And where are we going with the children, with this heat?
BarcelonaWe have been living with this sticky heat for days. That puts us in a bad mood. That makes our children (and teachers, and monitors, and people who work in educational centers) finish the course inside boiling classrooms. The platform has denounced it Classrooms on Fire, and by moving its map of Catalonia you can see high school classrooms that reached 39 degrees. Also a chilling string of classes that have exceeded the legal range, which states that “The temperature of rooms where sedentary work typical of offices or similar is carried out shall be between 17 and 27 degrees”. And the course is already over and it seems we are forgetting about it, but it should not be so.
In the coming weeks, these same classrooms (and playgrounds) will host summer camps for hundreds of children. So that the summer camp from school is a practical resource: it is a familiar space, we find trusted faces there, and very often, it is also the most economical alternative in a July full of expenses and juggling.
Inside classrooms, the air conditioning process is being applied at a pace not proportional to the rise in thermometers. And in the playground... the awnings of many playgrounds continue to be a disgrace. "Fairground marquees with zip ties" is what the families of Institut Escola Arts, in the Sants neighborhood of Barcelona, have found as a solution. Not to mention all the educational centers where the asphalt court continues to be the protagonist, with scorching sun and without marquees or zip ties.
We have come face to face with the heat we have sought, which now surprises and overwhelms us, as if we didn't know the path that has led us here. The heat that makes us arrive at the climatic refuge of work, all sweaty. That makes us gather the children and leave like a rocket for home, because even the soles of our shoes are boiling. This same heat that makes us stay home on a Saturday morning under the ceiling fan, or well entrenched in the dining room, because that's where we are lucky enough to have a brand new air conditioner. The heat that makes going out for a while a feat. That feat you have to do because sometimes you have to leave the house.
Climatic refuges
On Saturday we decided to go to the library, a climatic refuge par excellence. It was closed because the librarians (you can imagine it's a very feminized sector) have been on indefinite strike for weeks. They don't lack reasons: broadly speaking, they are demanding more staff and improvements to the facilities. And let's hope they are heard, because they are a refuge in our daily lives, and not just climatically speaking. So on Fridays and Saturdays it seems we'll continue to be well-fried, and without a library.
We followed the route, and to avoid getting scorched, we decided to play with the kids by walking when we had shade, and to hurry under the beating sun. When there was no tree or balcony to shelter us, we gave ourselves a maximum of 5 seconds to find a space to shelter from the sun again. Large posters, bus stops, ingenuity in searching for shade provided a lot of entertainment... but we must confess that we lost spectacularly, despite running under the beating sun. Because in the city we lack shade, just as we lack spaces to live in during heatwaves.
The child psychopedagogue Gisela Baz was reading precisely about this a few days ago on her Instagram accounta few days ago on her Instagram account. In one of those moments when we needed to go out, and we didn't know where to go, Gisela was wondering where we take our children in the summer. The days when you can't be on the street. In fact, not even on the street or at school.
Very sweaty and exhausted, thinking about all this, I saw the information that is being worked on to incorporate new shaded spaces in the city. Squares, gardens, even schoolyards. Good news, although possibly late and insufficient. The news explained that they will also put up unique shades in various spaces in the city. At Portal de l’Àngel, on the Maritime Promenade, at the Mercat del Born… I would like to know the ratio of citizens who walk through these areas. I have also been excited to see this nomenclature of "unique": I hope they are as unique as the tent and the bridle. Because in the neighborhoods where we live and the schools we inhabit we don't have enough shade. Neither unique nor of any kind.