Muddling through

March 20, 2020

We’re into the rumour season now. Yesterday, I was reliably informed that while the combi microbuses would continue to operate, taxis would come off the streets. Also, all the restaurants and hotels in town were to close by Monday

Today,Gabino my neighbour, who drives a cab for a living, says he’s heard of no such plan. The restaurants are taking some steps, one having closed, and another I went to yesterday (daring fool that I am!) was spacing out its tables so our small group couldn’t get too close to each other. But shutting down hotels and restaurants in a town that lives off tourism would of course push hundreds of people into destitution. Which doesn’t mean it won’t happen. But right now, it’s unlikely.

Tepoztlan in carnival season. Even on a regular Sunday, the place is this full of visitors.

One article I’ve read (there’ve been scores, at the least) points out that governments are all proceeding on their way here on the basis of rather limited information. Additionally, I suspect, elected officials charged with doing something are, unfortunately, doing “something,” rather than doing useful things. I do wonder if many of them have ever actually looked after kids when a bug is raging through a classroom, and parents learn fast about infections and how they spread. I suspect not.

At the same time, regular people are bombarded with far too much information, and we can’t organise it. When our electrical power cuts out here, as it often does in the stormy rainy season, we think about food in the freezer spoiling if it lasts too long. Otherwise, we accept that there’s no internet, that we have to break out the candles we keep on hand, and so on. We can organise the information, and organise ourselves. With this, there’s too much information to prioritise, much of it contradictory or unclear, and that doesn’t help.

Should I isolate? I do much of the time, anyway, thanks to my lifelong membership in the Dedicated Introverts Society.

Should I avoid other people? Only to a limited extent, because friends are very useful in a crisis. I ran into one this morning, and we pretended to shout at each other from 10 feet apart, in a spontaneous street-comedy routine. No doubt such scenes have been replicated around the world. But she and I don’t live far from each other, so if one of us gets the bug, the other would be the one to bring food or supplies to the afflicted person’s door, because there’d be no official body to aid us.

Mexicans are loath to abandon physical greetings, and I feel like a gringo party-pooper by refusing to hug or shake hands. It is, though, is a sensible step, like heavy-duty hand washing, even if it doesn’t offer very much protection. Like flimsy face-masks, which are starting to show up in town, such refusal does a little something, and the little somethings might make the difference.

But the truth is, most people here aren’t going to do a lot to protect themselves or  – the real point of quarantining or isolating – protect the community as a whole. Mexico’s official case tally is around 100, but since you have to travel a long way to get a test, that figure is doubtless misleadingly low. All of us, natives and expats, are largely trusting to God (in some form), sunny weather, and fresh air, to get us through. Plus luck.

Some people have gone back to their home countries, but a lot of us are gambling that the odds of safety are a little bit better here than in the US, Canada or Europe. People won’t do a lot more, not for now. And maybe not later.