And if someone expected that Spain would become an open-air kindergarten overnight (or in a peninsular schoolyard), if someone believed that the streets were going to be dominated by Peppa Pig and Pikachu , that it would sound the squares the "how are you" of the Clowns on TV, and that Elsa and Ana those of 'Frozen' were going to be mayors of their city for a while and the children were going to sing and laugh in the streets ... Well , anyway, no.
On the other hand, Joel (9 years old) and his mother, María José, seem to be more in an operating room than in the Plaza de Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. Because, in addition to his skates, and although she has the classic distracted expression of the father who waits while his stem is deluded on any Sunday ... This is not just any Sunday, and it shows that both are covered up with masks and gloves . "This is weird," says the mother. "Yes, it is strange," repeats the boy.
Around him, about twenty children run, skate, jump, laugh, yes. But without touching. Without crashing. Without sticking, go. The swings, sealed, prevent the virus from using them as an involuntary vehicle. A majority of children wear a mask, as in any Hollywood post-nuclear fantasy, as if Madrid had become a little bit Chernobyl.
Even in the silence: children in the streets, but children scampering with a certain shyness. The city, whose DNA is noise, noise, is still muted by the pandemic. "They can't even pass the buck," says Jesus, who is sitting there with his six-year-old daughter, Barbara, taking refuge on his lap . Yes, there are bicycles, laughter, camber ... But even more scary.
"If parents do not know where we are, children ..."
"We don't even know where we are," says María José, the mother of the beginning. "Yes, for us parents, this is strange and scary, for the children too," he says, as Joel circles the square sliding on his inline skates, and for a few seconds he is again the happy and carefree child that his Role in this very real movie forces him to be.
"The last week it was already climbing the walls. We live in a 70-square-meter apartment in the center, and yes, every day I put the table on one of the two little balconies to give it air, but of course, so long like this ... ". Children from all over Spain have been spent 42 days confined, kidnapped, prisoners of a Covid-19 that still raises more doubts than certainties . "I am sure that these first days of going out, but as soon as a little time passes, we are going to have to confine ourselves again. Because very little is known about the coronavirus."
Because along with the uncertainties of the children are those of the parents, not a few in the case of María José: "I do acupuncture, and these weeks we have been working a lot at a distance." Video conference acupuncture? "No, haha, we advise people: everyone is very nervous, people are very stupid, a lot of natural sedative recipes ... The thing is, I know that in three months I will not have a job. This is going downhill. I think I'm going to do a Nursing assistant module, which is one year only. Then, my husband is a freelance, theater teacher, next door at Cristina Rota's school ... Imagine the one that is coming upon us. .. And you transfer that to the kids, it is inevitable. "
Not far there, on this unique day when it is the children who take the parents for a walk, and not vice versa, Inés, a single mother, talks with a neighbor about her six-year-old daughter, Martina: "We started confinement very Okay, but after two weeks Martina sank a little. She was apathetic, she didn't want to do anything, you told her about her homework and she got angry ... She didn't even want to make video conferences, children need contact, they need children, "says that wanting and not being able to eternally of the parents: as much as we try, and as much as we think that we amuse them, our children with whom they really have a good time are with other children.
"With friends he has lost contact a bit"
"Everything has been a little low, really," continues Inés. "And also, in single-parent families it is harder: you are alone, you eat everything, there is no chance. Martina's teachers, who go to Joaquín Costa and are a very good student, have suddenly disappeared. They don't make video classes , with which she has lost that authority figure, and has neglected her duties. 'Why should I do them, if they don't care,' she has come to tell me . With her friends, she has lost a bit of contact, which has to be real, not because of a screen. Since only she and I were at home, I had to take her to buy. Well, they caught our attention in the supermarket, and the ladies told me how to get the girl out The house. "Why do they get like this, if I'm not sick," the poor woman said to me. Anyway, bad. Today she really wanted to go out, at least. See when we recover some normality. "
The one who didn't even want to go out was, we continued in the Plaza del Reina Sofía in Madrid, Hugo, the nine-year-old son of Fernando, another neighbor. "He is already so comfortable at home, he didn't even feel like going out," says the father . As so often happens with convicts who suddenly regain freedom, or with sailors ashore after months of crossing, Hugo, holding his father's hand and with the happy mask in his mouth, did not want to regain his freedom. It didn't do him much good. "He is already so made to be at home ... And well, then there is something else", explains Fernando: " He is afraid, the children are afraid of the coronavirus ... They have heard us talk so much about him, that they think he is going to to be anywhere . And they are not mistaken. "
Of course not, but it wouldn't be around 1.30 pm at Puerta del Sol, which looked like an empty set. "What a privilege to see this like this," said Fred as his 11-year-old son walked the square, absolutely empty, on his skateboard . "All this is so strange," explained the man, a university professor. "This almost did not even want to go out, he is so happy at home", summed up Fred a feeling that, eye, in a short time can afflict the parents, in a society as individualistic as this: what if then, when he grabs this nightmare, we do not feel like leaving home a lot? "Yes, that can happen," admits Fred.
"Thank God YouTube exists"
At that time, in Sol, usually stuffed with human plushies of Minnie Mouse, Peppa Pig, SpongeBob and others, just the children of Fred and, a little further, those of Ana, a Madrid woman who walks with Isa (six years) and Quique (three). "Well, we have taken a walk around the Plaza de Oriente, now around here ... Anyway, we do what we can, it is all strange . " Yesterday they were making "masks with newspaper." The mother shrugs and huffs: "Thank God YouTube exists!".
And everything like this. "My daughter," says Luis, who lives in Montecarmelo, of Carlota, four years old, "did nothing but ask that where was the coronavirus, if it is on the swings and therefore could not go up." To Rodrigo, who lives in Prosperidad, his son, nine-year-old Max, began to say that he wanted to go home after being away: "He said that without being able to play or see his friends, what for? We gave him a kick to the ball and home. "
Finally, this editor was asked by Clara, six years old, if she could play with her basketball with other children in the Atocha area. The answer logically was no. "You can't pass it on, my love, because you can catch the virus." "But what then?" . That's how bittersweet was, in many cases, the first day of amputated freedom for minors in this absurd and unimaginable crisis of the Covid-19.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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