In today's program we continue the conversations I had with friends and neighbors during the last week in May, when Madrid was experiencing the first easing of the restrictions on confinement. By then, we were in our eleventh week of lockdown. Recorded as video conferences on the computer, the sound quality is not the best. What we felt, thought and came to appreciate during the confinement has helped us learn what most matters to us.
Cristina, the mother of Aisha and the five year old Nur and wife of a restauranteur, speaks of the importance of nature, our contact with the earth, the elements and the open air. Manuela, a grounded flight attendant, speaks of learning about helping other people and thinking of their needs as a means of creating community well-being. And Abraham, a retired engineer, observes the contradictions in human behavior, individually and as a society. While feeling the advantages of the moratorium on the exploitation of the earth's resources and over-consumption - in the clean air and unpolluted skies, in the quiet streets where instead of traffic we heard birdsong and much more, we nonetheless return back to bad habits and the demands of an economic system based on consumer spending and natural and social exploitation.
