"Leave the city, where everyone went…". There will almost always be a verse of a song that will match a occasion. And this verse of Vassilis Papakonstantinou's song came to my mind, as if I saw its empty streets Corinth. Everyday, at rush hour, they are all gone. Ή rather, almost all. The roads are empty and the passing cars are few. People on the streets and they are few. The city in its time mockery...
Strange feeling. Should I be scared? Should I get melancholy? Panic; However, on a short walk to see what the city is like these days, I did not feel like Σ Will Smith in Legend. Because, the truth is that people are circulating outside. Without supermarket bags, you are supposed to go out for basic necessities, without protection measures. Because yes, most of the people in the world do not wear masks. Few are those who have received the essentials protection measures. And yes, the whole scene, on a daily basis, is reminiscent of early Sunday morning in a suburban town.
Young people sleep in their homes after spending the night and older people walk the streets. Usually wearing their goodies to go to Sunday service. Only now, the elderly who walk - yes because on the empty streets in the era of coronavirus and quarantine, some grandparents insist on going out - they do not wear their goodies. But they are circulating, as if they did not realize the magnitude of the problem. As if they do not calculate the power of the enemy, which he hears in the name… coronavirus.
The "quarantine" away from Athens
And, no, only older people. But also the younger ones. The truth is that our daily lives have changed dramatically from one moment to the next. Abruptly, without leaving us the opportunity to understand what found us. In the countryside, no, it is even more difficult to understand.
Away from the big urban centers, the crowds and the crowded means of transport, in the countryside you have this false impression of "safety". This feeling of open space makes you believe that you are exorcising the coronavirus and any form of virus that threatens you.
And on the other hand, such is the power of habit and the freedom that you always feel in the countryside, that in the era of quarantine it is like asking an eagle to enter the cage! How do you explain to your grandfather that the bench on the beach, where he was sitting with his friends and gazing at the sea, is now a life-threatening habit?
How to explain to the child that he can not go to the playground to meet his friends? "But is it across from the house?" "And they are just the kids in the neighborhood." How do you explain to him that this is now dangerous, without scaring him?
How do you explain to young children that they need to stay home? Probably, in this case the explanations do not take up much space. Why, in the evenings small groups of young children roam the streets of the city. They land on the statue of Pegasus, classic meeting point in Corinth and before the coronavirus a place that was full of life, with young and old enjoying their evening walk there.
The first days of "We stay home"
The first days of "We stay home"When the schools closed and the first strict measures began, very few people understood what was happening. The weather was extremely spring and most of us felt and behaved as if we were on Easter vacation.
The playgrounds were full. Young and old children, moms or grandparents who accompanied them, were all there. The cafes were full of people enjoying their coffee under the sun. Roads full of pedestrians, but also cars.
And on the weekend, everyone on the beach. If you took a walk, you had the impression that it was August XNUMXth. So many people. And if you did say something, the answer you get was, "Exaggeration, it's open space." In the church, too, people. Grandparents were normally there in the stall. Few had taken protective measures.
In the following days, other more stringent measures came from the Government. Cafes, restaurants, clubs, shops and shops were closed. People are beginning to realize that the situation is serious. The playgrounds were empty, as were the beaches. The situation we live in is unprecedented and most people have already understood it. But there are still those who still live in their own world. And it is for them, a Sunday morning in Corinth.
The villages in the coronavirus era
This abrupt change in our daily lives is even more difficult to realize in a village. To process it and from one moment to the next to change your habits. Or rather, to change your nature…. your free nature.
Because even if it is difficult to explain to the children who used to gather in the neighborhood to play, that they can no longer do it. Explain to the child who was out all day, to get inside the house now. Explain to the child who was playing on the ground and that if something fell on him, he would just wipe it on his shirt and then eat it, that now he must constantly disinfect his hands. How now he must not put his hands constantly on his face.
I know it sounds weird, but if you grew up in a village, you know that personal hygiene was limited to a simple hand washing. And then in a bath to clean from the dirt that had reached the head. I know, meticulous hand washing is self-evident and it is not just now with the coronavirus. But that's where a pandemic had to come for all of us - in towns and villages - to know the obvious.
And in the village, the first days of the restriction were strange. We said, from one moment to the next you can not change your daily life. Especially in a village where they know each other, this sense of security is even stronger. What you know even when the neighbor will cough, makes you feel safe, confident, to continue your daily life.
"I will go to the village to communicate because there are few. And I know who my neighbor is, not like the city ", my sister told me last weekend, before the Government make the decision for the churches as well. And I found her thinking perfectly reasonable. This so-called "security" we were talking about? Which, however, is a trap. A trap we are called to avoid now, for the good of us all.
Our daily life has changed, we are called to change too
And if in the city, there are "indomitable" people who do not say to comply and behave immaturely, in the village they complied more easily. The cafes of the village were closed. An unprecedented situation, since no one has ever experienced anything like it.
The cafe should be closed and the men should stay at home at night. To go to the grocery store and while before the coronavirus, you were shopping even returning from the estate with your hands dirty, now they have the antiseptic on the counter. And in the neighborhood, where they used to gather in the mornings in a house for the established coffee, now everyone goes out in the yard and from a distance they talk for a few minutes, just so that the contact is not lost. Just so you don't feel like an eagle in a cage.
Yes, our daily lives have changed dramatically from one moment to the next. But now we are called to change too. And just as everything good or bad happens in your life, it brings you a lesson, so with the coronavirus we must take the one and only lesson, that of individual responsibility.
And most importantly, we should not wait for the virus to knock on the next door to disturb us. The fact that in Corinth there is no confirmed case so far, does not mean that we are the Gaul village, which is not touched by the enemy. And this applies to all cities or areas that the coronavirus has not "hit" today.