The streetlights go out in Villaverde

at

7.58

.

It could have been at

8.00

, more logical, right?

Well no, at 7.58.

Well, it doesn't matter.

The fact is that at that time you no longer need light to get to the station.

It is the first day of restrictions in the neighborhood and that, the station, the

Renfe

, separates the area above the tracks,

the red

(1,121 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) from the area below the tracks,

the white

, little white, yes (647 cases).

Actually, Ayuso has put an official letterhead to what always happened in the neighborhood, because there was a time, what things, where

the rich were those from above the roads and the poor were those below

.

Today is the other way around.

A nuance: the rich and poor are the rich and poor of a neighborhood whose average income per inhabitant is

9,700 euros

(the average of the capital exceeds

15,000

and, for example, in the Salamanca district it is above the

24.000

).

The rich and the poor are the rich and the poor of a neighborhood where

the PSOE won more than 30%

of the votes in the last elections to the Madrid Assembly.

And the rich and the poor are the rich and the poor in a neighborhood with a

23.5% immigrant population

.

To the mess.

It's already 8.15am and the Renfe is still there, swallowing, little by little, travelers without

teleworking

.

They come from above, from the red zone, and from below, from the white zone.

There is not a single policeman.

The

Gran Vía de Villaverde

, which is from Villaverde but has nothing like Gran Vía, and which is where the station is, is the border.

An invisible border.

More than invisible, implausible.

Impossible, wow.

Because the people at the top have parts of their lives below and the people below have parts of their lives above.

To begin with, the two areas share a health center where,

surprise!

there are almost no doctors

.

It is 11.30am and, although there are fewer people on the street, life comes and goes.

First Municipal Police patrol sighted.

They are in the

roundabout "del Media Markt"

, a little beyond the Renfe.

There is the

Metro

station

, surprise too!

it happens with the same frequency as always

.

The Policemen stop a car from time to time.

"To report," says one of the agents.

"

And then there are people who come to ask a lady told us. 'Forgive agent, you know if I

need a pass to go to the hairdresser?'"

.

That lady is older, like a good part of the population of the Los Rosales area.

Yesterday many stayed at home when in doubt.

"It's crazy. I have to take my children to the dentist, do I need a pass for that?" Asks

Montse

, who is not older, but is not clear about it either.

VISIT THE PARENTS

"This way of splitting the neighborhood is unfeasible. I, who live in the area below, without restrictions, have my parents five blocks away, and I have to go see them even if they are in the area that does have them," says

Rafael , which sweeps the sidewalks

.

And like Rafael, almost everyone in the neighborhood.

Fathers, mothers, brothers, children, businesses, shops ... "

But let's see, if the meat I like is Pascual's, why can't I go buy it there?

" Protests Antonia, a Grandma who lives in the red zone but, heck, she likes Pascual's meat (Pascual is a butcher) and she wants Pascual's meat.

Don't worry, Antonia, you can go shopping.

In the afternoon the patrols increase.

In another roundabout, that of the funeral home, in the polygon (because, to all this, San Cristóbal, a very red area, 1,564 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, borders Los Rosales), there are also patrols warning the kids in the parks ... Ayuso said, they are "random and dissuasive."

"They can put in the ones they want, it won't matter. But taking the bus is fine!"

says Thomas.

What do you mean?

Well, because the two neighborhood buses,

123 and 85

, the end of the journey in Legazpi one and in Atocha the other, pass above and below the tracks, and have many stops in both

territories

.

"I can take the bus in Los Rosales and get off in Legazpi, or is it that they are going to stop and check everyone who goes on the bus?", Explains Lorena, and she's right.

The virus has not been able to divide the neighborhood.

Ayuso, and the Police, do not seem better than the virus (in that).

PS

The area with restrictions, the one above the tracks, is called, today, Los Rosales.

But the people of the neighborhood have always known the area without restrictions, the one below, through Los Rosales.

What a ruckus.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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