Locked down in Tuscany
New Zealander Tracy Goodall witnesses her hometown in the idyllic Italian region of Tuscany adjust to the new reality of a coronavirus lockdown.
My Italian husband, known to my friends as The Lovely Marcello, has a phrase he loves to trot out every now and then, delivered in his best Kiwi accent (which is, quite frankly, hilarious although extremely short on accuracy).
‘‘Livin’ the dream, mate’’ is his ironic attempt to lighten those moments when I find myself in less-than-ideal situations I never signed up for when I moved to a pictureperfect town on the Tuscan coast and married a gorgeous Italian.
That sentiment has never been so appropriate as now, as we find ourselves in lockdown.
It really is surreal. That is the word I keep falling back on when replying to the messages and phone calls from friends and family in New Zealand and the UK.
Less than 48 hours have passed since we watched the prime minister announced the measures, and the ramifications dawned on us. The rules are ‘‘simple’’. You can move beyond your immediate area for three reasons: Work (if strictly necessary); Health (again, if strictly necessary); To get essential supplies.
But everyone has questions. What is your immediate area? Is it the town or the province you live in? Is it the suburb? What constitutes essential supplies?
The example on the governmental website in answer to the latter question is food, water and a lightbulb because maybe it has just blown and you need to replace it.
How will a nation of
60 million people react to this draconian regime? Especially a nation that is not exactly known for its adherence to rules.
And a nation that in many ways doesn’t feel itself a nation. In New Zealand, we absolutely identify ourselves as Kiwis, whether we’re from Ashburton or Auckland, Cambridge or Carterton (where I grew up).
Here you’re from Tuscany, but you identify yourself as from the province of Lucca, and even more so, you are from Pietrasanta (our town).
It’s a commonly held view that you are only Italian in two situations. The first is when you are abroad. The second is when there is a major international sporting event, most likely the football World Cup or the Olympics.
Otherwise, Italians are famous (and they are the first to admit it) for looking after ‘‘their own backyard’’.
This is also the underlying cause of the bitterness that has manifested itself in the past few days.
When the announcement was leaked that a lockdown was to come into force in Northern Italy, affecting 16 million citizens, many of them fled the Red Zone, heading for areas such as Sicily, Puglia and Versilia on the Tuscan Coast, which just happens to be where we live.
It all went a bit crazy on Facebook with locals denouncing those from the north who were breaching the lockdown because in Versilia they could walk along the beach, go to restaurants. Oh, all the while bringing their virus with them.
Now we are all in the same boat. Usually if you say ‘‘I live in Italy’’ or ‘‘I’m Italian’’, you are seen as extraordinarily lucky, exotic or fabulous.
Now it’s akin to saying you have the plague. With the announcement on Monday night, there is no moving from area to area. So how does the New Normal work in reality?
I work partially from home, and part-time in the office of a design company. The office is now off-limits, with the only people remaining those who are directly involved in production. For me, nothing much changes on the work front.
Yesterday, I popped down to the supermarket and there was a queue as only a handful of customers can enter at any given time and we must always keep at least a distance of one metre between us.
There are lines marked out on the floor to show where you can stand as you wait to get served. At the check-out, the cashier raises an admonishing hand if you come too close.
We’re all getting used to it. I went back today, and queuing outside again, I sensed someone joining the queue behind me. Involuntarily I have her a sharp ‘‘back off – 1 metre!’’ look before I even realised I was doing so.
Once I actually entered, it was like a coy dance any time I encountered another person in the aisle. There were no more than two people per aisle, but it has already become a reflex action to stop in your tracks if someone gets too close to you.
Last Sunday, the owner of the gym I go to posted a message on our WhatsApp group that only eight people could attend any aerobics class as this was the only way to ensure the distance of one metre was respected.
I quickly booked into classes for the next week, but within 24 hours, that was rendered obsolete with the governmental decree that closed cinemas, gyms and any activities where groups could gather.
There are really stupid things I go to do before I realise I can’t. An inane example is that we have just finished renovating our spare room and the cushion covers I brought home from New Zealand are an irregular size in Italy and I haven’t been able to find inners for them.
I was all set today to whizz to the next town to a shop that may stock them, when I realised that I’m not allowed. If I were do so, and the police stopped me, I could be fined up to €262 or spend a brief spell in prison.
There are all manner of forums with comments, questions and opinions. Can I go for a run? Am I allowed to visit the cemetery? Can I go to a supermarket that is not in my town, but is much cheaper?
When the mayor responds to such a question saying ‘‘You can only move out of your immediate vicinity for three reasons . . .’’ inevitably there is a flurry of
Facebook messages such as the following:
‘‘But Esselunga supermarket is much cheaper so I always shop there’’.
‘‘But near where you live there is a Eurospin supermarket and they are cheaper’’.
‘‘No, that’s not true. Yoghurt is 20 cents cheaper at Esselunga’’.
‘‘But you will save petrol by going to Eurospin’’.
And so it goes on. People are in crisis. Italy is not a well-off country to start with, salaries are extremely low. This is just devastating for the country.
There are also some great anecdotes. Yesterday, near here, the police stopped a car and examined the driver’s ID, which showed that they were from the town of La Spezia.
When they were asked the reason for being 40km outside their zone, the answer was ‘‘I’ve come here to buy a birthday cake. There’s a patisserie here which makes really great cakes’’. Probably not quite as essential as bread, pasta or a lightbulb.
On the subject of pasta, in certain supermarkets there has been a rush on dry goods (and, of course, toilet paper).
It has become patently clear that there is a particular type of
If you so much as cough there is a spontaneous symphony of alarmed, accusing glances in your direction.
pasta on the Z-list. Spaghetti, linguine, bucatini, fusilli, fettuccine, penne rigate have all flown off the shelves. Left in shamed isolation are boxes of penne lisce or smooth penne. As my friend Caterina explained, they just don’t quite cut the mustard.
Heaven forbid if you are feeling under the weather. If you so much as cough, there is a spontaneous symphony of alarmed, accusing glances in your direction.
You can’t go to the doctors if you exhibit flu-like symptoms, so cue everyone holding their breath and doing their utmost to suppress that tickle in the throat at the medical centre and shake their head to the question ‘‘Do you have a cough, temperature or runny nose?’’.
The Lovely Marcello’s parents, Benito and Rosa, live in a town 12km from us. Both in their 80s, they fall into the highrisk category. Marcello has had bronchitis so has kept his distance from them for four weeks and his mother is, naturally, fretting. Now that he is back to almost full health, he can’t visit them, as the rules forbid that.
We are all glued to the news. What’s happening? What are the latest numbers? It’s almost compulsive viewing.
Two weeks ago, the statistics were released every few minutes. I remember February 24, checking updates every hour.
One death, two deaths, five deaths reported. Now the figures are shared once a day. We’re currently sitting at more than 800 deaths. As I write this, the prime minister has just announced new measures.
Bars and restaurants must now remain closed. Any business that is not essential to everyday life, such as a pharmacy or supermarket, is closed. There goes my plan for painting the carport in this period of abundant free time with nowhere to go.
Note to self: always make sure you have undercoat in the shed in case every hardware store in the country has to close for three weeks.
After Wednesday’s announcement I was reading the online newspaper, which set out the new rules that have come into force as at time of writing.
Dressed in my running gear, the plan was to head outside for some exercise. I was looking down the list, noting that it’s now forbidden to go for a walk, unless you have a dog, in which case you can take him or her for a walk, but only for a short time, and only close to your home (already there’s plenty of room for interpretation there) when I saw the question ‘‘Can I do outdoor exercise?’’ The answer: ‘‘Outdoor exercise is forbidden’’.
OK, I accept that my trip to London next week to celebrate my friend’s 50th is a no-go, I’ve realised that our trip to Sardinia next month for the America’s Cup World Series is not going to happen and I’m resigned to having to wait to paint the carport and get my cushion inners. But not going for a run?
I rang The Lovely Marcello in a high state of indignation and he directed me to the bible, aka the governmental website, which contained nothing about this. I checked the local council website, and nothing there either.
Armed with my ID and the governmental page on my phone as my defence should I be stopped by an official, I ran out of the house, determined to get my fitness in but, nevertheless, wondering if I was breaking the rules.
When I got home, after an hour running deserted streets and a completely empty pine forest, the original site had been updated to confirm that running was OK, obviously as long as you kept one metre from anyone you encountered. Phew, I haven’t breached the lockdown.
There is still confusion, that’s clear. There is also intolerance towards any person or organisation not showing sensitivity.
A couple of hours ago, I came across a post on Facebook from Radio Maria, a radio station with the strapline ‘‘A Christian voice’’, asking for donations to help keep the radio station going in these difficult times.
I didn’t quite have the time to go through all 15,000 comments but let’s just say, I don’t rate their chances of raking in the cash.
Some of the more amusing comments included: ‘‘So, the Madonna hasn’t yet got around to helping you?’’, ‘‘Worse than the IRD’’ and the reassuring advice ‘‘Don’t worry, I’m praying for you’’.
There is almost no movement in the streets. Our beautiful main square, which has six cafes in it and is the heart of our town, is eerily silent.
The sun is shining here in Tuscany and in these first 72 hours the general atmosphere among the few people you encounter is a sense of disbelief tempered with ‘‘we just have to get on and put up with it’’.
At the moment, maybe it’s a novelty. It’s going to be interesting to see how that changes over the next 20-odd days. But I am noticing a sense of stoicism and solidarity that I maybe haven’t seen before.
The dawning of the fact that we’re all in it together and that now is the time for sticking to the rules.
One final comment. Among the FAQ document provided by the government is ‘‘My girlfriend lives in Rome, and I’m in Milan. Can I travel to Rome to see her?’’
The response: ‘‘L’amore, in questo periodo, deve lasciare il passo al rispetto delle regole. In this moment, love must give way to respecting the rules’’. Even in Italy.