Corporate Covidization

     Someone told me once there are 32 churches in Tenancingo. Los mexicanos son creyentes.Tenancinguenses are ardent "believers". The evidence is everywhere. However less now than in the past. Future storms most likely will further erode the religious fervor that has been a hallmark of this place. After more than a year with the covid crisis, Tenancingo, has dramatically changed. In Mexico, life is wedded to a calendar that marks time in historical, and religious ceremonies. Covid stole the sounds and colors of ceremony not only from Tenancingo but from all of Mexico. Gaiety, exhuberance and much of its meaningful crafts have suffered or been relegated to the background leaving a washed out apprehension in its place. Its schools have been empty for more than a year and weeds are reclaiming the spaces. I am not a fan of formal education but the present alternative where so many children languish at home in virtual limbo is unacceptable. Then there are those that do not have access to computers and basically run truant and unsupervised. 

     The usually spirited mexican air has been emptied of its passion. Parades, processions, and the vitality of the marketplace have all been corroded by this disease and the decisions not made to manage it, especially in the US. The Trump government was padded with a tribe of non scientific baboons who did not engage the crisis. In fact they worsened it. They pushed bleach and ignored the reports on Ivermectin, allowed for shortages of medical equipment, poo-poohed masks, while tipping their hat to big pharma. Corporate criminals were unleashed, given wads of government money to develop a vaccine that would solve it all. The crisis became a windfall for the corporate way. What remained of mainstreet has disappeared most likely forever.    

     The U.S. economy unfortunately dominates Mexico, in fact all of Latin America. If the US gets a cold we get pneumonia. The interruption of confidence and the flow of money has squeezed the working class here. Artisans exist in desperation. There is just so much versatility one can muster to cushion their life's work. One cannot replace an industry such as the elaboration of rebozos by masks made from the same cloth. The effect of this microscopic  invader is inversely porportional to the social havoc that it and the response to it has wreaked. Just a few of the losses: Independence Day, first communions, epiphany, candelaria, The Virgen de Guadalupe, pilgrimages, dances, songs, indigenous gatherings, day of the dead, Dia de La Revolution, quince años, la charreria, posadas, Semana Santa, Domingo de Los Ramos, barrio fairs and their fiery castillos, La Señora del Carmen and her pilgramages, even baptisms, weddings, and funeral processions. As well as a big R.I.P. to the arts.

     

     Mexico has always been an in person place. We hug and kiss on the street. The street was as much our home as our actual home if not more so. Sadly there is no public touching anymore. Masks camoflage emotions and everyone looks like a bankrobber. Vaccines, such as the MRNA type, which may actually comprimise future immunity are not panacea. They don't even work. I was vaccinated not because I was looking for protection but in fear of the dreaded vaccine passport whose subtitle is "keep out". The vaccine may even become an opportunity to separate us further from each other if it becomes a requirement for travel. The irony is I received the chinese Sinovac which along with the Sputnik has been politicized by not being recognized by the West as viable. Sinovac and Sputnik are made the old fashioned way by grinding up dead virus and introducing it into the body so as to create antibodies. The polio vaccine is a similar fix. If you look hard, weeding out the overgrown politicized reviews Sinovac comes off pretty well and costs almost 4 times less than Phizer. Ivermectin, the drug that saved my mother-in-law and sister-in-law from covid 19 has been orphaned by the CDC, WHO and even by its developer Merck. (the patent has run out on Ivermectin and Merck  has developed their own vaccine). What could have saved millions and offered a cheap prophylactic in the third world was put out to a far off pasture even though there was evidence almost from the start that it was effective against covid. This might be the biggest crime of the century no one will recognize. It turns out the best medicine is to have had covid. 

     The shock is still fresh. So many have had their lives disrupted and are still becoming accustomed to the fact that their work may not return, that  main street is emptying, and rosaries and masses are attended by telephone. In december 2020 a young family member died of covid alone in the hospital without the comfort of family. No visits, no funerals are allowed. Family members just unceremoniously receive a box of ashes. Then to honor her a mass was said, and a novenario was conducted both via Zoom. I thought to myself this just may be the future,,,,

shrinking by Zoomification. It is already becoming accepted social practice. The fact that the cohesion offered by socialization and the religious calendar is breaking and the bonds it creates in society are dissolving. Will the artisans just fall into other less creative endeavors in order to survive disappearing as they fade into economic limbo? Will we all live our culture through a  2x2 inch screen?