As anyone who is living right now, I have been affected by the Coronavirus outbreak. Not as much as others. I don’t have symptoms, nobody in my household has, we have acquired groceries (including milk, eggs and toilet paper which we were low), and have hunkered down for one week of who-knows-how-many.
I needed to let some time pass to write again. My last post about Spring Break could have been misunderstood that I was one of the crazy young people going to Florida even though authorities say to avoid it.
I wasn’t. I was anxious about my trip and the uncertainity of what was happening. The reason why I was optimistic was that Mexico, specially the state of Chiapas, had fewer positive cases than Austin. I thought I was escaping from the pandemic for one week. My destination was safer!
I got anxious just seeing people with masks at the airports. When we arrived at our destination, we went to see the town of Tuxtla Gutierrez. See, I thought we were on a small group and mostly visiting rural areas. I had the idea we would not be in crowded places, but when we visted the plaza, my preconceived notions were all wrong. It was packed!
Now I was concerned. Chiapas is not wealthy, it relies mostly on tourism and is rural in almost all areas. My first impression was that if it got the disease, a lot of people were going to suffer.
I try to enjoy the trip, but I kept reading the news. There were rumors of the border closing but nothing concrete. I knew it was coming, but we didn’t have a specific date.
Then, on our last days, our tourist guide got the news. The historical sites were closing down to avoid the pandemic. There were a lot of tourists from different places of the world – including Asia and Europe – visiting the same small places. It seems we were the last wave of people visiting those sites since they closed down a day after we visited. On our return date, we knew the border was closing.
Now everything is worse as before we left. I haven’t shown symptoms, and Mexico is in denial, like Americans were weeks ago. The denial is more out of necessity. Without tourism, they are going to lose their jobs and way of life.
But…most of the places I went were so far away that there is hope the virus will never get there. There is a chance the poorest sites will not see the disease, while the richer sections of the country will suffer.
That’s wishful thinking of my part. At the time I am writing this there are reports that rich Mexicans brought the virus and are infecting domestic workers. Rich people will get the treatment. The poor will not.
Alex's Writing Corner 