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Living Through a Flu Quarantine - Mexico 2009

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  • Living Through a Flu Quarantine - Mexico 2009

    • <small>MAY 5, 2009, 9:25 P.M. ET</small>

    <!-- ID: SB124155151294688433 --> <!-- TYPE: Health --> <!-- DISPLAY-NAME: --> <!-- PUBLICATION: The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition --> <!-- DATE: 2009-05-05 21:25 --> <!-- COPYRIGHT: Dow Jones & Company, Inc. --> <!-- ORIGINAL-ID: --> <!-- article start --> <!-- CODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OASN CODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OWON CODE=STATISTIC SYMBOL=FREE CODE=INDUSTRY SYMBOL=DHC --> Living Through a Flu Quarantine

    Mexico City Residents Share Their Experiences


    As Mexico City's traffic begins to pick up, cafes reopen and cleanup crews get schools ready to resume classes, a handful of residents tell their tales of how they got along during the five-day shutdown intended to contain the spread of the A/H1N1 flu in one of the world's biggest cities.

    Nelly Flores, 31-year-old psychologist

    A deadly epidemic can make people forget minor illnesses, but people with anxiety disorders see their conditions get worse. I had to reassure many patients after the flu broke out, mostly over the phone.
    Meanwhile, at home, I had to get creative to ensure my two kids didn't get bored or watch TV and use PlayStation all day. So we came up with a routine that mimicked school. After breakfast, each kid had to study, followed by their chance to teach their own class. My five-year-old gave us a lecture on dinosaurs; we got a speech on physical education from the eight-year-old, and we had some cooking classes, too. Of course, the home economics course was done by me, teaching them how to do and fold the wash. It's incredible how cooperative children become when it's all part of a game.
    While the world outside debated where and how the flu started and kept up with the death tally, we enjoyed our enforced quarantine. We've talked a lot, and laughed a lot. We realized we didn't need to go out to enjoy our own family. Thanks to the flu, I feel closer to my kids.

    Gloria Salazar, a 61-year-old business consultant

    Surprise. Fear. Incredulity. Being forced to take holidays that didn't feel like a vacation. Wondering about how serious it really was. Wondering about the economy. Wondering whether our officials were handling it well.
    I read a lot. (Paul Auster, my current obsession. I fear I'm becoming one of his characters.)
    Lots of TV (CNN, "Sex and the City" reruns, and a Mexican movie about brain-sucking vampires). I tracked the growing cases of influenza on the Web.
    I escaped the city to a nearby resort town, leaving behind the surgical masks, paranoia, statistics about infected and dead. Clean air, trees, no news. Lots of group cooking: wood-fired pizzas, copious amounts of red wine, and some tequila. Lots of talking, laughter and complicity in our mutual hedonism during these times of influenza.
    But it had to end. I returned to Mexico City and found it lifeless, dead.

    Jose Hamra, 41, shopowner

    My wife, Vanessa, left Mexico on a trip just before officials declared the health emergency. This was the first time I had been left in charge of the kids, three-year-old Maayan and seven-year-old Ilan, for so long -- 10 days. Vanessa left me a detailed itinerary of things to do, but it was useless with school cancelled and the city shut down. I had to adapt.
    But first, I had to figure out how serious this really was. It seemed like the Mexican government was giving out confusing information, so I logged on to Web sites for the World Health Organization and read newspapers rather than watch TV, which is alarmist. I realized that 300,000 people around the world die of influenza every year, and 6,000 in Mexico.
    I decided to "protect" my kids as much as possible without falling into panic. I was open with them and answered their questions, mostly from Ilan. We stocked up on vitamin C, and bought homeopathic medicine. We ate home-cooked meals. We drew pictures, watched movies, and visited a friends' house.
    We decided not to leave the city. It's my city, my turf. We took walks around the parks. I bought bandannas in different colors for them rather than surgical facemasks. It was more fun for them, and they got to dress up like cowboys! Still, the city seems sad, forlorn, lost. People look at each other with mistrust.
    I worked half days, leaving the kids with grandparents or aunts and uncles. I communicated with the outside world through Facebook. I kept my "cool," but I got to being afraid for my kids. I'd see supermarkets with the aisles half empty from panic buying. But I had to put on a brave face at home. This has changed the way we live. It's made me more aware of how vulnerable we all are.

    Cuauhtemoc Leon, 49-year-old environmental consultant

    We spent a lot of time together as a family. We played a lot of board games that had gathered dust, we made up menus to cook together, and invented a home version of "Iron Chef," where we each made a dish and battled it out for the symbolic prize: the right to choose that evening's family movie.
    We discussed the flu. We looked at the figures and where it seems to have started and tried to figure out where it started, like a game of CSI or Sherlock Holmes. We played a game to come up with words to describe the city. "Coma" was the best one so far. We rediscovered old family games, like playing with water balloons on the patio.


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