Jejeje

¡Yay! The flu is so last week. Everyone's in a good mood, enjoying this strange interval when business are reopening, but school is still out. Kids are sitting in their living rooms and on their porches, wearing T-shirts and taking their school lessons over the radio.

I've been lucky to have a steady stream of visitors from the capital, all of them super low-maintenance since a simple visit to the fruit market is like Disneyworld for them. As I type, we've got some Bowie on the stereo, Caley is roasting poblano peppers and Zach is on the next bus to Xalapa. Don't want to jinx it, but maybe my last three weeks in Mexico will be just as festive as the first.

One day at a time

Don't wanna speak too soon, but it feels like things are looking up. The cafe is open. On my way here, only about a third of the people were wearing face masks. And the line at the juice stand was shorter. Based on this highly scientific survey of the epidemic, I felt more upbeat and decided that only a half-liter of juice would be sufficient for today's flu-fighting efforts.

Still trying to figure out what to do now that all my Danzón plans are cancelled. Can't advance in Son Jarocho studies, either, until the classes and fandangos resume. Well...guess I have no choice but to organize my photos. Here's one of my favorites, some wall art that I snapped while in the dentists' chair in Mexico City in February.

Today's headline: Enjoy Being Home

At least in Xalapa, the only thing that has worsened is my desire to spoon my eyes out. Not too much fear here, and hopefully still no flu, just boredom. My friends were planning to escape from D. F. and spend a few days at my place, but they're stuck at home as everything seems to have frozen to a standstill.

I was counting down the minutes until my jarana lesson today, which would have been quite the outing since it's a whole two blocks away. Upon arriving with my neighbors Katie and Riley, we found the courtyard deserted. We spotted our teacher's mom, Angela, doing laundry, but no sign of the other students.

Angela kindly allowed us to go through the motions of getting ready for class, taking us into the deliciously woodchip-scented workshop and turning on the lights. There we sat on stools and chatted for awhile, touching on all of the biggest Mexican grandmother topics, namely the flu and our marital status. We idly strummed our jaranas, until it became obvious that Angela's son was not going to show up. 

Katie, my neighbor, gave him a quick call on her cell. I found myself copying her frown as she spoke to our teacher sympathetically, "Yes, yes, stay at home with them. I hope they get better soon." So there would be no lesson today, instead just another moment of what we can only hope is needless concern. I wasn't ready to go home, but we thanked Angela, wished her the best for her grandkids, and left.

My daily source of excitement has been juice. For the past three days I have walked to the corner and joined a long line of people, some in face masks, all of us eager to drown ourselves in vitamin C. The juice stand is like a neighborhood institution, so I feel closest to being united with my Mexican neighbors in this crisis (not so much when raking the State Department website for travel alerts) when I'm waiting with them in line.

The girl in front of me carried two jugs to be filled with fresh-squeezed orange and beet juice. She's taking them back to her family, I noted with a twinge of envy. I didn't know that we could bring our own vessels, so I walked up to the counter and asked for my liter of orange-and-carrot in the customary eco-unfriendly plastic bag. While slicing my oranges, the young juicer's eyes seemed to glance at me curiously over his blue mask. I hope I didn't look as far from home as I felt.

Swine time

While I'm glad to not be breathing in their pathogens, I totally miss my friends in the capital. My weekends in Xalapa are pretty low-key compared to those D.F., and while this has been great for my work ethic, my freaked-out solitary self was not happy about it last night. 

I stayed in, taking a break from the Orwellian online updates with a novel. Between pages I tried to convince myself that, by moving to sleepy Xalapa two months ago, I should be grateful that I can now just hole up and wait for this thing to blow over. But dang it, I'm missing out on all the action! I want to go downtown and have a soldier give me a face mask! Chucking my novel aside, I fell into a funk. I realized that I've probably got a good deal of boredom and paranoia ahead of me, and only my houseplants to share it with.

At 10 o'clock I ventured out to a payphone to call my old roommate in the capital. Xalapa's streets were deserted, which is normal. I called her twice and she didn't pick up. Walking back to my empty apartment, I imagined all the small-scale rooftop parties that were probably springing up all over in Mexico City as an alternative to the closed theaters and clubs. Scared as they may be, no doubt people were excited on on some level— high-fiving over the obligatory two-week vacation, and cracking pig jokes from behind their matching cubrebocas.