Quarantined in Italy

All our adventures had to quickly come to a stop when the country suddenly shut down. It started when we were finishing off a week long holiday from school. We were supposed to start school back on the following Monday, when we were told schools would be closed for the following week in order to try to contain the coronavirus. A world wide virus that was spreading quickly was now here. We had heard so much about it getting worse and worse in China, but how had it made its way to Italy?

Smart Schooling

My girls didn’t have any materials at home and we were supposed to have “smart schooling”. Luckily, all that was needed was their ipad. In our school the ipad was a mandatory school supply used every day. I was so impressed at how quickly the school bounced into action and started with live class meets just that Tuesday, two days after we found out schools would be closed. It’s like the teachers were prepared for this, but yet they weren’t because we were home the week before for our February half term holiday.

School at home went on for the week without a glitch. Then we were told it would be another week of this. Oh wow! At least it didn’t affect me at all because I wasn’t working anyways. I could only imagine how those working parents were affected. Only essential businesses could remain open. Only those people who worked in those businesses could commute to work. My husband’s job also started working from home that following week. It went on like this until we were told it would continue until the first days of April. So a whole month of smart schooling without being able to go back to school, without seeing their teachers or classmates in person. Parks were closed, public events were cancelled, so at home is where we had to stay.

Chaos in the hospitals

This inconvenience was small in comparison to what the country was going through. Every day you would hear of hundreds of deaths and thousands of newly infected with the virus. Hospitals were at over capacity. Retired doctors had to be called to help. Nurses and doctors started getting infected, some also died. With not enough space and supplies to help the sick, numbers of people dying continued to sky rocket.

No health care system can be prepared for this. There was so little we knew about this virus. We knew it was very contagious and it would easily spread with close contact. There was quickly a shortage on hand sanitizer, masks were nowhere to be seen. We could not buy them anywhere because they were sold out everywhere. We searched on Amazon and found some that were being offered for hundreds of euros for a small bottle. We finally found a two pack of hand sanitizer for a reasonable price and my brother-in-law sent us a pack of heavy duty masks.

Restrictions continued to increase

Everything was shut down. Grocery stores, pharmacies, and essential businesses were the only ones open. We were ordered to stay home and only allowed to walk the dog and go out to do exercise alone. Later that was restricted too. Now we were stuck at home without even being able to go for a walk. Going to the grocery store looked like a scene from a movie. Everyone would wear a mask, a very limited amount of people were allowed inside the grocery store and the pharmacy at a time, and school continued at home.

I loved seeing my girls’ interacting with their classmates from the ipad. Hearing a live class session going on seemed surreal. It was working though, and the girls didn’t complain. They were happy they can stay home, wake up a little later, go to bed later, and stay in their pjs all day if they wanted to. Even though, I didn’t allow them to, I did try to keep some kind of structure around the house, I tried to be a little patient, a little lenient because nothing seemed normal about this situation.

Keeping it together

The thing that really got to me during this situation was how many people started to reach out to us in the beginning, right when things started getting worse and how it reached the news all over the world. Of course our friends and family started to panic. They asked us why were we not heading back to the U.S.? Coincidently we had a trip planned in April to visit the family back home. We had a cruise scheduled that would reunite all of us. We were looking forward to this for months. Cruise t-shirts were bought with our group. We packed a month before our scheduled flight out of Milan.

When things started getting worse, Bergamo became the worst hit area. Smaller towns started shutting down. Flights to and from Milan started getting cancelled. This is when our flight to the U.S. got cancelled and we asked to change it to leaving from Rome. In order to avoid getting stuck in Lombardy, we thought it would be a good idea to head to Rome and stay there so we’d be close to the airport to still make our flight. We booked an airbnb where we’d stay for the entire month of March. It seemed like a great idea.

The morning of the day we were supposed to make the 5 hour drive to Rome came. We thought about it and decided that there were too many “what ifs” that we weren’t sure about. What if we go to Rome and then that airport were to shut down? What if the whole country gets shut down and we still can’t fly out? What if we, being American citizens, would still be allowed to fly, but when we get there, we’d be quarantined when we landed? What if the cruise ends up getting cancelled too?

All our “what ifs” ended up becoming reality. We were so close to leaving, but then we’d be stuck in Rome in a house that wasn’t ours. There is nothing like being home. It’s where you feel the most comfortable. We made the right decision and that would soon become even more evident as the U.S. started getting worse.

We’re in this together

A few weeks into this nightmare, countries all around the world also started dealing with this virus. Same as Italy, deaths and newly infected people started increasing drastically each day. Seeing everything unfold was so frustrating. Especially for our family back home in the U.S. and how the same mistakes had taken place. Why didn’t they learn from Italy’s mistakes? People not taking this seriously, still trying to hold on to their normal life. I understand, as we tried to do the same. Look at us now, we learned the hard way. The more you try to fight it, the more time you will have to stay home. Meanwhile, more deaths and sick people continued to increase.

We told everyone who reached out to us how serious this virus is. They should stay home, avoid public places. Meanwhile, we continued to see people posting pictures on social media. It seemed as if they thought they were on vacation. Little by little, we started to see more restrictions put in place in their areas as people did not obey the rules. Suddenly, we weren’t the only ones in quarantine.

Birthday parades in cars, zoom calls, home schooling, virtual happy hours started to be the norm. Seeing this in a positive way, now our family and friends can relate to what we were going through. We could now include them in zoom calls and try to pass the time together. Every Friday, we started doing virtual happy hours and our girls did the same with their friends, including their American and Italian friends.

A light at the end of the tunnel

It’s been 6 weeks since we’ve been in quarantine. Numbers of newly infected and deaths in Italy started to decrease. The government started to speak about how we would slowly try to open things back up. It will be a slow process, but businesses cannot continue to be closed and we can’t be kept inside forever. This is not sustainable and we will have to learn how to live with the virus until at least there’s a vaccine. Will we ever be “normal” again? What would that look like?

During the first weeks of our quarantine, we were interviewed by a news reporter from North Carolina. He made a story about us and was aired in our hometown of the triangle area. We loved being able to share our story! Check us out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEIbIAMufGw&t=23s

Here is the news clip: https://www.wral.com/cary-family-quarantined-in-italy-try-to-stay-positive-through-coronavirus-outbreak/19015247/

tutto andra‘ bene

“Everything will be ok” is the initiative made by the public schools in Italy to show positivity during such a hard time. Children were encouraged to create a rainbow and write “tutto andra’ bene” and place it on their windows. Here’s the girls’ version:

Stay safe, stay healthy, we will get through this!