Brendan (Madrid)
TRALEE man Brendan Boyle has lived in Madrid for the past four years working in PR & Corporate Communications. Brendan captures the atmosphere in the famous Spanish city as it battles COVID-19.
IT’S quite startling how quickly things can change. A State of emergency was declared by President Pedro Sánchez on March 15 and, already, standing in a queue one metre behind and ahead of the next person to enter supermarkets almost feels normal. Only one family member is allowed into many establishments at any one time and most now wear masks and gloves.
We have passed the panic buying stage but supplies still remain low. It’s a jarring sight to enter a supermarket at 10am to find many shelves completely empty. Gran Vía, the most iconic street and heartbeat of one of Europe’s most vibrant cities, remains lifeless. Metros and buses continue to operate, many completely empty.
Life in Madrid is lived in on its streets; in its thousands of bars, cafés and restaurants across the city; in its markets and at its newspaper kiosks. It´s the barman who knows you want your coffee in a glass and your croissant a la plancha. It´s the jovial characters at the fruit and veg market, bearing the signs of too many summers in the scorching heat, who knows that you´ll buy four kilos of oranges this week because you didn’t come last week.
It´s the shouting of orders, that shuddering crashing noise as plates and glasses and spoons are laid across the counter-tops, the hammering of the coffee portafilter, the steam rising.
Madrid has a distinct, unmistakable noise. That noise is its life. And right now, the Spanish capital is desolate; it has been brought to its knees by a virus that originated almost 10,000km away. Madrid is a city with stunning architecture, fantastic food and enough cultural activities to keep people coming back for years. But Madrid without its people, without that noise of the daily grind is a sad place.
The vast majority of people in the urban areas of Spain live in pisos, small apartments, and for many this five-minute window of solidarity is their only interaction with the outside world. As the days and weeks go by it will become tougher for those who have no company, whose social life revolves around the local bar and shops. Families with small kids living in these small spaces also face testing times.
“Never,” says my local butcher Juan when I asked if he had ever seen anything of the likes before. “At least we have taken relatively quick action here. Not like that clown in London.”
The effect of this pandemic on Spain will be utterly crippling. Tourism alone accounts for 12 per cent of overall national GDP and, as the situation looks certain to extend well into May, summer 2020 as a tourist season could very well be completely wiped-out.
Spain was visited by a record 83.7 million tourists in 2019, bringing the country to seven consecutive years of historical highs. This year will put an end to that run.
Spain is a country which lives off the energy of its daily interactions, its fiestas and ferias, even its fútbol, and the next few months will hit many hard, both economically and psychologically. The effects of widespread job losses in the coming weeks will be felt for many years to come.
As seen in China, Italy, Iran and now Spain, this virus is no joke, it’s very real and the only way to combat the spread and to minimise the number of deaths, because there will be many more deaths, is to be proactive, not reactive.
#QuedateEnCasa (Stay home) is the message here on social media and people are taking it very seriously. It’s time for Ireland and the U.K to do the same. Normal life will eventually return to Madrid but right now we have no idea when. It could be anything from a month to three months, or longer.
Stay safe.