April’s fools, aka us // Bare with me this is a long one Volunteers say

Second birthday in lock-down baby! And oh god was this lock-down a whole different experience…

I remember last year I was not doing anything by the time COVID19 hit Spain, so my days in lock-down were spent on the Internet, playing Sims and walking on the top of my building. You cannot imagine how hard it is to get 10 thousand steps walking in circles on top a building. But overall it was a good time given the circumstances.

This time I cannot say the say.

All that could happen, happened. During the first week of lock-down we received the visit of a mouse, which I didn’t get to see and who was the star of the flat for a few days. First couple of traps covered our floor.

For a few days we would regularly check the traps in fear of seeing a little being stuck on them (We still to this day have no plans regarding what to do when that happens, it’s a problem for future us). It was really frustating to ask for help and, if you’re a volunteer reading this I cannot stress this enough: WE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN VIDEOS OF THE MOUSE. But in the panic it didn’t cross our minds. So there we had our landlord and his tendency to undestimate our problem (which are his fault and responsibility) and gaslight us, walking around looking for a mouse that obviously was gone after three girls scream at him about him for 30 minutes.

And that’s only the first drama of lock-down, there’s more to come.

A week or so later, we were hanging in the kitchen as we do when Julia saw an insect on the floor and killed it. We looked at it and well, second guess on our flat A COCKROACH. But she was not alone, as 3 more appeared in the following days (again, cannot stress enough TAKE PICTURES OF THE CORPSES, which we didn’t) so after the 3^rd one we could see how it was not an isolated insect and there were probably more to come so again, asked for help and bought traps. Now we have 4 traps hanging around the flat. Also, fun fact but actually really, really sad fact: Probably spraying them would have worked better but they have decided to hang around or fridge, so if we want to eat which sadly we kind of need to survive, we cannot spray them.

Again, lots of drama and anxiety about being trapped in this flat, take in consideration our only trips are to the supermarket and to run/walk on our own for an hour a day.

And yes, we did follow the lock-down rules (probably the only ones in the whole Trentino area), and yes, we’re kind of proud of ourselves for doing so (no human was endangered by any decision took in our flat during the red zone).

And with that March was coming to an end and we thought nothing else could happen, my birthday was coming and everything seemed as bad as it could get and yet it got worse.

Two day’s before the 1^st of April we hosted another volunteer in our flat for 48 hours in between moving apartments, and without getting into details, it wasn’t the most pleasant experience.

And the March of animals, panics and smart-working (how can working wearing a pyjama be more stressful than working in jeans in an office??) ended, and April came and oh dio were we the fools.

Second birthday in lock-down and lots of WhatsApp messages to read, which is pretty much all I did that day. Bough myself a cake and some snickers which still haven’t arrived and got Happy bday sang by multiple lovely people and pets.

Where there no positives to lock-down? Not many, but I’ll list one so you don’t send the spanish army to rescue me just yet.

We decided that our good behaviour and respect of other’s well being deserved recognition so we planned to order food every Saturday to celebrate a week passing. First week we decided it was indian time and… Following my brand, my food came completely spilled in the bag, some of it was salvageable luckily, we decided to complain to the delivery service and they us my plate’s worth back to be spent in the app. So now I had half a dinner and 11 euros to spend the next week. And the week went by and we decided to buy sushi, my order came to a total of 12’5€, which thanks to the indian disaster was actually 1’5€, as the cheapest person on earth I felt on top of the world and then the delivery guy came and forgot half my food (and Julia’s) so back again to complaining to the app and them giving us 8’5€ back, but we were hungry for sushi and called the restaurant to inform them of the mistake and there was our food being delivered. Which meant that I got my sushi for free, and got money from the transaction. Thankfully the last week of lock-down we ordered kebab and it came perfectly fine and no more complains were made.

Another positive is that we’ve started playing Monopoly and haven’t killed eachother.

Also, I found my favourite book (A book section. Who am I, Sagar?), One Hundred Years of Solitude completely took over my life for a week and had me waiting for the moment to continue reading but also, fearing that it would inevitable end. And not my favourite but a great book experience was listening to the audiobook “Cuando me muera quiero que me toquen cumbia” which had me walking 15 kms one day because I didn’t want to stop listening to it.

I might listen to it again this week because no one can stop me.

And last positive but not least positive, we have discovered that we are great with plants and not awful at baking. My strawberry cake is one for the books, thanks Martha Steward.

I feel so bad for whoever is still reading because I have more to tell. I have never learnt to shut up.

Now, April is here and I am a year older and who would I be if I didn’t make resolutions for myself at 27?

A guy I know from Spain draws comics for a living and he did one which read “He would run away from problems but his real problem that he runs away” and it DESTROYED me. It had me thinking for hours because that’s exactly who I am. I love running from my own problems or fixing other’s people problem to avoid my own or spending hours tweeting about the worlds problems to not face mine and… that probably isn’t the healthiest way to live?

So this month so far I have made the decision of deleting social media apps from my phone and focusing on everything else, also face little by little some of my problems and think about the things that I usually avoid thinking about (mostly fears of mine). I also made the resolution to write more, as I do every month and fail, but well, this is 1236 words so far so maybe this is the month to win, maybe I am not a fool after all.

Growing up is kind of scary, I wish I knew when the feeling of “you’re wasting your life away” will go away. But I will do whatever it is in my hand to not feel like this year was wasted.

Congratulations for reading all of this, it was a total of 1307 words, which as a freelance would be paid for 13’4€, which I am giving your for free because I am that nice.

-Reme Torrico.