Worthy causes abound, I’m happy to say, as we’ve discovered over the past few months.
Not to pick favorites (she said, picking a favorite), but there is a fundraising effort called “masquerAID” underway in Venice, organized by a group of Venetian mask-makers (mascareri) in order to raise funds for the purchase of surgical masks for the Red Cross volunteers. (Full disclosure: One of the organizers is a colleague and friend. But don’t let that sway you.)
Among the many things in its favor, it’s helping (A) health workers and (B) Venetian artisans. (B) is especially valuable, due to the now near-total lack of customers since the virus obliterated tourism.
Here’s the plan:
masquerAID
carnival masks for medical masks
Safeguard the artisanal production of traditional masks by donating medical masks to the Red Cross
MasquerAID – carnival masks for medical masks is a project of a nonprofit association funded by a group of Venetian professionals and friends to offer a contribution to the city of Venice in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
Venice relies almost entirely on tourism and in the ongoing global crisis, when all activities have been in lockdown, many small artisan workshops are facing the threat of permanent closure.
The concept of our initiative is to underwrite a selected group of mask makers by enabling them to continue to ply their trade and overcome the most critical phase of the emergency as tourism has come to a standstill. MasquerAID – carnival masks for medical masks will provide the selected artisans with an opportunity to make income for the next two months. At the same time, proceeds will fund the purchase of medical masks helping the volunteers of the Red Cross engaged in fighting the pandemic on the front line.
A precious exchange using the carnival mask, symbol of lightheartedness, joy and beauty while working towards the greater good of our community: supporting these treasured and unique artisans and at the same time helping the Red Cross.
If you love Venice as we do, and wish to contribute to preserving the most precious gems and the soul of this irreplaceable world heritage site, please give generously and receive as a token symbol of our gratitude a traditional mask that has been made by our local craftsmen.
There are three individual mask designs available according to the size of your donation. All three have been inspired by the original “medico della peste”, the famous mask medical doctors used to wear at the time of the black plague: the long beaks were in fact filled with medical spices as a form of protection from the disease. These three masks will be a symbolic icon we use to spread a positive message worldwide, while at the same time be our symbol of gratitude and appreciation to you for your help.
On the basis of Solidarity and Beauty, please support Venice, support the people who work here and support the recovery from the ongoing state of emergency.
Donate towards medical masks and receive our special Corona Doctor Mask!
DONATIONS LEVELS:
FOLLOWER: For a minimum contribution of 25 € you will receive our special gift of a handmade miniature of the plague doctor mask in leather
FRIEND: For a minimum contribution of 100 € you will receive an exquisite, small, handmade papier maché mask
SUPPORTER: For a minimum contribution of 200 € you will receive a beautifully crafted, life-sized handmade papier maché mask
BENEFACTOR: For donations of 500 € or more, you will receive a beautifully crafted, life-sized, handmade papier maché mask. In addition, your contribution will support and promote the work of all the artisans involved in the project.They will contact you and thank you personally.
* all proceeds go towards the purchase of medical masks and to the production of artisanal masks in equal terms
Even a small donation could help MasquerAID Maschere Per Mascherine reach their fundraising goal. And if you can’t make a donation, it would be great if you could share the fundraiser to help spread the word.
The restaurants lining via Garibaldi are opening up — at least as far as they can, which is summed up in a word: “Takeaway.” I hear that the coronavirus-adaptive procedures at restaurants here are essentially the same in the U.S. these days, but still thought I’d show how the local places, and a bar and a pastry shop, are starting to make do while awaiting the next directives on their future. A hint has already been released that restaurants and hair salons may be allowed to open before June 1, to universal rejoicing.
Here is a look at ViaGaribaldiWorld and environs at the moment, as seen through hungry eyes (those of the customer, as well as the proprietor).
This morning was glorious, as so many mornings have been over the past two months; the shining sun and gleaming water and tranquil atmosphere — perhaps too tranquil, but that’s for another discussion — made our daily dawn walk something lovely.
We started these walks on Monday, March 9, the first morning of lockdown, sensing that we had to keep moving somehow if we were going to be housebound essentially 24 hours a day (legal escape hatch: the supermarket run). Sneaking out under what was then the barely brightening sky, I felt like we were doing something extremely daring.
A few other people were also out, running, or walking purposefully, with or without a dog. We avoided each other, we pretended we didn’t see anyone. Everyone seemed to be operating under the Cone of Silence.
So: At 6:30 AM it’s on with the mask and gloves and out we go. Then nine times over the bridge outside our house (the tenth would be on the return trip). This was Lino’s idea, and it was a good one. Next, we walk up to the end of via Garibaldi, turn left, and walk along the lagoon-front (at 6:50 AM we pass the Giardini vaporetto stop), down to land’s end at Sant’ Elena all the way to the Morosini Naval School.
We get the Gazzettino at the newsstand at the Sant’ Elena vaporetto stop and retrace our steps toward the Giardini dock, which we pass at 7:20. We proceed all the way to the top of via Garibaldi, then home. A stop at the fruit and vegetable boat may be in order (beat the crowds), then home by 7:40. This adds up to 2.8 miles, if anybody cares.
After two months of this, we have come to recognize a number of people. Not that we KNOW them, we just know that at that point there will be the two heavyset women and one heavyset man, evidently relatives or friends (or both), walking a nondescript dog. There’s the man with his black and white English setter and the catapult-thing that throws the ball amazingly far. At the brick bridge we will encounter Barbara, owner of the bar/cafe “Vecia Gina” where we love to sit outside under a big umbrella in the summer, drinking and munching and cooling off.
Sometimes by the bridge by the viale Garibaldi we’ll run into Ennio, whom Lino has known forever and I somewhat less than that — he used to belong to our boat club. There might be Bepi “Stella” out walking his old black dog. And so it’s a mix of people we know and people we think we know by now, though I recognize them more by their clothes than their faces — logical, considering that almost everybody’s masked. Lino sometimes whispers “Who was that?” even when somebody has just said “Ciao, Lino.”
This afternoon there were many more people out strolling than ever before, and clumps of kids of various ages yelling in various ways. Some people clearly were not from around here, but they weren’t foreigners, just Venetians from other parts of the city. The new regulation says that you can go visit relatives (but not unrelated friends), so I suppose these were social visits to random family members.
But we also saw three Carabinieri walking around, two policemen (Polizia di Stato) in the Quintavalle canal on their jet skis, and not long afterward a regular police motorboat pulled up and three officers crossed the bridge and disappeared, evidently in search of someone or thing. We both had the feeling that they want us all to know that it’s not party time yet; we all have been warned in a thousand ways that we must, MUST continue with masks and gloves and distancing. Even the Prime Minister has implored everyone not to act like everything’s fine, because it’s not. He has also repeated that if infections begin to increase, we are all going to be back where we started, only worse. He didn’t actually say that we’d be locked inside our houses, but it didn’t sound good.
Tomorrow people will start to go back to work. We will take our walk, but I think it will be different. It won’t be a secret thing among just us anymore.
There’s something in the air, and it’s not pollen — it’s the sensation of imminent liberation from lockdown, at least for some.
Even as the brain repeats the refrain put out by radio and newspaper and online news that “This is going to be a gradual process, programmed in stages over the entire month of May, subject to immediate revision or revocation if the numbers of infections begin to increase,” the atmosphere is quivering with anticipation.
It’s also quivering with confusion, because unlike two months ago, when all this began, not everybody seems to be on the same proverbial page. Information is coming from the federal government, the regional government, and the city, in the voice of its somewhat overwrought mayor. After eight weeks of only essential businesses being allowed to stay open, the owners and employees of the less-essential businesses have been driven to the edge. In fact, many small business owners are planning various protests for Sunday (in Mestre and elsewhere on the mainland) and in the Piazza San Marco on Monday, May 4.
The restaurant/bar/cafe’ owners are howling to reopen — at the moment, they must wait till June 1 — even though I don’t quite see how, at least in the Historic Center, they are going to begin to recoup their losses when there are no tourists to fill their seats, tables, and cash registers. And even if and when there are tourists, the new regulations require tables to be positioned two meters (6.5 feet) apart; this obviously will slash the number of customers being served. Hair salons are not to allow anyone in the shop without an appointment (no hanging around leafing through magazines), and stylists and clients will have to wear masks and gloves. Disinfecting the premises — chairs, tables, even floor, for all I know — will be a major daily undertaking.
But more on the business situation later.
We are all trying to make sense of what we’re going to be allowed to do beginning on Monday, May 4. Here is what we know so far.
In no particular order, we can: Stroll or run or bicycle farther afield than the previous limit of 200 meters from your house, maintaining at least one meter of space between you and anyone else. No more than two adults, “and children” (number unspecified), are allowed to be out together. In other words, no coming out in herds.
You can visit friends or family without having to prove verifiable necessity — that’s quite a change — but the number of participants must remain small. It doesn’t help much that “family” is now defined as including “congiunti“; literally, it means “joined,” but indicates a second level of relative or relation. Your spouse is your spouse, your “congiunto” could be your boyfriend whom you haven’t seen in at least a month. There was an invigorating, if brief, exchange on the radio two days ago in which the speakers attempted to discern the boundaries of the congiunto: “If he’s your new boyfriend, how long will you need to have been together?” “Could somebody you met a week ago qualify?” “Is there a difference if I go to see him, instead of him coming to see me?” And so on. Madness.
Basically, the central concept remains: Groups are hazardous to everyone in them. Avoid them.
You can train or practice your individual sport, even at your club’s center, but no teams. No congregating.
Parks will be reopened, at the discretion of each town’s respective mayors, so children can get out and play. But no groups!
Residents who have a second home elsewhere in the Veneto (we’re allowed now to travel between towns, but it is still prohibited to cross regional borders) will be permitted to go there to check on its condition, just to make sure that the house isn’t about to collapse or rot away before your eyes. No, you can’t take your spouse and kids and dog; in fact, you can’t even stay overnight. No being clever and turning your little inspection trip into your family’s traditional ox-roast, clambake and Highland Games.
As I try to adjust ever so slightly to a normal view of life and the world, however tentative or experimental, I have become obsessed with the company that advertises on the radio every day at noon. It describes their fabulous kitchen redesign capabilities in the most soothing way (I guess they realize we’re all a little on edge), sprinkled with words like “hope” and “dream” that make it sound as if they are able and ready to make your life — they say “kitchen,” but they obviously mean “life” — so gorgeous and so wonderful that you will not believe you’re even still you.
And every time I hear these extravagant claims I ask myself if there is anyone who has time, or money, or desire, to think about their freaking kitchen right now. Apart from the cost, it would seem to me that after two months of being compelled to cook twice a day — no matter how thrilled you must be to have perfected your sourdough bread or Poulet Paul Gauguin Retour de Tahiti — the last place on earth you want to think about now is the kitchen. If I didn’t have Lino as the cook supreme here, I’d already have turned ours into a pinball arcade.
So are we beginning to scent the breezes of freedom, comfort and joy? Not so fast. Even on the verge of Phase 2, warnings abound, and if infections begin to increase, back we go into lockdown. This has been made abundantly clear.
REVIEW CHAPTER: If you’re not convinced that the risk remains, here is oncologist Dr. Paolo Ascierto speaking to overexcited readers of La Repubblica: “Unfortunately the virus is still circulating, and the levels of infection are identical to those of weeks ago. The numbers have improved only thanks to isolation….it’s clear that every day it’s possible to become infected, above all if you don’t use the mask and don’t maintain social distancing. We’ll be out of the emergency only when we have a vaccine that, however, won’t be here any sooner than a year. We still know very little about the virus. How long will someone who was infected remain immune? We don’t know. The mask doesn’t protect us but the others, so if we all wear it, we’re protected. A concert? Without a vaccine, we’ll watch it from home.”
Here is Dr. Angelo Pan, head of the infectious diseases department of the hospital of Cremona, one of the hardest-hit in the epidemic wave that began in Lombardy on February 21. “This virus is a schifezza (skee-FETS-ah — nastiness, disgustingness, filth) like I’ve never seen and never thought to see,” he told HuffPost (translated by me). “I never call it Covid-19, I call it schifezza…. This isn’t flu we’re facing … We have the sensation that this schifezza triggers new problems. The infection leaves traces that we still have to deal with….” (not only on the lungs, but the heart, liver, kidneys, and brain).
Ranieri Guerra, adjunct director of the WHO, defined it as “a monster.” “He’s right,” Dr. Pan agreed. “It’s a genius of evil, capable of having different faces and causing different problems. Its capacity to ‘put on makeup’ (disguise itself) and adapt itself to its environment makes it the worst we’ve had to deal with in decades. I don’t want this problem to be underestimated elsewhere, because it is still dramatic.”
End of review. Do not say that nobody told you.
On public transport, passengers must use mask and gloves and the maximum number of passengers will be limited to 30 persons on buses and 350 on trains. This rule has already caused excitement in Naples, because when the bus is carrying the maximum permitted, it is required to skip the next stops. But in one case, the driver continued to halt and let more people climb aboard. Other passengers rebelled, yelling at the driver that he isn’t allowed to do this. Astonished commentators could only say “In Naples?”
Limiting the number of passengers will obviously require more buses and vaporettos to be in service. Well, one would assume, unless everyone needs to plan an extra hour for transit in case they have to wait for the next one. (At the moment, the vaporettos run every 20 minutes, as opposed to every 12 minutes for the #1.) We saw a vaporetto pass this morning with about 20 people clustered in the central zone that is the entrance and exit combined. Public transport vehicles are now required to have one door for entering and a different one for exiting. Good luck with that with the vaporettos; I know from experience that there are people who perceive the boarding/disembarkation point as being exactly in front of me. Like on the subway, but somehow worse.
The reckless will undoubtedly continue to push the boundaries. A few weeks ago, a man was stopped at a checkpoint and asked where he was going in his car, and why. “I have to go visit my mother,” was the reply. Who could object to that? Nobody, except that he forgot about that verification process the officers have to conduct. They called the number he would have had to give them, and someone answered: “Who? She’s been dead for a month.”
On we go. A few days ago, a man was promenading along the Fondamenta degli Ormesini in Cannaregio, dressed in snowy-forest camouflage (to conceal yourself in Venice) but without a mask. The vigili (local police) stopped him and conversation ensued, as did a ticket for a 400-euro fine. The man lost his mind, yelling all sorts of abuse at them and repeatedly calling them “Ignorant!” because they fined him for breaking a city ordinance while “People are dying of hunger because they have no work!” There isn’t a discernible link between masks and hunger, but there is a good one between masks and insulting a public official, so in addition to the fine he now has been cited for a penal infraction.
This clip was forwarded to me from a friend via WhatsApp; I don’t know the source, but I think it has been circulating fairly widely.
Meanwhile, over in Milan, a man was driving along till he reached a checkpoint. The Carabiniere on duty asked his reason for being out, and the man replied “I’m a nurse and I’ve just gotten off a 20-hour shift in the hospital.”
The Carabiniere stood back, saluted, and said “Thank you for all that you’re doing.”
It would have been touching except that the man was not a nurse, and drove away giggling. You think that’s dumb? He video’d the whole thing. You think that’s dumb? He put it on his Facebook page. Probably many people saw it, but the most important viewer was a friend with a conscience, who reported the affair to the Carabinieri. See above: Fine and a citation for insulting a public official, which will almost certainly see him in court and, depending on how jauntily the man defends himself, perhaps even in the cooler for a while.
And so we trek onward toward the wonders of Phase 2, armed with four masks offered by the city government. A recorded phone call from the mayor alerted us that they would be on the way, and he took the opportunity to thank us for our cooperation. Two days later the package was in our mailbox. I wonder if a new mask will work the same magic as new shoes. Or kitchen.