Riccardo – Rimini (Italy) – 12/04/2020 – unemployed software engineer
Hi Caroline,
I got your pdf with instructions from Sebastian and decide to accept your invite in the hope it’ll be useful, as I think my experience might be different from most. Please forgive typos and a form which will not be very elegant: I’m typing quickly and will write what comes to my mind in a sort of stream of consciousness. Feel free to reach out if I can help you further or you would like more details.
Currently I am quarantined in the house where I grew up. It’s a fairly big house in the countryside and one of the few remaining where more families live merged together. At the moment 9 people are living here, with a 10th missing as she is stuck in Bologna since the quarantine.
Today is Easter, personally I don’t care but it still is slightly a special day, even if all days seem to be the same. Not much happened. Personally, after I woke up, I had a chat with my cousin, worked a couple of hours my room on a personal project, and head over to the kitchen for lunch. Being Easter mum and aunt decided to dress nicer and grandma prepared an even larger meal the usual, of course with homemade pasta. Because we run out of a particular type of cheese normally used to fill that type pasta, she had to use a different one which apparently fits even better, so now we have an improved recipe. A good family friend is a priest, so we also had a piece of vide-mass to watch before lunch.
After lunch I went back to coding, then Netflix, and lost track of the others. Likely we’ll play table tennis later and cards after dinner as it’s becoming a sort of routine.
Personally I feel fine, but have noticed to be more nervous than usual and my sleep schedule is a bit unusual. Everyone else seems on a similar boat, sometimes I hear taking about being bored or pessimist. I am surprised at how well my parents and uncles are handling not being allowed to work, and they never really have been without work for more than a week straight (and yeas, the house is much cleaner than usual!). My grandma and aunt are quite worried about my cousin being suck in Bologna alone since a month (she seems fine, but not enjoying being by herself anymore). We are all aware to be quite lucky since we have company and a little garden to walk in circles into. As nearly always this year, outside it’s sunny and warm, and we are enjoying the best Easter weather in at least 10 years… pity we can’t go to the beach but I do appreciate the irony of it!
Overall for me it’s been easy, as I already planned to lock myself at home to study these moths, but not being able to go to gym and sitting most of the day is taking a toll in terms of back pain even though I managed to keep it under control so far. The hardest part initially has been to read all the retarded people on social media become self-taught experts and spreading fake news (this includes some of our worst politicians), but I’m getting the ang of that too, mostly spending less time on social media).
At home it’s strange to see everyone actually being at home at the same time, and my parents walking in circle around the house (to keep moving a little), after we were forbidden to even take a walk by the river nearby. We leave the house as little as possible and take good care of cleaning things from outside, well aware that with 9 people, 5 of which over 60, if anyone brings home the virus risks are very high. As for me I also considered working as a volunteer to help, but never did because of that (or because I’m lazy and use that as an excuse, cannot be 100% sure, but I’d say I’m more worried bout bringing in the virus, as having an excuse to go out wouldn’t be that bad!). Another thing I noticed is having become near obsessive disinfecting anything coming from outside, even though I’ve never been particularly keen on cleaning, or caring about it, but this time it seems there is a rational reason to keep very clean, rather than just please a need for cleanliness which I think served us much better in different times, and which I used to find annoying (sorry, going off topic…)
Overall I think me and people in my circle have all been quite lucky so far, and don’t know personally anyone who got badly affected by the virus, even if Rimini is one of the worst affected cities… of course economy will be a mess and some people in here are going crazy about missing “the season” (intended as season of tourism), but I am optimistic and honestly I think that if a modern rich country can’t survive few months of closing of non-essential business, the problem is dumbness (tragedy of the commons?), and maybe it’s time to rewrite how the economy works. Normally wars are followed by an economic boom, I hope in this case will be the same, and I also hope in this somehow being a wake-up call (although I’m not too optimist about this).
Well, not sure what else to write, and quite sure I went off topic enough… best of luck with your work!!
Riccardo