It was a bright and cold Saturday in the month of March, when the carillon of the Town hall It was nine in the morning, I was going to the Post Office to send a letter. At two in the afternoon the screens of all the television channels announced the state of alarm. They confined us to our homes. This beginning is an adaptation of the text by George Orwell who, in his dystopian novel 1984, begins it with these words: "It was a bright and
cold April day, and the clock struck one in the afternoon. "
This day marks one year from the day the state of alarm was declared and we were confined. A year has passed and the issue has not been resolved. The virus is present and does not disappear and also reproduces giving rise to other strains. But in this time we have continued to live and some or many have died. I think we all have close people who have fallen. But this article is not for a plaintive action. It is to verify a fact.
The three illustrations by my friend Santiago Sanchis Ibor, professor of Fine Arts, that accompany this text show the attempt to crush the covid-19 and the final solution that comes from the vaccine, where the cow is the one that attacks the virus and Since everyone has their little heart, Covid-19 also congratulates its mother (it was said that she came from the world of bats) on Mother's Day.
Between 1947 and 1948 George Orwell wrote 1984. In 2020 a part of what Orwell advocated for 1984 has been fulfilled. Big brother watches over us. I give you some clues about these vigilances that happened to me at this time. As we could not see the grandchildren, in the summer, my wife and I went to see them in a residential area in Calp. My son had prepared my mobile by putting our coordinates and his so that the GPS would work.
Well, there was a moment when I put the mobile into operation and from that moment a lady began to give me instructions. "Within 200 meters there is a roundabout and turn left at the first exit"After a while he would speak again and say: "Go straight for 500 meters"; All the way the lady was giving us accurate instructions. I would look through the windshield glass to see if I could see the lady who was watching over me so I wouldn't get lost. In the afternoon I did not put the coordinates to return to Jávea and the lady I think she went crazy, since she said: "Within 200 meters is the Camino del Juez to enter Benissa" but I ignored him because I already knew the way back. Then added "At the next roundabout turn right…." Every time he pointed out a path I passed by. That congratulated me since I saw that he could not watch me as in the morning.
With this pandemic, they want us to put applications on our mobiles (I don't know how to put them) to know where we have been, what our movements have been, with whom we have contacts to know if they fall ill when we can be positive. By mobile they are controlling us. Bank cards also give news about our economic movements. Buying online, which is very good to say in English, gives information about what we buy and what we spend. The trackers (a new profession for the new normality) have discovered infidelities in some cases, since the unfaithful person has been infected with another who was also unfaithful.
Big Brother is watching us. We send photos of where we are and that is captured by the Big Brother's Eye and even a stranger finds out and can assault our cabin. We tell friends that we are eating a paella in such a place with the photo of the exuberant paella and the world finds out because someone uploads it to Facebook if who
receives them.
This year we have not been able to see our children and grandchildren as many times as we wanted. We only had the balcony to go out with pans or with applause or the door of the house if you live on the ground floor but without going over the lintel. We have seen more television and more movies than ever, since we could not leave the house. We had to exercise in the corridors and look for alternatives for the passage of time. Many hobby and board game publications have been purchased. Games on mobile phones have been a hobby that will leave sequels on the fingers that have to walk through the constricted keyboard of the mobile.
Someone says that at the end of the XNUMXst century the thumb will be more developed and the fingers that are used more to write on the mobile more agility. In this, people 'alone' or single have it more difficult, since they lack the possibility of communicating, although for that they have the "lonely" of the card game.
The masks have made us almost unrecognizable and they will surely leave their mark on our faces. When I meet someone I ask who are you? and immediately the mask is lowered to show me his half covered face.
I remember the mutiny in Esquilache, who had the long capes that could cloak the person cut off and the wide-brimmed hats replaced by tricorns to be able to recognize people, especially at night. Today the masks make us unrecognizable even if the night is forbidden by curfews.
But in this time we have met Filomena, with its climatic ravings and even the sand rain of the Sahara has arrived, teleworking has become fashionable, the moments of meeting children and grandchildren and they with us in video calls at a specific time with the meeting of all in the small little screen. Telephone calls have increased in duration (there is a need to speak and be heard) and also the fatigue of waiting because the other does not answer and is talking.
We have learned to make prior appointments for anything: to go to the bank and not wait outside, to go to the hairdresser, to go to the nearby store, which is closed on many occasions if not essential. We have learned to discern between essential jobs and those that are not. We have seen many incongruities such as that the shoe store cannot be open but in the shopping centers they do sell shoes. Limitations due to the capacity of
the shops, even the beaches with separations between the non-cohabitants, in the bars and restaurants and limitations on the number of diners and the number of people gathered in groups.
Education will be an element that will have an extraordinary impact on the future of many who are now of studying age. The non-face-to-face classes (at all levels) and online as well as the exams and assignments and the almost approved general without having given the complete subjects, will take its toll on the next generations. When there is
Superfluous expenses in the administration motivated, for example by the excess of ministries and advisers, for example, the needs of education and health and scientific research that prepare us to overcome deficits are not met. It is invested in Universities to train people whose training will then be used by other countries that have not spent their economies on their preparation, taking advantage of our country's investment. The brain drain is an example. They are trained but not given work for which they have been trained or are undervalued.
But the dependence on the mobile phone and its screen will also take its toll, which can lead to ocular deterioration due to its brightness due to its abuse as well as hearing loss due to the generalization of those white wireless headphones that are placed on the ears to listen to songs, music and the conversation we talk to and that the increased and lasting decibels near the eardrums hurt them.
We have seen the solidarity of many people: firefighters, nurses, doctors, policemen ... who have shown solidarity despite not having adequate protection.
In Xàbia, our friend Rafael AndariasHe has been one of those people who now I think we all have an example in him and he has remained a friend of all the xabieros, having been aware of their pain, suffering, and desire to improve. With his wife they have shown bravery and desire to wear themselves out for others, just by her example.
ICUs are another element that has been uncovered in our lives and formed part of the new vocabulary that this situation has produced. Other words that have sounded a lot in our lives are ERTE and PCRs. Other concepts are those of social or safety distance when I think it should be called physical distance, since it refers to the distance between two natural persons and the social one includes avoiding mass meetings.
The quarantine that revives medieval times. We have learned to give each other virtual hugs and wash our hands. Use hydroalcoholic gels. And mathematics has been good for us to understand the curves when they tell us that the curve is flattened or exponential growth.
From Culture the program was carried out Xàbia from Home where bursts of culture were shown so that this pandemic time would serve a purpose and not remain in an empty time. But I know that all areas of the City Council have been in favor of surpassing this time and even our mayor, José Chulvi, has been 'teaching' us when things got out of hand, and remembering that health is important and that extreme precautions are necessary and that the abandonment or negligence of a few affects all, appealing to personal responsibility.
We have taken note of our fragility and vulnerability to the virus. The man has become arrogant and this has been a 'slap' for us to realize. Humanity has felt arrogant until receiving the ax to this situation. We believe that we can do everything with science, but it is not like that. A dilemma has been revealed: health versus economy. And even the value of life has been questioned when it comes into conflict in the
attention to the person discrimination based on age or ability to get out of the situation. But the economy, the unemployment and the closures have taken us from the postwar years. Will we recover what has been lost?
We learned to prepare for the new normal. Are we already in that new normal? How is the new normal and what asks the human being to adjust to it. They are unknowns that remain within us and that we do not know how to deal with. In this time in my case I have worked and tried to be active. I wrote a book titled The Temps de la renda, where, based on personal experiences in Xàbia in the 50s of the twentieth century, and with the collaboration of 33 friends, it has come to light although due to the confinement situation it has not yet been distributed.
I have continued working on various things, taking advantage of this time that has prevented us from traveling, seeing family, seeing
friends and go out for recreation, although every day we go for a walk so as not to bloat our muscles. With Amparo, my wife, we have spent this time in the best way, resisting and helping the other to overcome each day and each moment in the best way and since we were alone, without the presence of the children and grandchildren, we have tried to
Virtuality and video calls partly replaced that lack of closeness, but that moment filled our hearts. We have read and rested, listened to music and talked with friends. Also the meetings in the garden in front of the house with the children and grandchildren have helped us to cope with this situation.
In this time, having children and grandchildren has been a substantial and important element. One morning they gave us a morning surprise when we received a breakfast for two with hot coffee and several meats that made our mouths water when we tasted them. It came in a package with a tray whose contents invited you to taste and savor.
At another empty time this year we received a box of selected fruit including a papaya, the fruit that prolongs life, and adding select deli products. Also a splendid bouquet of flowers on Mother's Day and some plants and other things that we have valued very positively, although we will also say that the children and grandchildren have had their positive tests for covid-19 that has greatly concerned us, but having suffered them, it seems that the symptoms have been mild. The grandchildren have enriched us with their drawings that they sent us via mobile phone or via email. Today I have a good collection of them.
It remains for me to name the role of the digital press, which in these times has kept us informed in the absence of the gatherings in the queue of the store or in the market, to know what is happening in the town. This digital press has fulfilled and continues to fulfill its role and awaits us first thing every day. Thank you friends for your presence in our lives through mobile phones.
The 1918 epidemic of which the Benissero Joan Josep Cardona Ivars published a publication in 1973 with the title The 1918 flu epidemic in Benisa and Shire and that he has dedicated me in a any blank - that of 2020 - studied its presence in the region; that epidemic passed and now we hope that this epidemic produced by covid-19 will also pass. We hope to be normal, in the old and not in the new, although the consequences of this confinement will have to be elucidated in the best way.
I want the normality of before !.
I encourage any reader to do a job on the covid-19 pandemic collecting information and testimonies of how it has happened in Xàbia. It can even be a subject for a Master's thesis and I also encourage that in the Municipal file All the documents that give rise to this moment are collected: drawings of schoolchildren, diaries of the pandemic, interviews with people who have passed it, with health workers and policemen ... with hoteliers and also news from the press; photographs… Everything that can be used for an investigation and that can be kept in the Municipal Archive.
I want to end with a few words from Adela Cortina: “Hopefully a mature citizenry, a vigorous civil society, is capable of thinking and loving for itself, without allowing itself to be infected by partisan struggles, without feeding on arguments, aware that it is in crisis… to respond with human height from the construction of a Inclusive "we", reluctant to polarization ... because we care about each other ".
