Dayana Benavides Briceno
Writer - Books - Stories - Chronicles
Living with the Coronavirus
DAYANA BENAVIDES
Thirteen confirmed cases in Costa Rica, so far away from China, and we have Covid19 on the streets and we are not the only ones. What will be the real number of infected? Who in their ignorance continues to transmit the disease. But we must continue, go out and earn a living, even knowing the death toll in other countries. On the street, a person is coughing and I change sidewalks. Seeing an Asian, I walk away. We are afraid, but that does not pay the bills. They have suspended public shows to avoid mass infections but we have to get on the bus to go to work. And the children! You don't know whether to take them to school or have them miss lessons even if they are not in "risk groups." In reality, if this disease has spread without control, how can the "experts" be certain of its evolution and who is truly in danger. How vulnerable we are! I think of other plagues, some from laboratories, that can circulate on the least expected day, in movies, like Extermino, that seem to become reality. What will happen? Only God can know. We trust in Him that this is a passing nightmare.
What a Mother's Day!
DAYANA BENAVIDES
It was Mother's Day and under the scorching midday sun I was standing on the sand, under some sparse trees that were unable to cover the long queue of women and a few gentlemen who were waiting to buy a bag of powdered milk and a chicken for a week's consumption.
From behind a fence of iron bars I looked at the interior of the shopping centre, which looked run-down, not a shadow of what it once was. To pass the time I read a book about a group of African women who were victims of slavery and who shared terrible fates in colonial times. I looked at the scene around me and the faces that accompanied me. I found a certain similarity with the hardships of the characters in my book.
After a couple of hours of waiting, the security guard approached us. Desperate, we received our numbers, 149 was mine. When I entered, I followed the steps of a young woman with two children. I thought I would feel more comfortable inside the supermarket, but that was not the case. The establishment had no ventilation, it was suffocating to wait in the long queue to pay, as only one cash register was working. I could not continue reading, I was short of breath. I remembered the African ladies in my book locked in a cellar on a slave ship.
The shelves were in poor condition, insects walked shamelessly through the aisles, the facilities looked very dirty, the freezers were empty as were the vegetable displays. I could list the products that were in the warehouse that day and with them I would not be able to solve a week's food at home, just like several of my neighbors in line.
The musical background that this store once had was replaced by the cries of suffocated children and the shouts of customers arguing when some tried to cut in line to pay or demanding better service from the supermarket workers.
After four hours I left with my weekly ration according to my ID number and what was available that day: a bag of milk, a couple of chickens, two tomato sauces, a kilo of rice and a toothpaste. I remembered that it was Mother's Day. I had lost four hours with my son who was waiting for me to arrive with a handmade soap and a diploma that he had made for me at school as a gift. I didn't even have time to visit my mother.
A slave's life in disguise, without shackles. Working during the week, suffering hardships to eat half a meal and not having time for the family. What a life for mothers!
Venezuela has become a piñata
DAYANA BENAVIDES
Men and women are running, fighting for the "candy", it looks like a piñata, they are out of control, there is euphoria on their faces. A wave of looting threatens to devastate the already shaky Venezuelan economy.
Before the last candy falls, something must be done! Otherwise, all that will remain is a useless cardboard shell that will end up in the trash. Someone should take the stick away from corruption, which is destroying the country. Let peace return to Venezuela!