Swine flu report from Guanajuato, Mexico
Many thanks to all the friends who have emailed, or facebooked, or called asking how we are. As you may have heard, Mexico City was shaken by a 5.7 earthquake just after midday today.
Oh, and then there’s swine flu. At the best of times, Mexico is a huge cauldron for rumors. Now its cup runneth over.
So let’s forget rumors and just focus on what’s going on in my town of Guanajuato, a city of about 150,000 people 250 miles north of Mexico City. It’s both calm and totally changed.
I find I’m writing this in a dead pan voice, both because I am tired and because it seems better than panicky or cheery extremes.
I went out this morning at 11 for groceries. Half the normal traffic, the town eerily quiet. All the attendants in Mega (the big supermarket in town) had face masks and so did many of the customers, pretty amazing given that these are already a black market item. The store was pretty empty, the carts of the customers did not suggest panic buying or hoarding, though stocks of hand sanitizer, chloro, sanitary towels, and long life milk were dwindling.
Coming back at 1pm the streets were choc a bloc, parents with children in hand streaming here there and everywhere, the government having just announced the closing of all schools in the country.
Between one in ten and one in twenty people on the street were wearing masks, again pretty amazing since they can no longer be bought. The toll booth attendants on the highway were wearing rubber gloves and masks. There was no discernible pattern: those who wore masks might be muscled thirty-year old brick layers or sixty-year old society ladies, single people or families with babies.
We emailed colleagues at the National University about canceling seminars etc (the University is closed until at least the 6th May but plans have to be made for the rest of the semester) to discover that most of them have already left for their country houses, or relatives outside the city.
That capitaleños are leaving is not surprising. With water already in short supply in the capital (even before the water cutoffs over Easter our apartment building was regularly buying water from the “pipa” as the water truck is called) and the pre-rainy season heat, it would be good to escape even were it not for swine flu and earthquakes.
We’re hunkering down for a while. That’s easy for us since we have a large pleasant house and garden, work from home anyway, and have had a busy social life recently. Not everyone has that luxury.
Here are good sources of information. Try the newspaper El Universal although their website is getting slower and slower. Ana Maria Salazar has a blog in Spanish and English and lots of black humor. Inside Mexico reports in English and would welcome input. All Twitter.
Tomorrow. Thoughts on why it seems so hard to get the facts. And more.
Thanks for posting this. Glad you’re okay.
Rachel, THX4 your observations and information.
I was in Tijuana today and in several of the small coastal towns south of the border with San Diego. TJ is not a walking city but there seemed to be even fewer people about than usual. The coastal towns have had fewer and fewer tourists in the last 5 or 6 years (down about 80% from 8 years ago when the north bound border crossing time was slowed drastically) and now are ghost towns with many store fronts boarded up. Today was even worse. It is hard to say, though, whether it is because of the escalating fear of drug violence or the new fear of the swine flu. People I talked with say that it comes from a large American corporate hog farm near DF and I found this report:
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield/
I went into a couple of large grocery/housewares stores and people seemed to be there in ordinary numbers and buying ordinary amounts. A few customers were wearing masks. Most of the employees were wearing masks but I believe that the management had provided them since all were of identical design. Oddly, the employees in the farmacia were NOT wearing masks.
One school in San Diego County closed today.
Your description of what it is like in Guanajuato is very similar to how things are in Ciudad Guzman. An odd mix of quiet and calm, with a sense of lurking panic and fear waiting to erupt.
I heard late tonight that the state of Jalisco is wanting to close all the bars and restaurants too, as well as the schools, but I have yet to have that confirmed. I’ll know more tomorrow when I walk out of my house and see what is happening in my street where there are two restaurants.
It’s having a huge effect on all kinds of events from the national to the local. I had hoped to go to Zacatecas next Monday and Tuesday to a conference on climate change with Al Gore and Dr Mario Molina but that is now postponed. Equally we are having to improvise around the ecological rally that I am organizing here.
Hunkering down seems a good strategy.
i’ve been thinking a lot about you in mexico, as this is the main international news that we hear about on tv these days.
i hope the next time you write that you will have better news to tell us
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Thanks for writing this I was worried bout friends there. I love Guanajuato and hope to return soon. I hope to retire there in years to come.
Thanks for the comment. Swine flue has had no serious effect in Guanajuato in years.