By Karen Ballesteros on January 13, 2021
Photo: Jordana Gonzalez
Dying of hunger rather than of COVID-19 infection is what dozens of families who make a living in roving fairs, on the rides, the food stands, raffles, games, lottery, shooting galleries, are afraid of. They are on the streets, trying to survive by asking for hands outs, selling their piggy-banks and stuffed animal toys, or exchanging them for provisions.
The greatest fear of the roving fair workers of Mexico is dying of hunger and not from COVID-19. This group of workers in the informal economy has gone almost 10 months without being able to get any income from the family tradition that sustains them – the traveling fairs. This the situation for 79 families – who range from 10 to 20 members each – who are currently surviving thanks to swapping their piggy-banks for food or money with those who pass through the Central and Nuevo Aragon intersections in the Ecatepec District of Morelos, in Mexico.
Since March 31, 2020, when the national announcement of the public health emergency due to the pandemic was made, professions and jobs that are not essential, including those of the fair workers, ceased their functioning in order to the prevent spread of COVID-19. Those who lived by selling entertainment, with rides and food stands, games, shooting galleries in saint’s day festivals, market fairs, town and municipal anniversaries, among other celebrations, found themselves stranded wherever they were when the suspension of activities took them by surprise, since they travel the length and breadth of the country “like gypsies” as they say.
On one of street medians of Central Avenue, a short distance from the Mexibus Palomas station, you can see dozens of piggy-banks of different shapes. Behind them, sitting under a rise, is Bernardo. He is alert, watching people and cars pass by. Meanwhile, Marisol, his life’s companion and their youngest daughter, seven-year-old Kimberly, beg from those passing through the avenue.
Only one of the cars pauses and pays attention to the sound played through the speakers that calls for help to support the Morales family, either with one or two pesos or with staple foodstuffs, as well as by the purchase of one of the ceramic figures on display. They do this for subsistence and to return to their home towns, explains Bernardo Morales de la Rosa. “We are stuck here because we don’t have any money to move on.”
The Morales family had to remain in Ecatepec, due to the fact that the pandemic caused by the SARS-2CoV-2 brought to a halt the source of work and income for thousands of fellow-workers, leaving them stranded and out of luck in towns and communities. This 51-year-old man was born in a fair, under the roof of a trailer, and tells us that his family of four decided to keep their trailer at the entrance to the Ecatepec district and not move to more rural zones like Teotihuacán or Texcoco, where the poverty levels are even higher.
“Here at the entrance to the City of Mexico is where there are a few more resources and the people who are coming from the commercial centers like the Supplies Central pass by here and we can catch us them a they pass.”
The first two months, at the start of the National Campaign for Healthy Distance, people responded: “They brought us beans, rice, dried pasta, oil.” The donated products were divided among those who remained in this district, just as in adjacent states like Guerrero and Hidalgo.
Miguel Ángel Morales Delgado, the nephew of Don Bernardo, was stranded with Mariana Sánchez Ramírez, his wife, and their new-born son in the Nueva Aragón district, also in Ecatepec. The 21-yer-old youth explained that “they have brought clothes and shoes for us and even food supplies; they’ve helped us economically with something. We’re not going to ask for much – in other words – whatever they want to help us out with.”
However, just as they have received aid, they have also received insults; they’ve been labeled “lazy bums” notes Bernardo Morales de la Rosa. Miguel Angel adds that there are even those who ask “Where’s the money we made before covid. They think we make lots of money, and that’s not so.”
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, translation North America bureau