Europe has been under extreme lockdown regulations since the COVID-19 outbreak. In Spain, similar to our own Level 5, no one was allowed to go outside except for essential work or buying groceries and these laws have been very strictly enforced.
‘Spain is all about socialising, sitting outside till late, having fun, making noise,’ writes Lola Culsán in The Guardian. ‘Children are to be seen and heard. For the first six weeks of the lockdown, the only human life I observed on the streets was from scurrying, paranoid, masked adults.’ This sounds all too familiar to South Africans.
After an arduous nearly eight weeks of ‘hard lockdown’, Spain’s residents were finally allowed to go outside for exercise. Residents speaking to Culsán expressed their joy after being outdoors for the first time in a very long time.
‘Lack of exercise affects your mood,’ said Jo Evangelista. ‘It feels like I’ve been sitting with duct tape around me, not able to do anything to lift my mood. I cycled up into the hills this morning. It was amazing. I could smell the herbs and flowers.’
Interestingly, Spain’s approach to easing the lockdown is by allocating different time slots to different age groups to go outside.
Happy campers took to Instagram to celebrate their newfound freedom:
Image: Unsplash
