By Toño Peña
Spain, right after Italy, has been the European country most hardly affected by Covid-19. We started our lockdown on March 14th and plan to finish it on April 26th. Anyway, Spanish students are not likely to go back to school before May 11, probably later, in small groups and keeping social distance. The classes are bound to start first for 2nd Bachillerato students, who have EBAU, the Spanish University access exam.
Spanish families, and especially children, have proved to be extremely obedient and resilient. They’ve been confined in their own homes (most of them small flats) for more than a month and they could be, presumably, allowed to go out for short walks or outings from April 26th on.
In this unexpected and unprecedented situation, new habits have become commonplace: family cooking, board games, cards, dancing and working out with youtubers… The most inspiring new habit is going out to balconies and windows at 20:00 daily to applaud, cheer and sing along with neighbours to pay a joyful and noisy tribute to nurses, doctors, supermarket employees, garbage workers and all the people keeping Spanish society safe and functional.
