Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Mexican Flu: The Maids Dilemma

Ah, but here is a very interesting juncture in which the lives of the rich intersect with the lives of the poor in Mexico: The maids who live at home. Well-to-do Mexico City residents are now faced with the dilemma of whether they should allow their live in help to go out on their day of rest. They are petrified, and not without reason, that the maid may come back infected from public transportation or from wherever it is that poor people go on their free time. Some have resorted to keeping the maid at home until further notice.
It's ironic that for a country that has always been surreal to begin with, this, which is truly, frighteningly surreal, is happening. And they get an earthquake on top of it (less that a minute later, there's a joke about that). I'm sure that Mexicans are going to deal with it as they know best, with even more surrealism. I already saw pictures of people painting smiling mouths on their face masks. And of people joking about face masks by using underwear instead. And there are those eerie soccer matches at empty stadiums and that TV comedy show that decided to use smiling cardboard cutouts instead of an audience, with canned laughter and applause.

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