March 30, 2020 • 37 mins
While we all stay inside, each one of us is living our own story. Many of us are coping with the painful realities of a society in isolation. Jobs lost. Weddings canceled. Loved ones sick, or worse. We are confronting a new reality, and an uncertain future. First Contact host Laurie Segall has been in quarantine for weeks, and she’s been thinking a lot about community. Human connection. And then she had an idea: What if we cold-called strangers in quarantine, and just listened to what they had to say? About life, isolation, their hopes, and fears? Here’s what happened...
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
First Contact with Lori Siegel is a production of Dot
Dot Dot Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello. Hi, Hi, I'm Julie. I'm Lori Love. This is
my quarantine call.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Where are you?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm in New York.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I've been in self isolation. So I signed up for
this out of my own pure interest, and then I
was going to do a whole podcast episode based on
calling people in quarantine, and I was inspired by this app.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Oh cool, Yeah, so I think I just wanted like
another adult to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Really, I signed up. Hey, it's Lorii.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I'm recording this on Friday, March twenty seventh, and I've
been in quarantine. I'm now self isolating and it's been
around three weeks. Wow, time is pretty strange, and self isolation,
the days, the minutes, it all just kind of has
new meaning. That whole sentence felt pretty weird to say,
(01:08):
but let's be honest, twenty twenty feels pretty weird. So
let me set the scene for you, guys. I'm here
in New York City where I was exposed weeks ago
to someone with coronavirus. Now, don't worry about me. I'm
doing okay. I'm just fine. But I'm gonna be honest
with you.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Things are pretty intense here if you've read the news,
and I know that they're intense in a lot of places.
So I've decided to dedicate this episode to your stories.
I'm recording from my apartment with this thought. We need
a community now more than ever. Storytelling has always been
my therapy, and Lord knows I could use it right now,
(01:49):
that sense of community.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So I asked all of you to share your stories.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I said, send in your voice memos, text me, tell
me how you're feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I'm listening. I loved what you guys had to share.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
This episode of First Contact is devoted to you, to
your stories and what you're going through. We're gonna start
with my inspiration for the episode. It's a little bit weird.
It's an app I heard about in my early Quarantine days,
which feels like a long time ago. It's called Quarantine Chat.
When you sign up, you randomly get two calls a
day from a stranger anywhere around the world. Your phone
(02:25):
rings and you're just on the phone with someone else
somewhere and quarantine. It's strange and it's human. So I'm
going to start us there. I actually captured one of
the calls, and yes, she said, we could record it.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Welcome to Quarantine Chat.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
We're about to put you on hold and connect you
to someone else anywhere in the world. Your prompt today
is to go look out the window and describe what
you see.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
To your partner.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I've gotten two calls on quarantine Chat from different people.
One person is in DC, one person was in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Have any of you guys?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I signed up maybe just like an hour, maybe two hours.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Oh my god, So I'm your first quarantine call.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
I feel a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I've you better entertain.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
The app launch just a couple of weeks ago, which
again feels like a long time ago at this point.
It was created by Max Hawkins and Danielle Baskin, both
currently self isolating on the West Coast.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, Hi, where are you guys?
Speaker 4 (03:32):
I'm currently in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh cool, I'm in LA Oh awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Well thank you for doing this. I went into quarantine
because I was exposed. So I've I've been hanging out
solo and quarantined for over fourteen days now and discovered
this little thing someone told me about called quarantine jat.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I don't know how to describe this to people, but
it is so amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You literally just get this random call and it's like
this cool music and then the next thing you know,
you're speaking with somebody who's also in quarantine.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Yeah, it's interesting because when we first started it, the
whole world was not in quarantine. It was like, you know,
people in China were in quarantine and Italy was just
starting to be in quarantine. So there are also some
people that were self isolating, like you decided to stay inside.
So I thought like, oh, well, you know, someone who
is self isolating could get a call from someone else
(04:31):
and maybe if they're not self isolating, it'll cheer them up,
or they can talk about like you know, things they're
doing with their day and recipes whatever and just like
feel less alone. But since creating it, like the whole
world has kind of become lockdown. So like this app
has reached I mean, what it's in eight how many
different time zones. It's all over the world. I mean
(04:53):
I've matched with you know, someone in Berlin and in
Spain and in France and.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
That's what hon two days ago, Wow, Paris all over
the Wow.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Also just like I mean within this country, someone is saying, like, oh,
I matched with someone in Tennessee and I actually have
never like talked from someone in Tennessee. They were in LA.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, and so how exacutely does the app work?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
So you go to quarantine chat dot com and sign
up and then you get the app. And once you
have the app installed, you start receiving phone calls roughly
once or twice a day. And if you get the
call you pick up, it says quarantine Chat on the
caller ID, And when you pick up, you're connected with
(05:39):
a random person who's also called at the same time
somewhere else in the globe, and you get a short
prompt that gives you a topic of conversation. You can
follow that topic or ignore it, and then you can
talk for as long as you like, and it's totally free.
If you don't have time, you can ignore the call
and your match will be sent to someone else, so
(06:00):
you don't have to worry about if you're busy missing
the call.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
There's just something really special.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I remember I was having a morning probably like day
four of like self isolation in New York. Like it's
not like we're in these large, large apartments unless you're
you know, doing incredibly, incredibly well. And I was having
a moment and I got a call and it was
my first quarantine call, and it was like, all of
a sudden, I look at my phone when it rings,
it's this quarantine chat and I picked it up, and
(06:28):
I remember I was like sitting in my bed and
this woman answered.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Her name was Kathy, and we.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Had a really good conversation. Of course, she was like,
tell me a little bit about yourself. I was like, well,
I'm self isolating alone. I'm not very domestic, so like,
you know, if I'm cooking, send help, And I said
all these very self deprecating things.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I was like, how about you.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
She's like, well, I heard about this app because this
girl I follow in the media tweeted it.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Her name is Laurie. I was like, she was like,
what's your name. I was like, oh, Mary. I was like, well,
but I told her it was me.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
But but we ended up having this incredibly human conversation
about mental health and she was struggling a lot, I think,
mentally with this and what it meant, and you know,
and it was just I just could tell she just
wanted someone to talk to and so so I think
there's something really interesting about hearing each other's voices again
(07:23):
at a time when I think we had almost like
stopped calling each other before.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Please.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I think people I've talked to have described the experience
as very freeing because they have no knowledge of like
who the other person is, and they could talk about
whatever they feel like in that moment. And it's different
than connecting with someone through some channel where like you
know the whole bio, you know about that person, there's
(07:50):
context in your conversation, is like aimed about a particular thing.
Like the idea that in the moment, if you want
to talk about a specific thing, you can is kind
of nice.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, And I and I also think it's it's interesting
because this is a moment where there's a lot of
fear and who knew that just hearing a stranger's voice
every once in a while could make you feel a
little bit better, you.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Know, totally if you feel totally less alone, if you're
you know, you're worried about things and you find out
someone else is worried about the same stuff, it sort
of feels comforting.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, how many people across the world, like, do you
know how many different countries you guys are in or
how many what's the current count max?
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Do you haven't looked in a while?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, you can look in real time.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Yeah, we got like a lot of people talking in
the phone right now.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Actually, yeah, because we triggered the call happened. The last
quarantine chat call happened at around one thirty, so forty
five minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Oh I just had one. I just woman in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah nice.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So you guys just like sit in your you can
like you're sitting in your own self isolation.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
You could like trigger the Yeah, I mean I'm sort
of a switchboard operator because I handle if someone we
get we know, if a call got disconnected for some reason,
like someone loses their internet, I reconnect them. But man,
I reconnect them right now. So I'm a I am
a human switchboard operator. But yeah, we can when a
(09:20):
call happens, we like can see our bandwidth being used.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So how you guys make sure that this doesn't turn
into like phone sex dot com?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
You know, I h there's a there's so many ways
we prevent that from happening. I mean, right, you can't
call anyone, yeah calls you? So if you're desiring a
specific type of interaction, you can't just hit next, like
hang up on someone. I want a new call. You
can't just do next, next, next, next, next, until I
get someone who wants to respond to like this particular
(09:51):
kind of interaction I have. And I think having those,
you know, those these conversations are like, you know, they're precious.
You only get the call one to two times a day,
and so that is your only opportunity, and so would
you would how do you want to spend that one call?
Speaker 5 (10:09):
I think there's also one of the like the values
that we try to maintain is having a diversity of
different sorts of people that you get matched with. And
so like if you get match with someone from Ghana
one day, we want it to be someone in Missouri
the next day. And yeah, or like different kinds of
people to get different perspectives. And I hope that that
(10:31):
sort of mixing exposes you to different sorts of people
and ideas.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, do you guys have any stories that you'll remember
of people you've spoken to?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, I mean every call feels so different, like I'm
transported into another world. But yeah, I've talked I talked
to a makeup blogger in Dubai who was very She
was an intern at a company, and she was about
when she's planning on graduating in April, and she was
hoping to get higher but because she works in advertising
(11:04):
for restaurant chains like like du Buy California Pizza Kitchen,
and they're not you know, restaurants are kind of losing
money so they can't do advertising. So she's really afraid
of like not getting her job. But yeah, I talked
to someone in Hiroshima whose friend has a hostel and
the hostel is closing and her friend is trying to
(11:25):
be really positive by only posting happy things on Instagram,
but inside feels very afraid. Yeah, I get these glimpses
into how this virus is affecting people's lives and all
over the world, and it's kind of similar stories but
in you know, all theous different countries, which is fascinating.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Pretty early on, I connected with someone who was like
a student studying in Paris, and she told me that
like the night before she had found out that her
roommate had the virus and had a party like a
couple nights prior, and everyone that was there had to
be quarantined and we're like waiting to find out if
(12:08):
they have been infected. And she was just talking about
how scary it is to know that, like her roommate
is next door and it's infected. It's dangerous and what
it's like to not know.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, m yeah, I went through that.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I mean, I think for me, because I was exposed.
And then it was just like you just wait, right,
Like you just sit and you wait and you wonder
like am I going to be okay? And man, like
does that do things to your head? So that's when
I had my first quarantine chet call. But but yeah,
that's it's extraordinarily scary. And then of course it's it's
(12:47):
coupled with this idea of like, well, I'm also really
worried about my friend who had it, and I also
want to show them so much love and support. And
then it's also I'm worried about my parents, and now
I can't go be near my parents because I could
harm them. I mean, it's extraordinarily human questions that what's
interesting about what you guys are doing is like we're
(13:07):
all facing them in some capacity, no matter where we are,
and I think it's devastating and also it's really extraordinary
and human too. So m hm, who knows how long
we're all going to be in this? Where do you
where do you want this to go?
Speaker 4 (13:23):
It's interesting. Yeah, I'm kind of curious how spending. What
sort of effects after say, we're all out of quarantine
at some point, Yeah, like what we continue these sorts
of interesting digital communication habits that we've all developed during quarantine.
I don't know. I mean I think like I would after,
you know, if I can still go out in the world.
Of course, I enjoy talking to people on the phone.
(13:45):
Will I continue to have these relationships with people all
over the world and just discuss, like what we're doing
in our lives even after we're all out.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
I'm excited to see if people meet in person.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, I hope that when this is over, we all
hold that in some capacity and hold that sense of
humanity and love and care for each other, because I definitely,
I definitely think that's pretty important. So you know, I'm
on maybe I'll get connected with you guys again. Maybe
we'll do this all over quarantine chat.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
But by the way.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
This whole podcast episode, I'm just gonna call people in
quarantine because I'm totally copying you, guys.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I think it's great. So anything left to be said.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
M yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I mean I feel like.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
If anyone is afraid to talk on the phone or
like feels hesitant to pick it up, like it's surprisingly
easy to talk to people, which people might not, they
might be like hesitant. I mean, we've designed it. We
designed it for introverts in mind. And there's a question
at the beginning of the call, and you know the
person on the other end wants to listen to you.
(14:50):
Typically you both want to have a conversation. So I
encourage anyone who's phone rings and they're like, I don't know,
just like try it.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Okay, we've got to take a quick break to hear
from our sponsors more with my guests after the break.
My first week in quarantine, people sent voice memos describing
their experience in self isolation.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
We had a.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Bunch of folks send them in and there was one
that really struck me. I want to play it for
you guys. It called to question the ethics of this
moment and our own moral compass.
Speaker 6 (15:38):
This past week and when I had to work, so
I should probably have said that it's a gem that
I work at it's testing my ethics quite a bit.
I did everything in my power that I could to
make it as sanitary as possible, and especially considering that
the population that goes there's a little bit on the
older side. So that's also another conundrum. I guess you
(16:03):
could say, but I can't pay my bills unless I work.
I have a significant I mean, most of my income
goes towards paying those bills, and I can't pay them
if I don't work. But that then, I mean, there's
another voice in my head that says, that's extremely selfish
(16:25):
and unethical of you, because you're directly endangering people's lives
by you working. As you see, that job put me
in quite a conundrum.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Hi, Hi, how you doing.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I so appreciate you sending in that voice memo. I
listened to it immediately and I was really moved by it,
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
No, of course, I wasn't to be honest, I wasn't
really expecting to hear back. I just kind of wanted
to let you guys know and it was cool. Thank
you for offering that. It was kind of cool to
be known or know that you're being heard, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Well, Hi, you're welcome and hi from my isolation. Yeah,
let me let me start with your not alone. We're
all unfortunately kind of in this together. But there's you know,
there's some humanity in that. And I've I'm self isolating
in my place here in New York, and you sent
us a voice memo and you talk about starting with
your work. You had a real conflict with your work,
(17:30):
and you talked about kind of this decision and you said,
do I stay because your gym wasn't closing down?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And do I put other people at risk?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Or do I risk not being able to pay my
bills and keep people safe myself included.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So what did you decide to ultimately do?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (17:50):
Well, it was not too long after that call, being
in California or not called, but the memo Gavin Newsome
and pose the shelter in place order. I was conflicted
because one of the workplaces is a small business and
(18:12):
they were very reluctant, and I understand where they're coming from.
I guess it's.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
A lot of people.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
There's a lot of uncertainty on the financial side of
things for people, and I get that. So kind of
a background that I work at, like the one gem
was kind of more that corporate style JEM and another
this other gem was a CrossFit gym or functional fitness,
and there was an awesome community there. You developed deep
(18:41):
personal relationships and it's almost like your family in a way.
And if even one of them something bad happened, something
serious happened, how would I be able to live with that?
It was inflicting in that because being a younger person.
(19:03):
One of the gyms I worked at was the demographics
did tend to be older, older individuals, and I know
that the risk is lower for younger people. That doesn't
mean that bad things haven't happened for younger people, but
it's that question of what if I have it. Maybe
(19:24):
I'm asymptomatic, right, and I passed it on to one
of them, But the thought of that, I just thought
it was immoral, I guess, and I started to push
back and saying, hey, we I'm not going to coach anymore.
Like I laid it out there for them. I didn't
feel comfortable. But it kind of coincided luckily with Newsom's
(19:50):
order too, So I guess the universe was kind of
looking out for us in a way.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I guess, yeah, I think that voice memo and what
you said to us is a little bit of like
a moment and so kind of capturing the psychology around
perhaps what makes you go in and do that when
you don't have one hundred percent all the facts, but
you got the feeling and some pushback and some real questions.
I think is really interesting and perhaps says something about you.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
It's it's kind of when you said the you know,
looking at the moments, and it instantly reminded me of
to kind of get cliche again the Steve Jobs connect
the dots. It's easy to connect the dots looking backwards.
That people forget that you can't connect the dots looking forward.
(20:41):
You may not even know what the dots are.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, I think about this moment is a lot of
dots right like Yeah, And I think for every human
being it's like we're all living our own story in
a way and collectively where you have to do it
without not a lot of answers. So I think, you know,
this idea of understanding the question in a little bit
and sitting with this uncertainty and being able to make
some decisions around it is really interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Do you have like family are you married.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
I'm single. I have family. Luckily they're all local, about
a ten minute drive away.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
So is it hard.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I know a lot of people are self isolating with
family with significant others. Is it hard for you to
do it without somebody? Do you ask yourself those questions?
Or are you okay with the solo nature of it?
Speaker 6 (21:34):
I guess it kind of there's a stark difference now
from the loneliness here to when you go, Like before,
you know, I'd interact with people at the gym and
get out and about, but now it's like the only
time that there's any interaction is that.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Like the grocery store.
Speaker 6 (21:55):
And I even know for me, it was kind of
like I had to take a double take because I
was walking on the aisle and somebody like turned the
corner and it was kind of like whoa, And I
like took the biggest side step I've ever taken in
my life. And after I did that, I just stood there.
(22:17):
First time, I was like, did I really just do that?
But it was it was kind of like that subconscious reaction.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Are you afraid?
Speaker 6 (22:24):
Yeah, I'm not afraid to admit that. I'm very uncertain.
I guess you could say, but there's nothing wrong with that,
I guess, And I feel like people tend to want
to put on a front like they know what's going on,
but sometimes you just don't. And there's a lot of
(22:48):
variables out of our control. And it's not realizing that
and then taking action where you can, I think is
it's not only calming, but it it shows you that
you do have you do have some power to affect
not only yourselves but the people around you.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
All right, let's zoom out to Spain. My next quarantine
call is with Pablo Sanchez Blanco. He's living in a
small town close to Madrid. Like many of us, he's
worried about his parents.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
It's personal.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Several of his family members are working in local hospitals,
overwhelmed with patients, often unprotected, and putting their own lives
at risk to save others. Hey, how are you hello?
Speaker 3 (23:48):
I'm good? How are you good?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Good? Wow? Thanks for doing this. I know you're you're
in Madrid right now? Right?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yep? MADRITI has maybe like little cities soroun in Madrid
and I live in Alkalineas, which is like twenty kilometers
away from Adrid.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Thank you for having me here. I think it's great
to have the opportunity to speak with people from our countries,
especially in a situation like this, which is worldwide. And
I'm very into this situation now because, for example, my
girlfriend s is a doctor, my mom, she works, she
leaves the kitsen in the hospital here in my city.
My father has been a doctor as well for thirty years.
(24:30):
And we're seeing how they're struggling, not even daily, hourly,
so hour by hour, they're giving everything they have to
try to get us out of this.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, so tell me, let's start with you. Are you
self isolating?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yeah? Everyone is self aciliating.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
And so before we kind of dig into all of it,
I just I want to ask you kind of a
basic question, like how are you doing.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I'm doing good. I think you try to innovate within
your house right too. I'm communicating more with my family
and I'm getting closer to my neighbors. I think I'm
on one side. You see all this information coming from
(25:21):
the media and TV, which is bad, really bad, and
it's getting worse and worse and worse, which kind of
depressed you a bit. But then you go out at
eight pm every day, goes out and claps to all
the people, which is working for us, and it explain.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
That what do you do? You go out and clap
every day?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Eight? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Everyone set that scene. I don't know what that looks like.
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Everyone? Everyone at eight pm goes outside in the windows
out clasps. But you can hear like thousands of people
clapping in their buildings, in their windows in the balconies.
It kind of brings you up. People start playing music
after that, and you get parties in the windows, people
(26:09):
drinking in the windows, saying hi to neighbors. Neighbors too.
I didn't even speak in my life and now meeting
them through the window. So is bad the cities and
is really bad that you kind of have this environment
and you're sharing this with everyone.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
How is it impacting you personally?
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Personally? I think it's really stressing situition. So for example,
my mom in the hospital. The fact that they don't
have materials at all, they don't have masks, they don't
have towns, they don't have anything to protect themselves. It
kind of struss you out. So I'm stressed for all
(26:53):
these people who, especially in a country like Spain or Italy.
Our brothers there this these old people. They've been fighting
adult to get us out of many political things, really
bad things, and now when they can retire and unrest,
and this comes right. But for me personally, I'm good
(27:18):
getting stressed by all this thing and kinds of it's
going up and happen up and you don't see the
lights at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
So your mom is in the hospital, what is she
telling you?
Speaker 3 (27:31):
She's she's people in hospitals now there they're so strong,
so strong, she's telling me. For example, in the hospital
here in my city, hospital of Falcala, which two days
ago it was the hospital with more debts. In the beginning,
you get people from other cities, which is being so
(27:54):
many people is getting infected in one city. Everyone is
going to the hospital of the city, are surrounding and
then so they see the waves of people coming. They
don't have materials, so they are all infected. They will
be all infected. Fourteen percent of the health public workers
(28:15):
here in Spain are infected, and they don't have even
tests to test theirselves. My mom, for example, she couldn't
test herself to see if she's infected. They're getting She
leads the kids here in the hospital and yesterday I
think it was six people called for a leave because
they were infected. They know many of them are infected,
(28:36):
and they're still going to work and they're doing sixteen
hour sieves to twenty four hour sieves. They're asking for help,
they're getting now help, but it's too late. Now it's
already collapsed. They have people in the floor in the
hospitals and they have to decide. Her colleagues, her doctors,
image house stressful is for you. And there was a
(28:58):
woman yesterday, an old lady, she recorded a video for
sale and asking for help because her husband got into
the hospital. He was like seventy or sixty five and
he was really bad. And a man was forty years
old came into the hospital as well. In testive care.
(29:20):
Of course, they're going straight to intestive care, and doctors
they have to decide, so we go for this old
man which is forty instead of this guy. So they
will tell you, okay, you can take now your husband
home and he will die at home, that's for sure.
And this decision for the people who is working in
the hospitals is really bad.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
As your mom talked about having to make those types
of decisions they are having to witness them.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah, yeah, and they're Winna saying now as well, people
from university, because they're getting people from university working into hospitals.
So here in Spain, medicine is six years. They're getting
people from the fifth and the sixth year working into
the hospital. And these young people they're specially scared because
(30:06):
they're seeing now all the corpses bringing down and they
cannot even take it. So they open a huge mode
that we have in Madrid to take all the corpses.
And you see this all coming down from the hospital
into the truck, the military trucks, and you see all
these military trucks going around the city.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Is bad.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
So this is what I was saying, that is making
you seeing all these kind You try to keep up,
but seeing all these things going up and up and
up kind of affects you.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
It's like my whole career, I can interview people from Afar,
right and thank god, that's awful and have so much empathy.
And I think maybe the scariest part of this interview
even for me, is thinking like it's here, you know,
it's it's maybe a couple of weeks away from from
(31:03):
from me being able to describe the scene that you
just described to me, I could be describing it to you.
I think about the fear and all of this, and
and you know, and I think there's just so much fear.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yeah, this is the so yourself isolating you. You're good,
you try to pain, you try to, but you can
feel the fear growing up and growing up. And this
is what I love about being here with you, guys,
talking to you is try to to tell you what
(31:37):
we did bad and so please don't do it. Please
don't believe that it's just a flu something else. And
the sooner you go home and isolate yourself and make
your elders to isolate as well, it's the better for
everyone because, yeah, we're one week away from Italy. I
think we we can be wiser than governments here. And
(31:58):
the weapon that we have is what you just said, empathy,
and is empathy for all of us together and also
empathy for the people which is working in hospitals or
people which is working outside or in supermarkets because they're
still open. We need to have this empathy for them
and stay at our houses because they just can't handle
(32:21):
any more. People in hospitals et cetera. So I think
this is the biggest weapon we have empathy.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
What do you do when you're really afraid?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
You have your mom is working in the hospital, this
is really close to you.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
What do you do when you're afraid.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
I talked to her. She has like this ability to
to be like, it's just one more day and it
will be over. You know, we try to think that
it will be over, It will be over.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
What is the hardest part for you?
Speaker 3 (32:53):
For me, the hardest part is to for example, now
we're seeing the news. I think the hardest part is
too because imam people in hospitals which are in intensive
care and they cannot speak to their families and they
will die alone because no one can go inside, and
(33:15):
they will die alone. They willn't they will not have
a funeral. Funerals are forbiddom for coronavirus deaths. So in
my own families that they couldn't even say, not even goodbye.
It's not just you just go to the hospital with them,
to the urgency and and that's it right gone.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
M hmm.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
What do you want people to know? What do you
think is important?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
What I would tell you is that first and I
know it's hard. Don't be scared, do not panic. But
I think that the biggest thing that we can do
is is just to stay in our houses. You know,
our grandfathers, they were called to war and we're cold
to stay in our houses, so it's just to stay
(33:59):
at home.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
How has this changed you?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And I think it's soon still for me to well,
it's not soon. I think when after this, me and everyone,
I think we will all not love but try to
say how much we love to our parents and elders
because now we see them at a real risk.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Okay, we've got to take a quick break to hear
from our sponsors. Thank you guys for sharing your stories
with me. And I want to end with a quote.
This is one of my favorites. It's something I've lived
(34:53):
by as a journalist. It's by Joan Didion, who's just
one of my favorite authors.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
She says, we tell our ourselves stories in order to live. Well,
we're all.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
In the same story this go around. We're all experiencing love, courage, anxiety, fear,
and hopefully above all, empathy. What an extraordinary thing that
the through line of all of this is that although
we may be socially distant. Collectively, we can work together,
(35:26):
stay inside and save each other. Thank you to everyone
who reached out to me. I love hearing from you,
and special thanks to Danielle, Max, Joe, Julie, Pablo, and Brett.
Your stories, your courage, and your resilience keep me going too.
So I'm going to throw this out there and these
(35:48):
times of social distancing, when everything feels completely unknown. I've
always believed it's important to stay connected, but I believe
that now more than ever. And I say, and I
really mean it, reach out to us, reach out to me,
keep an eye out on our social media.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
We're gonna have ways to participate.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
You can text me nine one seven five four zero
three four one zero. Also, if you have anything you're
thinking about, if you're sitting in self isolation, if you're
in your head, if you want to say something, you've
got questions, send me a voice memo to First Contact
podcast at gmail dot com. I want to do my
(36:30):
best to be there for everyone during this tough time.
I want you guys to know we are listening. We'll
also be hosting zoom town halls on different issues during
this time, so follow along and participate for some human
ish Contact, you can connect with me. I'm self isolating here.
I'm at Lori Siegel. On Twitter and Instagram. The show
(36:51):
is at First Contact Podcast. On Instagram and on Twitter,
you can find us. We're at First Contact Pod. First
Contact is a production of Dot dot dot Com Media,
executive produced by Lori Siegel and Derek Dodge. I will
say we're being creative and executive producing this from home
and self isolation at the moment. This episode was produced
and edited by Sabine Jansen and Jack Reagan. The original
(37:14):
theme music is by Xander Singh. I'm sending my thoughts
to each and every one of you, guys, and so
is our whole First Contact crew during this time. I
hope that everyone is staying home, staying healthy, and staying human.
(37:36):
First Contact with Lori Siegel is a production of Dot
dot Dot Media and iHeartRadio.
First Contact with Lori Siegel is a production of Dot
Dot Dot Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello. Hi, Hi, I'm Julie. I'm Lori Love. This is
my quarantine call.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Where are you?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm in New York.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I've been in self isolation. So I signed up for
this out of my own pure interest, and then I
was going to do a whole podcast episode based on
calling people in quarantine, and I was inspired by this app.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
Oh cool, Yeah, so I think I just wanted like
another adult to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Really, I signed up. Hey, it's Lorii.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I'm recording this on Friday, March twenty seventh, and I've
been in quarantine. I'm now self isolating and it's been
around three weeks. Wow, time is pretty strange, and self isolation,
the days, the minutes, it all just kind of has
new meaning. That whole sentence felt pretty weird to say,
(01:08):
but let's be honest, twenty twenty feels pretty weird. So
let me set the scene for you, guys. I'm here
in New York City where I was exposed weeks ago
to someone with coronavirus. Now, don't worry about me. I'm
doing okay. I'm just fine. But I'm gonna be honest
with you.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Things are pretty intense here if you've read the news,
and I know that they're intense in a lot of places.
So I've decided to dedicate this episode to your stories.
I'm recording from my apartment with this thought. We need
a community now more than ever. Storytelling has always been
my therapy, and Lord knows I could use it right now,
(01:49):
that sense of community.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So I asked all of you to share your stories.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I said, send in your voice memos, text me, tell
me how you're feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I'm listening. I loved what you guys had to share.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
This episode of First Contact is devoted to you, to
your stories and what you're going through. We're gonna start
with my inspiration for the episode. It's a little bit weird.
It's an app I heard about in my early Quarantine days,
which feels like a long time ago. It's called Quarantine Chat.
When you sign up, you randomly get two calls a
day from a stranger anywhere around the world. Your phone
(02:25):
rings and you're just on the phone with someone else
somewhere and quarantine. It's strange and it's human. So I'm
going to start us there. I actually captured one of
the calls, and yes, she said, we could record it.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Welcome to Quarantine Chat.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
We're about to put you on hold and connect you
to someone else anywhere in the world. Your prompt today
is to go look out the window and describe what
you see.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
To your partner.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I've gotten two calls on quarantine Chat from different people.
One person is in DC, one person was in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Have any of you guys?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I signed up maybe just like an hour, maybe two hours.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Oh my god, So I'm your first quarantine call.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
I feel a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I've you better entertain.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
The app launch just a couple of weeks ago, which
again feels like a long time ago at this point.
It was created by Max Hawkins and Danielle Baskin, both
currently self isolating on the West Coast.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, Hi, where are you guys?
Speaker 4 (03:32):
I'm currently in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh cool, I'm in LA Oh awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Well thank you for doing this. I went into quarantine
because I was exposed. So I've I've been hanging out
solo and quarantined for over fourteen days now and discovered
this little thing someone told me about called quarantine jat.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I don't know how to describe this to people, but
it is so amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You literally just get this random call and it's like
this cool music and then the next thing you know,
you're speaking with somebody who's also in quarantine.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Yeah, it's interesting because when we first started it, the
whole world was not in quarantine. It was like, you know,
people in China were in quarantine and Italy was just
starting to be in quarantine. So there are also some
people that were self isolating, like you decided to stay inside.
So I thought like, oh, well, you know, someone who
is self isolating could get a call from someone else
(04:31):
and maybe if they're not self isolating, it'll cheer them up,
or they can talk about like you know, things they're
doing with their day and recipes whatever and just like
feel less alone. But since creating it, like the whole
world has kind of become lockdown. So like this app
has reached I mean, what it's in eight how many
different time zones. It's all over the world. I mean
(04:53):
I've matched with you know, someone in Berlin and in
Spain and in France and.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
That's what hon two days ago, Wow, Paris all over
the Wow.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Also just like I mean within this country, someone is saying, like, oh,
I matched with someone in Tennessee and I actually have
never like talked from someone in Tennessee. They were in LA.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, and so how exacutely does the app work?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
So you go to quarantine chat dot com and sign
up and then you get the app. And once you
have the app installed, you start receiving phone calls roughly
once or twice a day. And if you get the
call you pick up, it says quarantine Chat on the
caller ID, And when you pick up, you're connected with
(05:39):
a random person who's also called at the same time
somewhere else in the globe, and you get a short
prompt that gives you a topic of conversation. You can
follow that topic or ignore it, and then you can
talk for as long as you like, and it's totally free.
If you don't have time, you can ignore the call
and your match will be sent to someone else, so
(06:00):
you don't have to worry about if you're busy missing
the call.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
There's just something really special.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I remember I was having a morning probably like day
four of like self isolation in New York. Like it's
not like we're in these large, large apartments unless you're
you know, doing incredibly, incredibly well. And I was having
a moment and I got a call and it was
my first quarantine call, and it was like, all of
a sudden, I look at my phone when it rings,
it's this quarantine chat and I picked it up, and
(06:28):
I remember I was like sitting in my bed and
this woman answered.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Her name was Kathy, and we.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Had a really good conversation. Of course, she was like,
tell me a little bit about yourself. I was like, well,
I'm self isolating alone. I'm not very domestic, so like,
you know, if I'm cooking, send help, And I said
all these very self deprecating things.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I was like, how about you.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
She's like, well, I heard about this app because this
girl I follow in the media tweeted it.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Her name is Laurie. I was like, she was like,
what's your name. I was like, oh, Mary. I was like, well,
but I told her it was me.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
But but we ended up having this incredibly human conversation
about mental health and she was struggling a lot, I think,
mentally with this and what it meant, and you know,
and it was just I just could tell she just
wanted someone to talk to and so so I think
there's something really interesting about hearing each other's voices again
(07:23):
at a time when I think we had almost like
stopped calling each other before.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Please.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I think people I've talked to have described the experience
as very freeing because they have no knowledge of like
who the other person is, and they could talk about
whatever they feel like in that moment. And it's different
than connecting with someone through some channel where like you
know the whole bio, you know about that person, there's
(07:50):
context in your conversation, is like aimed about a particular thing.
Like the idea that in the moment, if you want
to talk about a specific thing, you can is kind
of nice.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, And I and I also think it's it's interesting
because this is a moment where there's a lot of
fear and who knew that just hearing a stranger's voice
every once in a while could make you feel a
little bit better, you.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Know, totally if you feel totally less alone, if you're
you know, you're worried about things and you find out
someone else is worried about the same stuff, it sort
of feels comforting.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, how many people across the world, like, do you
know how many different countries you guys are in or
how many what's the current count max?
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Do you haven't looked in a while?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, you can look in real time.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Yeah, we got like a lot of people talking in
the phone right now.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Actually, yeah, because we triggered the call happened. The last
quarantine chat call happened at around one thirty, so forty
five minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Oh I just had one. I just woman in North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah nice.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So you guys just like sit in your you can
like you're sitting in your own self isolation.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
You could like trigger the Yeah, I mean I'm sort
of a switchboard operator because I handle if someone we
get we know, if a call got disconnected for some reason,
like someone loses their internet, I reconnect them. But man,
I reconnect them right now. So I'm a I am
a human switchboard operator. But yeah, we can when a
(09:20):
call happens, we like can see our bandwidth being used.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So how you guys make sure that this doesn't turn
into like phone sex dot com?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
You know, I h there's a there's so many ways
we prevent that from happening. I mean, right, you can't
call anyone, yeah calls you? So if you're desiring a
specific type of interaction, you can't just hit next, like
hang up on someone. I want a new call. You
can't just do next, next, next, next, next, until I
get someone who wants to respond to like this particular
(09:51):
kind of interaction I have. And I think having those,
you know, those these conversations are like, you know, they're precious.
You only get the call one to two times a day,
and so that is your only opportunity, and so would
you would how do you want to spend that one call?
Speaker 5 (10:09):
I think there's also one of the like the values
that we try to maintain is having a diversity of
different sorts of people that you get matched with. And
so like if you get match with someone from Ghana
one day, we want it to be someone in Missouri
the next day. And yeah, or like different kinds of
people to get different perspectives. And I hope that that
(10:31):
sort of mixing exposes you to different sorts of people
and ideas.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, do you guys have any stories that you'll remember
of people you've spoken to?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, I mean every call feels so different, like I'm
transported into another world. But yeah, I've talked I talked
to a makeup blogger in Dubai who was very She
was an intern at a company, and she was about
when she's planning on graduating in April, and she was
hoping to get higher but because she works in advertising
(11:04):
for restaurant chains like like du Buy California Pizza Kitchen,
and they're not you know, restaurants are kind of losing
money so they can't do advertising. So she's really afraid
of like not getting her job. But yeah, I talked
to someone in Hiroshima whose friend has a hostel and
the hostel is closing and her friend is trying to
(11:25):
be really positive by only posting happy things on Instagram,
but inside feels very afraid. Yeah, I get these glimpses
into how this virus is affecting people's lives and all
over the world, and it's kind of similar stories but
in you know, all theous different countries, which is fascinating.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Pretty early on, I connected with someone who was like
a student studying in Paris, and she told me that
like the night before she had found out that her
roommate had the virus and had a party like a
couple nights prior, and everyone that was there had to
be quarantined and we're like waiting to find out if
(12:08):
they have been infected. And she was just talking about
how scary it is to know that, like her roommate
is next door and it's infected. It's dangerous and what
it's like to not know.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, m yeah, I went through that.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I mean, I think for me, because I was exposed.
And then it was just like you just wait, right,
Like you just sit and you wait and you wonder
like am I going to be okay? And man, like
does that do things to your head? So that's when
I had my first quarantine chet call. But but yeah,
that's it's extraordinarily scary. And then of course it's it's
(12:47):
coupled with this idea of like, well, I'm also really
worried about my friend who had it, and I also
want to show them so much love and support. And
then it's also I'm worried about my parents, and now
I can't go be near my parents because I could
harm them. I mean, it's extraordinarily human questions that what's
interesting about what you guys are doing is like we're
(13:07):
all facing them in some capacity, no matter where we are,
and I think it's devastating and also it's really extraordinary
and human too. So m hm, who knows how long
we're all going to be in this? Where do you
where do you want this to go?
Speaker 4 (13:23):
It's interesting. Yeah, I'm kind of curious how spending. What
sort of effects after say, we're all out of quarantine
at some point, Yeah, like what we continue these sorts
of interesting digital communication habits that we've all developed during quarantine.
I don't know. I mean I think like I would after,
you know, if I can still go out in the world.
Of course, I enjoy talking to people on the phone.
(13:45):
Will I continue to have these relationships with people all
over the world and just discuss, like what we're doing
in our lives even after we're all out.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
I'm excited to see if people meet in person.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, I hope that when this is over, we all
hold that in some capacity and hold that sense of
humanity and love and care for each other, because I definitely,
I definitely think that's pretty important. So you know, I'm
on maybe I'll get connected with you guys again. Maybe
we'll do this all over quarantine chat.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
But by the way.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
This whole podcast episode, I'm just gonna call people in
quarantine because I'm totally copying you, guys.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I think it's great. So anything left to be said.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
M yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I mean I feel like.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
If anyone is afraid to talk on the phone or
like feels hesitant to pick it up, like it's surprisingly
easy to talk to people, which people might not, they
might be like hesitant. I mean, we've designed it. We
designed it for introverts in mind. And there's a question
at the beginning of the call, and you know the
person on the other end wants to listen to you.
(14:50):
Typically you both want to have a conversation. So I
encourage anyone who's phone rings and they're like, I don't know,
just like try it.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Okay, we've got to take a quick break to hear
from our sponsors more with my guests after the break.
My first week in quarantine, people sent voice memos describing
their experience in self isolation.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
We had a.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Bunch of folks send them in and there was one
that really struck me. I want to play it for
you guys. It called to question the ethics of this
moment and our own moral compass.
Speaker 6 (15:38):
This past week and when I had to work, so
I should probably have said that it's a gem that
I work at it's testing my ethics quite a bit.
I did everything in my power that I could to
make it as sanitary as possible, and especially considering that
the population that goes there's a little bit on the
older side. So that's also another conundrum. I guess you
(16:03):
could say, but I can't pay my bills unless I work.
I have a significant I mean, most of my income
goes towards paying those bills, and I can't pay them
if I don't work. But that then, I mean, there's
another voice in my head that says, that's extremely selfish
(16:25):
and unethical of you, because you're directly endangering people's lives
by you working. As you see, that job put me
in quite a conundrum.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Hi, Hi, how you doing.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I so appreciate you sending in that voice memo. I
listened to it immediately and I was really moved by it,
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
No, of course, I wasn't to be honest, I wasn't
really expecting to hear back. I just kind of wanted
to let you guys know and it was cool. Thank
you for offering that. It was kind of cool to
be known or know that you're being heard, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Well, Hi, you're welcome and hi from my isolation. Yeah,
let me let me start with your not alone. We're
all unfortunately kind of in this together. But there's you know,
there's some humanity in that. And I've I'm self isolating
in my place here in New York, and you sent
us a voice memo and you talk about starting with
your work. You had a real conflict with your work,
(17:30):
and you talked about kind of this decision and you said,
do I stay because your gym wasn't closing down?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And do I put other people at risk?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Or do I risk not being able to pay my
bills and keep people safe myself included.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
So what did you decide to ultimately do?
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (17:50):
Well, it was not too long after that call, being
in California or not called, but the memo Gavin Newsome
and pose the shelter in place order. I was conflicted
because one of the workplaces is a small business and
(18:12):
they were very reluctant, and I understand where they're coming from.
I guess it's.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
A lot of people.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
There's a lot of uncertainty on the financial side of
things for people, and I get that. So kind of
a background that I work at, like the one gem
was kind of more that corporate style JEM and another
this other gem was a CrossFit gym or functional fitness,
and there was an awesome community there. You developed deep
(18:41):
personal relationships and it's almost like your family in a way.
And if even one of them something bad happened, something
serious happened, how would I be able to live with that?
It was inflicting in that because being a younger person.
(19:03):
One of the gyms I worked at was the demographics
did tend to be older, older individuals, and I know
that the risk is lower for younger people. That doesn't
mean that bad things haven't happened for younger people, but
it's that question of what if I have it. Maybe
(19:24):
I'm asymptomatic, right, and I passed it on to one
of them, But the thought of that, I just thought
it was immoral, I guess, and I started to push
back and saying, hey, we I'm not going to coach anymore.
Like I laid it out there for them. I didn't
feel comfortable. But it kind of coincided luckily with Newsom's
(19:50):
order too, So I guess the universe was kind of
looking out for us in a way.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I guess, yeah, I think that voice memo and what
you said to us is a little bit of like
a moment and so kind of capturing the psychology around
perhaps what makes you go in and do that when
you don't have one hundred percent all the facts, but
you got the feeling and some pushback and some real questions.
I think is really interesting and perhaps says something about you.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
It's it's kind of when you said the you know,
looking at the moments, and it instantly reminded me of
to kind of get cliche again the Steve Jobs connect
the dots. It's easy to connect the dots looking backwards.
That people forget that you can't connect the dots looking forward.
(20:41):
You may not even know what the dots are.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, I think about this moment is a lot of
dots right like Yeah, And I think for every human
being it's like we're all living our own story in
a way and collectively where you have to do it
without not a lot of answers. So I think, you know,
this idea of understanding the question in a little bit
and sitting with this uncertainty and being able to make
some decisions around it is really interesting.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Do you have like family are you married.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
I'm single. I have family. Luckily they're all local, about
a ten minute drive away.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
So is it hard.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I know a lot of people are self isolating with
family with significant others. Is it hard for you to
do it without somebody? Do you ask yourself those questions?
Or are you okay with the solo nature of it?
Speaker 6 (21:34):
I guess it kind of there's a stark difference now
from the loneliness here to when you go, Like before,
you know, I'd interact with people at the gym and
get out and about, but now it's like the only
time that there's any interaction is that.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Like the grocery store.
Speaker 6 (21:55):
And I even know for me, it was kind of
like I had to take a double take because I
was walking on the aisle and somebody like turned the
corner and it was kind of like whoa, And I
like took the biggest side step I've ever taken in
my life. And after I did that, I just stood there.
(22:17):
First time, I was like, did I really just do that?
But it was it was kind of like that subconscious reaction.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Are you afraid?
Speaker 6 (22:24):
Yeah, I'm not afraid to admit that. I'm very uncertain.
I guess you could say, but there's nothing wrong with that,
I guess, And I feel like people tend to want
to put on a front like they know what's going on,
but sometimes you just don't. And there's a lot of
(22:48):
variables out of our control. And it's not realizing that
and then taking action where you can, I think is
it's not only calming, but it it shows you that
you do have you do have some power to affect
not only yourselves but the people around you.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
All right, let's zoom out to Spain. My next quarantine
call is with Pablo Sanchez Blanco. He's living in a
small town close to Madrid. Like many of us, he's
worried about his parents.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
It's personal.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Several of his family members are working in local hospitals,
overwhelmed with patients, often unprotected, and putting their own lives
at risk to save others. Hey, how are you hello?
Speaker 3 (23:48):
I'm good? How are you good?
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Good? Wow? Thanks for doing this. I know you're you're
in Madrid right now? Right?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yep? MADRITI has maybe like little cities soroun in Madrid
and I live in Alkalineas, which is like twenty kilometers
away from Adrid.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Thank you for having me here. I think it's great
to have the opportunity to speak with people from our countries,
especially in a situation like this, which is worldwide. And
I'm very into this situation now because, for example, my
girlfriend s is a doctor, my mom, she works, she
leaves the kitsen in the hospital here in my city.
My father has been a doctor as well for thirty years.
(24:30):
And we're seeing how they're struggling, not even daily, hourly,
so hour by hour, they're giving everything they have to
try to get us out of this.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, so tell me, let's start with you. Are you
self isolating?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Yeah? Everyone is self aciliating.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
And so before we kind of dig into all of it,
I just I want to ask you kind of a
basic question, like how are you doing.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I'm doing good. I think you try to innovate within
your house right too. I'm communicating more with my family
and I'm getting closer to my neighbors. I think I'm
on one side. You see all this information coming from
(25:21):
the media and TV, which is bad, really bad, and
it's getting worse and worse and worse, which kind of
depressed you a bit. But then you go out at
eight pm every day, goes out and claps to all
the people, which is working for us, and it explain.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
That what do you do? You go out and clap
every day?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Eight? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Everyone set that scene. I don't know what that looks like.
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Everyone? Everyone at eight pm goes outside in the windows
out clasps. But you can hear like thousands of people
clapping in their buildings, in their windows in the balconies.
It kind of brings you up. People start playing music
after that, and you get parties in the windows, people
(26:09):
drinking in the windows, saying hi to neighbors. Neighbors too.
I didn't even speak in my life and now meeting
them through the window. So is bad the cities and
is really bad that you kind of have this environment
and you're sharing this with everyone.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
How is it impacting you personally?
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Personally? I think it's really stressing situition. So for example,
my mom in the hospital. The fact that they don't
have materials at all, they don't have masks, they don't
have towns, they don't have anything to protect themselves. It
kind of struss you out. So I'm stressed for all
(26:53):
these people who, especially in a country like Spain or Italy.
Our brothers there this these old people. They've been fighting
adult to get us out of many political things, really
bad things, and now when they can retire and unrest,
and this comes right. But for me personally, I'm good
(27:18):
getting stressed by all this thing and kinds of it's
going up and happen up and you don't see the
lights at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
So your mom is in the hospital, what is she
telling you?
Speaker 3 (27:31):
She's she's people in hospitals now there they're so strong,
so strong, she's telling me. For example, in the hospital
here in my city, hospital of Falcala, which two days
ago it was the hospital with more debts. In the beginning,
you get people from other cities, which is being so
(27:54):
many people is getting infected in one city. Everyone is
going to the hospital of the city, are surrounding and
then so they see the waves of people coming. They
don't have materials, so they are all infected. They will
be all infected. Fourteen percent of the health public workers
(28:15):
here in Spain are infected, and they don't have even
tests to test theirselves. My mom, for example, she couldn't
test herself to see if she's infected. They're getting She
leads the kids here in the hospital and yesterday I
think it was six people called for a leave because
they were infected. They know many of them are infected,
(28:36):
and they're still going to work and they're doing sixteen
hour sieves to twenty four hour sieves. They're asking for help,
they're getting now help, but it's too late. Now it's
already collapsed. They have people in the floor in the
hospitals and they have to decide. Her colleagues, her doctors,
image house stressful is for you. And there was a
(28:58):
woman yesterday, an old lady, she recorded a video for
sale and asking for help because her husband got into
the hospital. He was like seventy or sixty five and
he was really bad. And a man was forty years
old came into the hospital as well. In testive care.
(29:20):
Of course, they're going straight to intestive care, and doctors
they have to decide, so we go for this old
man which is forty instead of this guy. So they
will tell you, okay, you can take now your husband
home and he will die at home, that's for sure.
And this decision for the people who is working in
the hospitals is really bad.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
As your mom talked about having to make those types
of decisions they are having to witness them.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah, yeah, and they're Winna saying now as well, people
from university, because they're getting people from university working into hospitals.
So here in Spain, medicine is six years. They're getting
people from the fifth and the sixth year working into
the hospital. And these young people they're specially scared because
(30:06):
they're seeing now all the corpses bringing down and they
cannot even take it. So they open a huge mode
that we have in Madrid to take all the corpses.
And you see this all coming down from the hospital
into the truck, the military trucks, and you see all
these military trucks going around the city.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Is bad.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
So this is what I was saying, that is making
you seeing all these kind You try to keep up,
but seeing all these things going up and up and
up kind of affects you.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
It's like my whole career, I can interview people from Afar,
right and thank god, that's awful and have so much empathy.
And I think maybe the scariest part of this interview
even for me, is thinking like it's here, you know,
it's it's maybe a couple of weeks away from from
(31:03):
from me being able to describe the scene that you
just described to me, I could be describing it to you.
I think about the fear and all of this, and
and you know, and I think there's just so much fear.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yeah, this is the so yourself isolating you. You're good,
you try to pain, you try to, but you can
feel the fear growing up and growing up. And this
is what I love about being here with you, guys,
talking to you is try to to tell you what
(31:37):
we did bad and so please don't do it. Please
don't believe that it's just a flu something else. And
the sooner you go home and isolate yourself and make
your elders to isolate as well, it's the better for
everyone because, yeah, we're one week away from Italy. I
think we we can be wiser than governments here. And
(31:58):
the weapon that we have is what you just said, empathy,
and is empathy for all of us together and also
empathy for the people which is working in hospitals or
people which is working outside or in supermarkets because they're
still open. We need to have this empathy for them
and stay at our houses because they just can't handle
(32:21):
any more. People in hospitals et cetera. So I think
this is the biggest weapon we have empathy.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
What do you do when you're really afraid?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
You have your mom is working in the hospital, this
is really close to you.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
What do you do when you're afraid.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
I talked to her. She has like this ability to
to be like, it's just one more day and it
will be over. You know, we try to think that
it will be over, It will be over.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
What is the hardest part for you?
Speaker 3 (32:53):
For me, the hardest part is to for example, now
we're seeing the news. I think the hardest part is
too because imam people in hospitals which are in intensive
care and they cannot speak to their families and they
will die alone because no one can go inside, and
(33:15):
they will die alone. They willn't they will not have
a funeral. Funerals are forbiddom for coronavirus deaths. So in
my own families that they couldn't even say, not even goodbye.
It's not just you just go to the hospital with them,
to the urgency and and that's it right gone.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
M hmm.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
What do you want people to know? What do you
think is important?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
What I would tell you is that first and I
know it's hard. Don't be scared, do not panic. But
I think that the biggest thing that we can do
is is just to stay in our houses. You know,
our grandfathers, they were called to war and we're cold
to stay in our houses, so it's just to stay
(33:59):
at home.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
How has this changed you?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And I think it's soon still for me to well,
it's not soon. I think when after this, me and everyone,
I think we will all not love but try to
say how much we love to our parents and elders
because now we see them at a real risk.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Okay, we've got to take a quick break to hear
from our sponsors. Thank you guys for sharing your stories
with me. And I want to end with a quote.
This is one of my favorites. It's something I've lived
(34:53):
by as a journalist. It's by Joan Didion, who's just
one of my favorite authors.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
She says, we tell our ourselves stories in order to live. Well,
we're all.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
In the same story this go around. We're all experiencing love, courage, anxiety, fear,
and hopefully above all, empathy. What an extraordinary thing that
the through line of all of this is that although
we may be socially distant. Collectively, we can work together,
(35:26):
stay inside and save each other. Thank you to everyone
who reached out to me. I love hearing from you,
and special thanks to Danielle, Max, Joe, Julie, Pablo, and Brett.
Your stories, your courage, and your resilience keep me going too.
So I'm going to throw this out there and these
(35:48):
times of social distancing, when everything feels completely unknown. I've
always believed it's important to stay connected, but I believe
that now more than ever. And I say, and I
really mean it, reach out to us, reach out to me,
keep an eye out on our social media.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
We're gonna have ways to participate.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
You can text me nine one seven five four zero
three four one zero. Also, if you have anything you're
thinking about, if you're sitting in self isolation, if you're
in your head, if you want to say something, you've
got questions, send me a voice memo to First Contact
podcast at gmail dot com. I want to do my
(36:30):
best to be there for everyone during this tough time.
I want you guys to know we are listening. We'll
also be hosting zoom town halls on different issues during
this time, so follow along and participate for some human
ish Contact, you can connect with me. I'm self isolating here.
I'm at Lori Siegel. On Twitter and Instagram. The show
(36:51):
is at First Contact Podcast. On Instagram and on Twitter,
you can find us. We're at First Contact Pod. First
Contact is a production of Dot dot dot Com Media,
executive produced by Lori Siegel and Derek Dodge. I will
say we're being creative and executive producing this from home
and self isolation at the moment. This episode was produced
and edited by Sabine Jansen and Jack Reagan. The original
(37:14):
theme music is by Xander Singh. I'm sending my thoughts
to each and every one of you, guys, and so
is our whole First Contact crew during this time. I
hope that everyone is staying home, staying healthy, and staying human.
(37:36):
First Contact with Lori Siegel is a production of Dot
dot Dot Media and iHeartRadio.
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