Ilaria Piotto thought she was doing OK. She was focussed on the things she could control. She had built a routine. Sure, she was home all day, almost every day. But she was studying and chatting and keeping busy. I felt fine, she said. I didnt think all this was impacting me. And then, in the grocery store, she saw a friend.

It wasnt her best friend. Thats the thing. Before all this, they werent all that close. They ran in the same group. They saw each other at parties. But when she saw him that day, in the store, wearing his gloves and mask, she was overwhelmed. She barely stopped herself from crying.

It was so strange, so moving to see him after all this time, she said. You get used to a situation. You kind of forget things used to be different. Something like that reminds you of how they were.

Most Italians, including Piotto, have been in some form of mandated isolation for more than a month now. The COVID-19 pandemic struck northern Italy earlier and harder than it had any other Western country at the time. (The United States has since passed Italy in both total cases and fatalities.)

In early March, the National Post spoke to four Italian residents about life in that country in the early stages of the lockdown. The goal was to get a sense of what might soon be coming here. A month later, three of those four spoke to the Post again about their lives now and in the month since. The fourth person was unavailable to comment.

All three spoke about boredom and fear and the value of doing what has to be done. For Canadians, their reflections offer another window into our very near future, a place where the situation may just be turning the corner, but where much work and sacrifice remains to be done.

The comments below have been edited for clarity, style and space.

Jake Rupert is a former newspaper reporter from Ottawa. He now operates a villa and tour company in Abruzzo, east of Rome, with his wife, Lisa Grassi-Blais.

About a month ago, the numbers were going up so fast. They couldnt cremate the bodies fast enough in Bergamo, which is a pretty big city with several crematoriums. They were sending them out on military trucks. And that was the tipping point where I thought, OK. It was weird and a bit scary before, but this is very stark. Ive never seen anything like this in my life. I dont think anybody has.

So that was the tipping point for me. Well deal with the business. Were going to be OK, but were going to do our part. Im not going to complain about anything. Were going to follow the rules and hopefully get out of this without too much carnage. And I think most people have been that way. Even though our town has only one confirmed case, people know people in other villages that have passed away. Its like: my great uncle, my uncle, my grandfather, that kind of thing. So nobody here is really complaining about the quarantine.

In the last 10 days, it sort of plateaued and now were getting fewer cases. But the government isnt taking any chances. Theyre talking about possibly relaxing things, but its not going to be any time soon. They want to do what China did to pretty much eliminate the number of new cases before people start to resume daily life and then theyre going to do it in stages.

People here are doing what they have to do to get through. Our friend is the town clerk. Before this she was processing birth certificates and citizenship applications and zoning applications. All shes been doing for the last 30 days is doling out food stamps.

The good thing about our business is, weve been very conservative. We didnt take on debt and mortgages. So were OK. Its different for the 10 people that work with us. A couple of our cleaning ladies are getting food stamps. Were trying to help them out as best we can, but we have negative income. Were getting a lot of people cancelling. But well go broke before we see our staff members suffering.

Hezar Abbas is a 22-year-old asylum seeker originally from Pakistan. He came to Europe more than four years ago and has lived in Florence, where he has worked in a leather factory, for the past year-and-a-half. Hes been out of work and stuck at home since early March.

Right now our condition is like last month. Everything is the same. We are worried about our finances, our work and the things we need in our daily lives. Last week I sent a message to my boss because the Italian government announced a 600 euro ($910) bonus for workers. I wanted some information on how we could apply for it. My boss told us we have to wait. We are still waiting. And our boss has not paid us yet, so money is a big problem.

There are five of us in the house. We are playing cards, improving our language and trying to get Italian lessons. We have all our cricket stuff in the house, ball, bat, everything. But we havent broken anything because we play very slowly. We cook for each other. Today is my turn. I am going to make rice because it is easy to cook and you dont need too much stuff to put into it.

Obviously we are getting bored. If you spend more than a month at home, you are going to get bored. But it was worse in the first two or three weeks. I had nothing to do then. Then I thought, maybe I can try some online courses, or maybe I can try to improve my Italian. So now Im trying that and its going better.

If I go outside, to the market, if the police see me, they ask me, what are you doing here? Why are you outside? I must tell them that Im here to buy groceries. We can only go outside to buy the things we need for our daily lives. Buying anything takes at least an hour. We have to wait in a line. And one by one we can go in to buy our things.

One good thing is, everyone is the same now. Im treated like an Italian and the Italians are treated like me. At first, I thought they thought we were different, but now I think, they know we are equal.

Ilaria Piotto, 21, is a student at the Ca Foscari University of Venice. She lives with her parents in Padua, about 40 kilometres west of the city.

At the beginning I felt very anxious. I didnt know what was going on. I was struggling to create a routine. If youre at home, you can study. Thats fine. But its difficult to make yourself do things when you dont have a schedule, when you dont have places to be. I was worrying so much about the situation, about the news, but then, slowly, I was able to create a routine, I accepted the situation. I accepted that we are powerless.

Now, Im just trying to live my regular life, to focus on school and to stay busy basically. It feels almost normal not going out now, whereas at the beginning it was so strange. I cant even remember the last time I went out casually without anything important to do.

Imagining that things will go back to normal seems almost like a utopia

I didnt realize how much the isolation was affecting me until I saw one of my friends at the grocery store and I almost started crying. I felt like I was fine. I didnt think about that that much. That moment helped me understand, that maybe even if I thought I was fine, there was something deeper happening to me.

I dont know what life will look like when this is over. I cant imagine it. At this point my friends and I have all kind of accepted it. We came to terms with the situation. So imagining that things will go back to normal seems almost like a utopia. I dont know. I think it will take a long, long time before things return to the way they used to be.

Email: rwarnica@nationalpost.com | Twitter:

Read the original:

'We are powerless': Italians offer window into life in second month of COVID-19 lockdown - National Post