In Spain, 10 April

In Spain the coronavirus has struck hard, to this day, we are in the country with the highest ratio of population infected. It all happened so fast, we started listening about a new virus in china, and then it affected badly in Italy and few days later schools were closing and we had to stay at home.

Now we are starting the 4th week of confinement, and we’ll have at least 3 more to come. We cannot go out except for buying food or medicines and just one person alone. I work for the railway, that it’s been classified as an essential service, so I have work, maybe harder than usually in managing the continuously changing scenarios.  Some colleagues are not that lucky and need to be working out.

I have two children, and we are struggling to do some home schooling and keep routines, but it’s hard to combine it with working from home. Schools are trying to adapt fast to attend the new needs and work with the children online. We are trying not to consume too much news, since right now they are too discouraging and we are worried about how is this going to affect to the economy, is special to the small businesses.

But in all crisis opportunities emerge, I hope some of them to stay. We are rearranging priorities. We are getting closer as a family and we are getting to know better the neighbors, even if we have to talk shouting loud from the balconies. We are exploring all the options technology offers, and even young children and old people are getting used to chat rooms and video calls. We are also demonstrating that working from home is possible and efficient and that we can manage more flexible ways of working so we can balance better work and family life.