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Back to School After Sanitary Emergency by Estela Romero (English/Spanish)

Dear children from Journey North:

Students Return After Three Week Wait
Children in our State of Michoacán were yesterday back to school after three weeks of sanitary prevention. Here in Angangueo and our communities we have had up to now not one case a person presenting any particular symptoms pointing to the influenza virus.

Safety Measures: Masks and Hand Gel
Next, you will see some photos taken this morning to school Colegio Corregidora in Angangueo, where students are being asked to take their own mouth cover and their own hand gel sanitizer for classroom time. They are applied some hand gel sanitizer just at the time they arrive to school by the teachers.

Then I was at school Miguel Hidalgo at the Rondanilla Community, and I could see that no child was asked to wear mouth cover, but teachers were provided by our Educational State Authorities with containers of hand gel to apply to children before they come into their classrooms.

Kids are Glad to Be Back
While we waited for the school to be opened a couple of boys told me.

"It was a little boring to spend all these last 20 days at home. We took care of our sheep and helped our parents to do some house work, but sometimes, we just got bored."

I tried to ask several of them the way they thought this affected their lives, but this time all of them showed themselves too shy to say anything. Only one or two said we should now keep more hygiene both at school and at home. Another said it would be too uncomfortable to wear mouth covers.

Summing up, only Colegio Corregidora like all private schools in the country as well as public schools in big cities are being obliged to wear mouth covers and hand gel. Public schools in small regions like ours are not being asked to extreme prevention that way.

Our school calendar will be officially moved ahead for 3 weeks and lost classes will be recovered.
This is, then a general impression I wanted to give you about how our life goes on here.

I was personally in México city two weeks ago, and stayed there for a couple of days during which 12 hours a day I was traveling by subway to different points of the city. I could see less than half the people were covering their mouths by then, but on the other side, every entrance to any commercial place, bookstore, restaurant, subway, were keeping high control of hygiene prevention and every place kept extreme sanitary conditions. Today, after having traveled among thousands of people during those two days, I don't feel any thing strange regarding my own physical (neither phsycological, as far as I can notice) health.

I will be attentive in case you have any questions about this or any other point you wish to comment.

Sincerely,

María Estela Romero
Angangueo, Mich., May 19, 2009.

Students Return to Colegio Corregidora School

Students Return Miguel Hidalgo School