Spanish views from a small town

Another neighbor from our parish died from Covid-19. He was seventy, and both he and his wife got infected when they went on an Imserso trip back in early March.  Imserso is an acronym for Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales (Institute for Elderly and Social Services). It was created in 1978 and is like a frills package for those who need social services provided by the Seguridad Social . They provide all kind of care and administrative issues for elderly and special needs people. The most famous of which are the vacation packages for, mostly, retired people.  Those packages are intended for those who don't have large incomes to be able to travel around Spain, and to bring some custom to touristy areas off-season. Many people take advantage of their offers, and sign up for trips. I have neighbors that go almost every year. But, this year, it was a poison pill for many. The elderly that first got sick here in Galicia, brought the virus from Lloret del Mar and Benidor...

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Okay, it's more of a candlelight that's swiveling around, the wind threatening to blow it out with a barely bigger huff. But it's been lit and it's there, shining with a heart borrowed from the sun. A four stage de-escalation has been presented. Apart from the children that can now go out for an hour, and the adults that will have a daily hour of solitary exercise from Saturday onwards, on the eleventh of May begins Phase One of de-escalation. Phase Zero: The one we're in now. The only thing that will change is that as of Monday, restaurants can open to provide take-out, only. Phase One: As of the eleventh of May, some small stores can open, allowing a reduced number of shoppers according to total area. Bars will be opened, but only the terraces. People will be able to book hotel rooms, but there are no public areas allowed. People can visit friends and families, though not inside their homes, and funerals can be ...

It's being said that this summer, vacations will have to be local. No one knows when borders will be re-opened. No one knows if anyone can actually take a vacation.  What is most likely to happen, is that there will be vigilance at the beaches to keep the number of people down. So many people per X square meters per beach. Someone in Italy came up with plexiglass dividers to keep sunbathers physically apart. They sound pretty expensive and klutzy. Most likely all the concerts and fiestas will be cancelled or postponed. Bars and restaurants will also have limited capacity, once they open.  I assume that if few foreigners come on vacation, this can work out. Even so, unless fewer Spaniards travel within Spain, things might get hectic. Most of the vacationers in our corner are from other parts of Spain. Finding a spot on the beach has been getting difficult, to put it mildly, over the years. If capacity is limited, it's a first come, first in basis. Which means that when I f...

Children under 14 are now allowed one hour outside. There are rules. Only one parent with a maximum of three children for a maximum of one hour. Social distancing must be practiced. Toys can be brought outside, but balls are frowned upon because of all the surfaces they bounce on. Children's playgrounds are still off limits. Depending on the town, its location and its policies, they may be able to play on the beaches, but not swim nor stick feet in the water. The maximum distance allowed from home is one kilometer.  Of course, the first day this is allowed being Sunday, in some cities and towns it looked like the day after Christmas or Epiphany, with all the kids and all their toys out in the streets. Not everyone kept to the rules, and in some cases, adults chose the hour to socialize while their youngsters were running amok in the neighborhood. This first day, the police were merely warning. After that, they'll be writing, and you'll be paying. It sometimes feels li...

Yay! We're going to be let out of our gilded cages! Last night, the Prime Minister came out and said that, if the numbers of infected people keep going down, on May 2nd people can go out for walks and solitary sports. Finally!  I'm not really a sporty person. (I write that after eating a warm croissant my husband brought back from the bakery, along with the Sunday loaf of bread.) I hate bouncing my body back and forth in organized or disorganized sport of any kind. But I do like walking. Long ago, when in my early twenties I got angry at the clothing manufacturers for keeping only ugly clothes in sizes above sixteen, I decided to lose weight by walking. Instead of taking the elevator, I walked. Instead of taking the bus, I walked. I would go downtown on Sundays and walk. I even went on one of my excursions, to Ipswich, on the commuter rail. From there, I walked to Crane beach and back.  Since I've lived here (more than half my life, now), I've gone walking to lose...

I vaguely remember the Jonestown massacre being talked about when I was a little girl. There are images in my head of an airfield and a man with dark sunglasses, a white suit, and a name that sounded like something out of a book, Jim Jones. What I remember most was that my mother wouldn't buy me Kool-Aid after that. That, along with Patty Hearst, were the stories in my childhood that made my parents worry about who I listened to. Those incidents also seemed strange to me. If the people knew they were being told to drink poison, why do it? If Patty knew robbing banks was wrong, why do it? Gradually, I learned about brainwashing, though it still seemed very strange that a person would give up all sense of reality to believe a charlatan. Brainwashing isn't a thing of the seventies. It's alive and well. Today's charlatan is in the White House, and is giving advice during a pandemic in which doctors are still hitting out blindly to cure patients.   Before the end of th...

Yesterday was World Book Day. It was a sad day. Normally, on April 23rd and thereabouts, there would be book fairs in quite a few cities and towns. This year, if you didn't browse online, or the few, popular titles at the local kiosk (they're open to sell newspapers, considered essential), you couldn't pick up a new book. Not that that many people seem to care, not in Spain. Not yet seventy percent of the population reads with regularity. Just over thirty percent never pick up a book. This group alleges that they either, have no time, prefer other entertainment (read "television"), or are not interested in reading in any way, shape, or form. I have a book I bought at the beginning of the quarantine, but it's hard going, probably because it's in Spanish. It's the latest by Dolores Redondo, author of the Baztán trilogy (which was very well translated into English), La Cara Norte del Corazón . It's about a Spanish woman police officer doing a co...

It's been forty days. So, when in the Bible we read about forty days and nights in the desert, this is what it feels like.  Here, we have a saying, "non te quites o sayo ata o corenta de maio." (Don't take off your undershirt until the fortieth of May.) Actually, the sayo was a long undergarment used before the twentieth century, but always in the winter.  There's also forty days between Easter and the Ascension. And forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. Rain fell for forty days and forty nights in Noah's time. And the word quarantine comes from the Italian for forty , quaranta . It came about because during plague times, ships were not allowed to disembark people nor cargo during forty days, just in case they were carrying the plague.  There's an  article from the BBC that describes how Ragusa, along with Venice, were the first cities in Europe to implement quarantines during the Black Death of the fourteenth century. Now, the lazareti , ...

We're told to keep our chin up, that we can get through this together, and not to listen to the doubters and the doomsayers. So, who's sowing the doubts and distrust? I don't know, but I do know to check out whatever comes through chats and Facebook. My husband received a video the other day. It described a man going into the Facebook page of the Ministry of Health and going to a posted video with over forty thousand likes. He then "checks" to see who has liked or reacted to the page, and on the screen one can see just about the entire page with laughing faces. The man points out that all the names are foreign. He goes on to say that the Ministry is creating false profiles to fill their posts with reactions. Fake news. While watching the video, I went to the same page through my Facebook, and found the post. The reaction page, when I opened it, didn't have laughing faces. Rather, it had angry faces and all the names were Spanish. When I clicked on a profil...

I heard yesterday that oil futures fell on the stock market, so that, hypothetically, one could be paid to take delivery of oil in that month. What I don't remember is what month.  I wouldn't mind taking in about ten barrels or so, and being paid for it. My only problem is I don't have a refinery. I understand that it is a problem of supply and demand. Since industry is pretty much suspended, and car and airplane travel have dropped, there's much less demand. Brent oil, which I think is the reference price for Europe (I'm not sure since I don't really follow the stock markets), is at around nineteen euros a barrel. Just a few years ago, it was around a hundred euros. I think the last time I put gas in my car was shortly after the quarantine began. At that moment, a liter of diesel was at €1.09 in our town. I just might go by the gas station to put in a couple of liters this week, just to see the price. Even though demand has gone down, though, the price at t...

My Dearest World,  I hope the receipt of this letter finds you in good health and fine spirits. We are well, and most importantly, in good health. I have recently read a report of an old-fashioned letter a mother has sent her dear daughter, along with ten masks she herself sewed with all her mother's love. I have decided to send you, dear World, a letter in the same style, though without the masks, as the motor on my sewing machine has long given up the ghost through my inattention and lack of love for it. Nor would I have had the opportunity to buy the prodigious amount of cloth necessary, much less the elastic. The mother mentions in her letter that she is wondering when the day of freedom will come to be able to celebrate Baccus. In my humble opinion, many people have already commenced such celebrations, as the stock of wines and harsher spirits in supermarkets have emptied out. To give credit, however, flour has also disappeared from circulation, so I must assume that the...

We live in extraordinarily selfish times, it seems. While humankind is generally selfish (we are animals, after all), our success as a species is based on being unselfish. When we help others, we are really helping ourselves. The current situation is an example. When we stay home to prevent contagion from happening, we are staying free from contagion, as well. Tell that it to the non-brainers holding rallies in some American states.  It seems that some right-wing bolt nuts in Democratic-run states that have lockdowns, consider those lockdowns go against their basic freedoms. They have gathered in close proximity, calling for their states to re-open. Some of them are saying Covid-19 is a hoax, and a way for Democrats to "seize" power. Yet, they are wearing masks and gloves. Why? Is it like when a student studies the night before the exam, yet he also takes a rabbit foot with him to class?  The United States Supreme Court has ruled upon free speech, saying that it can only ...

I have a song that's rolling through my head. It's a  song that talks of how we view money, of hope, and of awaiting the end of all this so we can use that money for the simple things that help make life fun. Of course, it's a jingle, and of course, it's from a commerical for a bank.  The singer, Elena Iturrieta, artistically known as ELE, has just two albums. I've been listening to some of her songs on YouTube, and she's good. She's a singer, songwriter, and pianist, and sings both in English and Spanish. I like it when publicity leads you to discover new things, and to feel curious about something that has nothing to do with what is being publicized. Like the Damm beer commercial last year, highlighting the plight of the Mediterranean Sea. Those commercials don't lead me to buy what is being publicized (the bank in the commercial is just another bank and won't care about your problems), but I admire the creativity employed.  In general, the po...

So, school will end when it's supposed to end, the 21st of June. There will be, however, extra activities in schools during the month of July. They will be voluntary, and supposedly, will involve more games rather than sit-down classes. It doesn't matter. Almost a month of class has been lost and will not be recovered. Almost a month, because a week of the quarantine was Holy Week vacation. But, though students are receiving classwork by email and school websites, it's all review work. Nothing new is being explained or shown. I have only heard of one teacher, in high school, giving a class online with his students. I don't envy the teachers who have to design classwork for September to include two marking periods' work in one. I just got an email today about the José Luís Perales concert we are going to in June. It's been rescheduled. To March 27th, 2021. I realize it's better to reschedule it for much later than the end of August, for example. But. That. ...

Today is cloudy, and the forecast is for showers with heavier rain in the late afternoon, and slightly cooler weather. Apparently, there's a low pressure area near Lisbon that is sending its spit of rain north, towards us. The forecast is supposed to perk up next week, but this being spring, we'll see. There's a lot of discontent among farmers and others in the primary sector. Apparently, aside from not being able to hire cheap labor, they can't sell to the restaurants, which are closed. Who knew eating out was such a large business in Spain? I mean, I knew there are a lot of restaurants, but the immense volume of fresh food in supermarkets made me think that was where the bulk of our farms' food went. Now I understand why some fruits and vegetables in season are imported.  Yet, why are supermarkets still importing produce if local and national farms are struggling to sell theirs? Perhaps they have contracts they can't break, perhaps the imported produce is ...

Our Matrionuxca has gone into the long night. She was a little orange and white cat born in our house fifteen years ago, grandkitten of the first cat we ever had. We found Cleopatra, her grandmother, by the edge of the road coming home from Vilagarcía one night, when we were still engaged. There were cars parked, and people milling around. A car had gone off the road, nobody was hurt. The driver had swerved to avoid hitting a kitten. We found that kitten, who duly bit my husband on the thumb as thanks for the rescue. She came home with us. In her later years, she had Pirracas, who then had Matrionuxca one year. Our daughter gave her the name, which she took from a book she had recently read. From Matrionuxca, (pronounced Matrionushka , with a long u) she got many knicks; Nuxca, Nuxcaya, Catiushka, Nuxkis, Lushca Fushca. From the beginning, she would tell her siblings what to do. Over the years, she took the reins of the cat household. She kept the others in line, particularly Tigre...