Dispatches from a witch in Italy
By Shannon Goyette
I'm an American living in Italy. I've been here since 2003, in northern Italy since 2008 when I moved there to live with my partner. We've got a 6 year old son who's in his first year of school. We live in Veneto, which is where the second batch of community outbreaks happened.
So here's how my last couple weeks have gone:
Saturday, Feb. 22: My 6 year old son and middle school teacher partner are off from school until Wednesday, Feb. 26 for Carnevale.
Sometimes we go on a short trip when we have these 5 day weekends, but this year we have no plans. One of our friends got put under quarantine yesterday because he lives in the small village where the local outbreak happened (Vo). He was supposed to go out for dinner with my partner tonight, but obviously has to cancel. The mom of our son's best friend asks if we want to go to a Carnevale celebration near our home, but we find out it's been cancelled due to the virus. We're kind of unsure about whether all the measures they're taking are necessary, but are glad to see the government taking concrete action.
Sunday, Feb. 24: Schools in our region (more or less equivalent to a US state) are now closed through to next Sunday, Mar. 1
Our basic reaction is that it's not such a big deal for us personally. I work from home as a translator and my partner's a teacher at a middle school, so whatever. We were already thinking that it would probably end up being longer, though, because there is literally no point of doing a quarantine for only 10 days, given the incubation time on the virus. Our son is pretty happy that he gets a few days at home to veg about and have more time than usual to play Minecraft.
Sunday, Mar. 1: Schools throughout Italy now closed through to next Sunday, Mar. 8.
I mean, we can still personally handle it, but it's getting slightly more complicated because now my partner has to figure out how to create online lessons and our son is getting a little stir crazy. At least we're able to set up a few playdates with one of his friends from school. His teachers have sent some PDFs to do for homework through WhatsApp, which 80% of the parents are super happy about. The other 20% are like, “It's not my job to teach my kids and I have to work.” (these kids are in their first year of elementary school, so literally still learning basic addition/subtraction and the sounds associated with letters).
Thursday, Mar. 5: Schools throughout Italy now closed through to Sunday, Mar. 15.
I'm not a super introvert but do like to have a few hours to myself every now and then, so I've started taking a very very very long time to fold laundry. My son is going a little nuts and spends lots of time running around, jumping on things, talking loudly, and making strange noises. If you are thinking that is normal 6 year old stuff, imagine that but like 250% more. Life is pretty much normal, but when we do our shopping trip we buy a couple extra bags of pasta and rice, along with things like tuna and tomato sauce.
Saturday, Mar. 8: The draft of an emergency law gets leaked
While we're eating pizza with friends we find out we won't be able to see them again until at least the beginning of April, after they went home to their province, which was going to be declared a “red zone”. They're especially worried because he runs a small factory and it's not entirely clear whether he'll be allowed to go to it, since it's also in a red zone, but a different one from where his house is. A lot of people are pretty mad the law got leaked, because a lot of other people “escaped” from red zones to go to their families in other regions of Italy before the law went into effect the next morning.
Monday, Mar. 10: Announcement made around 10 pm that the entire country is now an “orange zone” and that schools throughout Italy are now closed through to Friday, April. Throughout the country nobody is supposed to travel by car anywhere other than work, the supermarket or the doctor/pharmacy.
It's unclear what people with children who work outside of the home are supposed to do with the kids, but the assumption is they can be taken to whatever sort of childcare you use (here it's almost always grandparents). In any case, since we don't work outside of the home (at least at this point) we have to tell our son he can't see his any of his three Italian grandparents for the next 3 weeks. My partner is starting to worry about how his mom is going to deal with the quarantine. She's high risk because she has lung damage from pneumonia but she's also very extroverted. We'll probably end up asking her to come stay with us for awhile, but we have to figure out whether that's “allowed” under the rules. I'm also kind of worried about my own mom back in the US, because she also has lung issues and sells stuff on Amazon and spends a lot of time at the post office.
Tuesday, Mar. 11: Announcement made around 10 pm that the entire country is a “red zone” and all restaurants/bars/coffee shops etc. are closed to the public but can still deliver if they want. Factories are still open but only if they can guarantee safe distances between workers, and we're now not even supposed to leave the house on foot other than for work, supermarket, doctor. All other non-essential work is to be done from home or not done at all.
Wednesday, Mar. 12: So, we've bought a little extra food and stuff – we've got enough pasta for 20 meals, enough rice for another 20 or so, plus various sauces/tuna/oil that kind of stuff. So far there's no indication of any food shortages or anything, at least in our area, but at least this way we can avoid unnecessary trips to the store, since only a certain number of people are allowed in at a time and the checkout clerks are disinfecting everything after each customer so it's a process. I went today with my son (taking him with me was maybe illegal, it's not real clear) and about 1 in 3 people was wearing a mask, all of them in a completely ineffective way. With the exception of one couple who had three full shopping carts between the two of them, everyone seemed to be doing normal shopping with maybe like a 15% buffer. I've also Amazon'd us some stuff to hopefully keep us semi-entertained, a 500 piece puzzle, some new coloring books and pencils, that kind of stuff. Disney+ is also going to benefit from COVID because it's launching here on the 24th.
I still don't know anybody personally who has COVID. My partner's mom knows two people. But even at this low level of infection, they've had to issue a protocol telling doctors/nurses how to prioritize intensive care beds because there aren't enough. At our very good local city hospital they've already been forced to send people home already who should still be under observation, because there's other sicker people who need the space more. The cardiac ward got shipped off to a smaller hospital to make space for more intensive care beds. It's basically a constant unsettling feeling of everything is more or less normal and everything is completely weird and strange.
I don't have much advice other than making sure you have stuff to keep your kids busy in the house, especially if you live in a smaller apartment. That, and prepare for everything to change pretty much daily in terms of what you can and cannot do. Oh, and learn from my repeated fights— if you and your partner are both “lucky” enough to work from home during a possible quarantine, figure out how you're going to divvy up working time before it gets untenable. Also, I had a flash of inspiration a few weeks back and managed to find hand sanitizer at Sephora when it was sold out literally everywhere else. Not online, but at the physical store. So maybe try there if you need some.
Shannon Goyette is an American translator living in Veneto: hit her up if you have any translation needs. Also she said she’s willing to answer further questions if you want to leave any below in comments.
End credits
I hope you enjoyed this bonus issue of Evil Witches, a newsletter for people who happen to be mothers who have no idea what the hell they’re doing as we face the next few weeks. We’re all in this together. MANY thanks to some homeschool parents who weighed in on Twitter with ideas on how to structure being at home with our kids:
Haha, touché, Shylo.
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If there’s one phrase that keeps running through my head this week that’s positive, it’s “We’re all in this together.”
One witchy thing
Shannon, thanks for this super detailed play by play of how things have unfolded. What online resources have you found most helpful to you and your family during this period? You mentioned Amazon and Disney+. What else? Anything educational or based on physical activities?