might not be that useful, and that society gets tired of empty promises, unjustified insults and magic formulas.

Evidently, no-one ever said that everything was always going to be okay. When you dedicate your time to study history, you realised that the times of prosperity and welfare are limited. But also, that human beings, when we set our minds to it, we’re able to do wonderful things. That’s why, when normality arrives, the “new normality”, or whatever name politicians decide to call it, I only hope that all that sacrifice had been useful for something. At least, to value more what brings us together, and to close our ears to senseless threats. Wherever they may come from.

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