The Covid Diary: Marlene Acosta, 28 years old, Mexico

My name is Marlene Acosta, I am 28 years old and I am a Mexican-American architect. In Mexico I live near to Tijuana, on the border with California, USA.

Here we have to live in quarantine, but the people in Mexico do not take it seriously. Our current president has been doing a terrible job. He has took away the budget from the health sector for private initiative, so many people have lost their jobs in the last two years. More than 50% of the people work on their own, so staying at home is not really an option for them. When the virus arrived in our country, our schools got closed, malls just recently closed, the churches are giving their ceremonies online and all concerts and festivals are canceled.

Especially in my city it is weird to live in quarantaine. Because of our close relationship to California, is it common to go from country to country, just to grab some food, visit the family, go for a little shopping, work or visit at the doctor. We nog can’t all go there anymore.

“People in Mexico do not take it seriously.”

For me, it is a difficult time right now, because I am unemployed. Luckily my parents are helping me, but it is super stressful not to be able to work, to not have any medical services and that nobody receives any help from the government. My brother lives in California and we can only see him through facetime. Although he can come to Mexico, and I as an American citizen can go to California, but my parents as Mexicans are not allowed to leave the country for probably quite a long time.

Also certain products are sold out in stores. It is so sad to see empty stores like the giant of Walmart. I have friends who are doctors and nurses and work in hospitals. They have to deal with this situation without respirators, without beds, without medicines, without equipment to protect themselves, and with interns and medical students forced to work in hospitals without any protection or salary. It is all going crazy in here.

I’m happy to tell you all a little bit about my situation in Mexico. It would be great to meet up and talk about it together, so if you’d like to now anything more about my situation, feel free to contact!

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