“Today marks the 16th day I haven’t left my house – except for the one time I went out to take groceries to my grandmother. At first, I thought the quarantine would be a great opportunity to rest and maybe to pick up a new hobby, but online classes have taken pretty much all my time and I am – if not more – just as tired as I was before school was closed.”
“Here in Matehuala, which is the municipality where I live, the rules were established about 15 days ago, although I kept seeing people on the street as if it were a normal day; but for about a the past week, I have seen a decrease in the activity of people, by the closure of some businesses and the cancellation of face-to-face classes in schools.”
“I have never experienced something like this before, but I think that being in quarantine with my family, supporting each other, talking and living together, motivates me to keep going and my state of mind does not decline because I am happy to live with each one of them, since most of the time they work to support our family.”
“Inequalities are coming to light, and historical tensions are resurfacing.
In some ways, this is scary. But it is also certainly an opportunity. Us “quaranteens” are going to be coming of age in a very different world than our parents did, and we will have a lot of choices to make.”
“I remember in early March at my last ever in-person lecture of the year how tense and confused everybody seemed to be. Was school really going to be shut down? Would I be back in a few days? Never would I have expected that months later I’m still unable to see my friends and enjoy the great things the city has to offer…”
“My mother and sister have still been going out and not taking precautions has us spending most of our days it the bedroom to avoid them. The fact that they are still going out annoys me, it upsets me and makes me angry, but most of all, it fills me with anxiety and worries me. I am constantly living in a state of panic and needing to sanitize everything and avoid everyone so keep my baby safe.”
“My already quiet area seems even more languid than usual – nobody really ventures outside but for walks. Everyone’s walking, though – much more than usual. Unfortunately I need to avoid a popular walking path by my house because, although so many people are walking, only a few (if any) are practicing proper social distancing.”
“Yesterday, my county extended the shelter in place order from ending April 7th to ending May 3rd (my school is set to restart on the 4th). So much for my birthday (mid-April). But, honestly, we’re most likely going to be here for much longer after that.”
“Since the beginning of the sheltering in place, I’ve been going out every day (being careful to stay far away from others). At the beginning, I took walks or went on runs, but lately I’ve been playing basketball with my sister.”
“Life turned upside down in a matter of days. What I believed was merely another instance of hysteria affected the people I love. Thousands of people are dying and ever more are actively sick. Coronavirus will change the world forever.”
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA),
Stanford University
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