Wirral student Siobhan Kirby's account of life in swine-flu hit Mexico

May 6 2009 By Siobhan Kirby

LIFE in Mexico has been full of ups and downs since I came here in August 2008 for my year abroad. Drugdealers, earthquakes and now a deadly outbreak of Swine Flu..life here is certainly not boring.

Whilst the epicentre of the outbreak is Mexico City, precautions and fear have swept the whole of the country including Guadalajara in Jalisco where I am living which is 4 hours away from the capital. Masked people are everywhere, and the slightest cough or sneeze sends people into a frenzy.

The news first started to filter through on Friday 24^th April that there had been an outbreak of Swine Flu in Mexico City which had led to the closure of schools across the city – DAMN! why were we living in Guadalajara continuing life as normal?…. Getting up at 7am four days a week for Spanish classes, tutorials, exams…. In hindsight I long for that normality- regular daily life here has dissipated and now endless days are spent enclosed within the four walls of my house….

The country has almost ground to a full stop. First with all educational institutions closing until 6^th May, and yesterday the announcement that all employment will be suspended across the country, excepting military operations and essential government duties until May 5^th- with what is likely to be devastating consequences for the already fragile economy.

What was a thriving international student community at Tec de Monterrey, Guadalajara, has now disintegrated with people fleeing or summoned back to all corners of the globe (most likely carrying the dreaded disease with them); a particularly interesting phenomenon since there has yet to be a single confirmed case of swine flu within the entire state…

Perhaps the funniest “escape” was that of a rather large Canadian girl with a penchant for quesadillas (Mexican tortillas with cheese). She was living in halls of residence at the university until Monday 27^th… but with the majority of the Mexican students returning to their family homes, the campus facilities, including her Quesadilla Mecca (the café) closed…. Heaven forbid she had to lift a pan and cook herself something…not for her - no, a $400 flight back to Canada was a better option, according to her Facebook “so as she could eat again”.

Socialising has also become a thing of the past... despite considering media coverage to be something of an exaggeration, fear levels remain high and staying indoors for 23 and a half hours a day, every day, certainly addles the brain. A 20 minute trip to the car park of the local shopping mall to exchange sold Ebay goods made me feel horribly uncomfortable... whilst my boyfriend warned, ‘We have to stay away from the Porcinos’ (swine)- i.e. people not wearing masks.

Rumours are rife, but I try and remain objective. Three friends repeatedly tell me they will shut the border should the WHO raise the Pandemic Alert to Level 6... I have since blocked them on MSN- after all doesn’t level 6 mean the virus is all around the world?! What exactly is the logic in shutting the gate when all the swine are out of the pen?! I feel it is too premature to make a decision to leave.

So life goes on, albeit boring. Days are filled with meal planning, Facebook, MSN, online scrabble, sanitising, oh and a spot of lunch time drinking which fortunately induces afternoon naps to pass the boredom..... 3hours later and its time for the evening dinner and then bed, dreaming of normality.