These are children of the global pandemic. There is melancholy and boredom, and a lot of worrying, especially about parents working amid the disease, grandparents suddenly cut off from weekend visits, friends seen only on a video screen. Some children feel safe and protected, others are scared. And yet, many also find joy in play, and even silliness. Let us see how kids around the world are living with the virus and using art to show us what they believe the future might hold. AP
Ana Laura Ramírez Lavandero | 10, cuba
Her drawing depicts a simple enough dream for a 10-year-old — “Viaje a la Playa,” a trip to the beach. On the page, she has coloured a palm tree with three brown coconuts, a boat floating in the distance and a shining yellow sun. It is a scene representative of life on her island country, known for its white sand and aqua-blue waters. For now, however, Ana Laura Ramírez Lavandero can only dream of the beach. Under lockdown, she finds herself confined to the fourth-floor apartment she shares with her parents and grandmother. On the balcony, she watches life through a rusted iron trellis. It can seem like a jail. “My life changed,” says the girl, who’s accustomed to playing on the streets of her working and middle-income neighbourhood in Havana.
Alexandra Kustova | 12, Russia
Hard times can have a silver lining. Alexandra Kustova has come to understand this during this pandemic. Now that all her studies are conducted online, she has more time for her two favorite hobbies — ballet and jigsaw puzzles. The 12-year-old is also able to spend more time with her family and help her grandmother, who lives in the same building, two floors down at their apartment in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Urals, a mountain range that partly divides Europe and Asia. Together, they take time to water tomato plants and enjoy one another’s company. Time has slowed down. “Before that I would have breakfast with them, rush out to school, come back, have dinner, go to ballet classes, come back — and it would already be time to go to bed,” Alexandra says.
Tresor Ndizihiwe | 12, Rwanda
No school. No playing with friends. Soldiers everywhere. That’s life during the coronavirus pandemic for Tresor Ndizihiwe, a 12-year-old boy who lives in Rwanda, one of seven brothers and sisters. Their mother, Jacqueline Mukantwari, is paid $50 a month as a schoolteacher, but she used to earn extra money giving private lessons. That business has dried up, and the family gets food parcels from the government twice a month. The only regular outside time Tresor has is in a small courtyard next to his home. “The day becomes long,” he says in his native tongue, Kinyarwanda. “(You) can’t go out there” — he indicates the world outside his house – “and it makes me feel really uncomfortable.” Tresor draws a picture of the future that shows soldiers shooting civilians who are protesting, he says. He adds dabs of red paint next to one of those who has fallen. It’s a stark image for a boy to produce. Rwanda was the first country in Africa to enforce lockdown because of the virus.
Jeimmer Riveros | 9, cuba
Life in Colombia’s countryside has become difficult for the family of Jeimmer Alejandro Riveros. The price of herbs and vegetables, his single mom and siblings cultivate on a farm in Chipaque have declined. A spotty internet connection makes virtual classes difficult, and a nationwide quarantine means less time outdoors. “Here is a mountain with a river,” Jeimmer says, pointing at each item in his drawing. In his mind, the future doesn’t look so different. “Here I am. Here is my house. Here is the sun and here is the sky.” The family launched a YouTube channel with videos showing how to grow and propagate plants that now has more than 4,20,000 followers.
