coronavirus

I’m sitting in two shipping containers converted into a small 30 square meter house. They’re installing drywall in what will be the bathroom. I’d like to be outside, but it’s raining off and on. I’ll use this time to share photos from the last eighteen months in Allariz.

This was one of the first houses for sale we looked at. I’m very happy to report that we didn’t jump into this and spent more time feeling out the area and where we wanted to be.

Our rental in all her glory. Refreshing and cool in the spring and summer, freezing and unbearable in the winter, but better than an apartment in a city for a global pandemic and the ensuing quarantines.

Like the house, the fig tree was a mixed bag. It gets messy and attracts bees.

The fuente of Nanín, according to locals, gives some of the best water in all of Allariz. Indeed, we’d often see people with many glass jugs of water filling up for the water .

I never tired of trying to photograph nature. As is the case, it never comes out how I saw an felt the landscape at the time, but the the colors of this one from December 2019 is special.

What’s left of the castelo de Todea at the strategic top of a hill in O San Salvador, another village close to Nanín.

The Arnoia river from a walking path close to Vilariño do Río. Monforte also has a river running through it, the Cabe.

Then a pandemic came and I started noticing that Allariz gave me a different feeling. Yes, it was small, that hadn’t bothered me. But only heading down for a weekly market trip was a bit surreal. For months, I would walk up the monte and see what Allariz looked like that day from afar.

I started escaping to the monte much more than usual, usually with Alqo, many times with Patricia. I saw the changes in season and the cycle of vegetation on the same worn paths. Further down from the above image, I saw the tail end of a big boar running from us.

I named landmarks and paths to differentiate them, and to recount what I saw to Patricia if she hadn’t come with me. This is Nanín’s Uluru, aptly named Big Rock by me.

Nervous of the longevity of the quarantine and bored of being cooped up inside, we decided to spruce up the ignored small patch of garden in front of our house. Back up the monte to collect sticks and soil, we made a small raised bed where we planted carrots, arugula, strawberries, spinach, and beets.

With the two-person hammock our friends gave us when we left Germany, the small space actually turned out relaxing. As relaxing as the first months of 2020 could be. The better weather helped immensely.

Last Ramadán, en plena pandemia, felt strange and familiar. As a convert, it reminded me of my first year, fasting at home, trying to explain my decisions to my family. Patricia fasted a bit in solidarity and helped provide us with amazing vegan or vegetarian iftars every night.

Patricia kept up the garden, Alqo did his part and mostly watched, not trying to lay down or dig it up.

And I continued my daily after-lunch walks with the pup, admiring what I hadn’t noticed the day before.

After a strange summer of house hunting, a few weekends at the beach house, and a quick trip to Portugal, fall arrived again. At the peak of summer, the monte was too hot and full of bugs to enjoy. The weather cooled, the bugs disappeared, and we were back to exploring.

In October, we found our spot and the rest is history. I’ll miss a few friends in Allariz. They know who they are. But after talking with a friend yesterday, I realize I don’t have bittersweet feelings about leaving. Here near the Val de Lemos, I’m reinvigorated to explore, keep improving my castellano and galego, meet local and foreign residents, and work on skills and habits I’ve been cultivating. So, Allariz, ata logo!

Spain had one of the strictest lockdowns in the world to combat against the coronavirus. After the worst of it had passed, the government instituted a deescalation period of various phases. It seemed hasty, but for a country that never really recovered from the 2008 financial crisis and depends on summer tourism, it was clear regions were looking to return to normal, even if we qualified with it the adjective ‘new’. Now it’s back.

Public health officials from the Xunta of Galicia have closed the coastal region of A Mariña in Lugo, at least until Friday. More than 100 people have tested positive in only a few days

Within the containment zone, people are still free to move around without extraordinary restrictions, but without a good cause, no one enters or leaves A Mariña. Around 70,000 people live in the 14 concellos, municipalities there with undoubtedly many more vacationing for summer.

We knew a second wave would come sooner or later. I haven’t read anything about patient zero for this outbreak. We knew the first in March came from Madrid, which isn’t surprising. Talking with friends and acquaintances here, some of us had wished for summer of Spanish residents remaining in there autonomous communities. These regions are big enough to allow city-dwellers to escape to the countryside (sorry to La Rioja, and the North African enclaves), promote local tourism closer to home, and reduce the points of contact and potential travel of the virus.

This would have angered a lot of people, definitely some of the 80,000 madrigallegos who live and work in the capital, and eagerly await the summer months when they can relax at their beach house or return to their home villages. Not to mention the sons and daughters Galician emigrants who left for Basqueland and Catalonia while they were rapidly industrializing and Galicia was still practically a pre-capitalist society.

But as the husband of a family friend said, “It’s one summer.” We’ll see what the rest of the months brings.

There’s a vegetarian restaurant in our town. We don’t eat out very often and not at all during the pandemic, for obvious reasons. It re-opened a week or so ago and we decided to get a few pizzas as a small reward for completing our dietary detox. I took the van down the street to pick them up and saw an acquaintance at the bar.

While talking to her for a few minutes waiting for my order, the inside of the restaurant began to gradually filling up. Soon, it was almost completely packed. No one was wearing a mask besides me and the workers. Right before I left, the acquaintance saw a couple she knew and introduced me to them. I felt awkward but resolute in not giving dos besos.

After leaving the restaurant, I realized how unready I am to “go back to normal”, to forget any semblance of social distancing or precautionary measures. My quarantine circle has expanded from just our household to one other couple with two children, and another friend. We know they all take it seriously. But this is as big as our circle gets, probably for quite a while.

Luckily, having a van, preferring the outdoors, and not eating out frequently allows to go on vacation without needing to think three steps ahead to prevent contact or crowds, other than the occasional market.

We’ll see what the summer brings.

The Xunta of Galicia, the autonomous community government, will allow inter-provincial travel as the region enters phrase 3 of the deescalation/transition starting Monday (along with 46% of the Spanish population in other communities). Phase 3 will be directed by the autonomous governments rather than the national government of Sanchez, and they will decide when they are ready to transition out of phase 3 to the “new normal”.

Galicia has long petitioned for inter-provincial travel during these phases. I’ve seen some interesting stories about people living next to provincial borders not being able to easily get groceries, as the market is in the other province. In fact O Bloque Nacionalista Galega, the left-wing Galician nationalist party that holds one seat in the Congress of Deputies, has abstained from Sanchez’s state of alarm renewals due to this unrequited request.

Galicia with a population of 2.7 million, currently has a total of 11,172 COVID-19 cases with 609 fatalities. The cases per million is 4,138 and the fatalities per million is 226. Of the 17 autonomous communities and the 2 autonomous Moroccan enclave cities, Galicia falls about in the middle of severity in cases and deaths.

Personally, this means we can cross the río Sil and explore Terra de Lemos, the heart of the Ribeira Sacra, in a few weeks on a first road real van trip of the year. The van life is excellent for maintaining social distance I might add. After that, we plan to head back to Rías Baixas on the coast for a few days of beach before all the madrileños are able to make their post-coronavirus summer holiday exodus from the capital.

While I still love our village and the adjacent town, I’m ready to move around responsibly, hike, take photos of something other than the monte, enjoy the spring and summer weather, and take advantage of all that Galicia has to offer.