Have you ever been chatting with someone and as they tell you more about themselves and the words really start to sink in, you suddenly realize that they are such a bad-ass, you are completely caught off guard by your sudden admiration for them?
That has happened at least twice for me with Juana.
I first met Juana in 2021 in the small indigenous community where I was installing test wells for a water project. We needed to look around her property for the right spot and she was willing to help, in a very kind but firm kind of way. She said she had donated certain parts of her land to the community water project and wanted to help in any way she could, but she also firmly stated that it was her land and that she needed to be informed of any decisions and any work on her land.
Wielding her machete with strength and grace, she then proceeded to guide us through the jungle, rapidly creating a path through the vines and overgrowth with swift and agile slashes of her machete.
I was a little intimidated by her, but as we worked together for multiple days, we chatted more and more, and she began to confide in me. I learned that she was my age, which blew my mind because of her maturity as well as her sun-weathered face that had led me to believe she was older.
I remember being surprised that she had a daughter in her 20s and her youngest daughter was in primary school, and she had 4 other kids. She was considering going to a big city about 6 hours away to work where she could make a better income.
She confided in me that she had always wanted to study, but her father had said that only boys needed to study. So her brothers got an education while she didn’t even finish secondary school and instead got married and became a mother as a young teenager.
I remember being really impressed with her thoughtfulness, her strong and resilient spirit, and really grateful for being able to connect with her.
Fast forward 4 years later when I am in the community again to drill a water well. The group I’m with says they met Juana’s sister who is concerned about how our project might impact a reforestation project Juana is doing. With fond memories of Juana, I was happy to hear the sister say Juana was coming into town.
After a community meeting, a woman dressed professionally walks in. (This is notable because most people work in their fields and the most “professional” dress that I usually see at community meetings would be someone wearing an official vest over their normal clothes they use to work in the field.) I suddenly realize that the locals greet her as Juana. My brain is slightly confused (and I hope my face doesn’t show it), as I happily greet her and tell her how happy I am that we meet again. (It’s not so much that I don’t recognize her as it is that she looks so much younger and all dressed up professionally rather than being dressed for field work, and…well yes, I guess I hadn’t recognized her and was a little embarrassed about that.)
It turns out that she has a job at the municipality offices in the district capital an hour away and she had rushed here to make sure we don’t destroy her reforestation project. (A neighbor had already destroyed a few plants trying to make a path to his land, and she was still trying to get him to pay for their replacements.)
She explains that is working with some engineers from an international organization that provides funding to plant native trees in cleared areas and then tracks their growth and helps connects land owners with university and government projects that study forests. If the trees grow well, they also generate carbon credits, and Juana would receive funds from the credits. Someone comes regularly to count and inspect the trees and measure their growth so she doesn’t want any of them damaged.
She shows the well driller where her trees and saplings are planted, asking firmly that he don’t disturb them, and then she proceeds to spend the next hour clearing a path through forest undergrowth with her machete (she hasn’t lost her strength and grace wielding a machete despite her office job).
When I get a chance to talk to Juana, she tells me that she has been renting a place in the district capital, working days and studying nights, sometimes falling asleep in the bed with her notebooks. But last year she completed her GED equivalent, and this year she’s taking college classes in computation. She wants to learn how to use a computer and be able to prepare official documents.
Her house here is falling apart and she has purchased wood and roofing to build a new house. She wants to save up to purchase a computer and printer and then have a small business helping people with their documents they need to file with the government (insurance, death certificates, requests for government assistance, etc.) she loves helping people, she explains to me.
She only makes minimum wage at the municipal office and she pays for her college classes and rent, so she knows it will take time to complete all her goals. She tells me all this with neither great excitement nor overwhelm, but rather with a calm demeanor, giving off the vibe of an old soul, wise, strong and resilient, patient and hard-working. Someone who has weathered many a storm and knows that what will be will be and they will adapt to what comes, meanwhile working hard to try to make a decent life for herself.
Update: I had to travel to town and I met up with Juana in her work in the municipality office. They hadn’t yet given her a computer, but she had found a keyboard so she could practice. I showed her hand placement on the keyboard and printed out a drawing of a keyboard so she could practice typing without looking at the keyboard. When I had to return hours later unexpectedly, I found her in deep concentration, looking at the drawing of the keyboard and practicing typing on the real keyboard. The determination of this woman is inspiring!
Update 2: Today I had to return to town, and I found Juana in a new office, with a computer. Over breakfast she explained how frustrating it had been at first learning to use the mouse and type, but after the first few days, she started to get the hang of it and now can laugh at how frustrated she got.
She humors me, posing with one of the murals in the district capital
For three years I called Peru home while I served in the U.S. Peace Corps nearly 10 years ago. This year, I find myself back in Peru for many months, traversing some of those same highways, busy city streets, dirt roads, and bike routes. But I am also discovering new corners of this beautiful country, meeting new people, and believe it or not, I am still discovering new food!
When you think of Peru, what do you think of? (Without looking at your phone… No Google. No AI.)
The most common responses I’ve gotten from US citizens are: Machu Picchu and llamas. A few people might remember that Lima is the capital. And fewer still might think of Lake Titicaca, which shares its beaches with both Peru and Bolivia. Foodies might have heard that Peru is the “World’s Leading Culinary Destination,” a title it has won multiple times, including in 2023 and 2024.
Ask a Peruvian about Peru, and they often mention the food first. Every new Peruvian I meet always wants to know if I like the food and “what is my favorite dish?” (They are also usually surprised that my answer isn’t lomo saltado, ceviche, pollo a la brasa, or one of the common dishes served in a restaurant Lima. Rather, my favorite dish is something their mom or grandmother would cook regularly at home, called locro de zapallo.)
If it’s not the food, Peruvians (and visitors to Peru) are likely to define Peru as a country known for its rich variety of different (and very beautiful) landscapes, climates, and cultures, which are generally categorized into three regions: coast (la costa), mountains (la sierra), and jungle/rainforest (la selva).
The coast (which is along the Pacific Ocean) has mostly desert landscapes and of course the cuisine is dominated mainly seafood (Peruvian ceviche, arroz con mariscos, and more!) The desert landscapes quickly rise in altitude, turning into the Andes mountains (la sierra) as you travel east from the coast. The sierra is where the llamas and the more than 4,000 varieties of potatoes are from. And as you continue east, down the other side of the Andes, you arrive in the jungle (la selva), the edge of the Amazon rainforest, rich in biodiversity and diversity of indigenous cultures and languages.
Costa / Sierra / Selva
I have been lucky to live and work in central Peru – “The Selva Central”. That means that as I travel to and from the capital, I have the opportunity to cross all three major regions. The landscapes are ever-changing and breathtaking. Though thousands of people do it every day, it’s not for the weak of heart. Crossing the Andes means winding up to 4,818 meters above sea level (15,800 feet), and then back down again. It means traveling from the damp coast to the cold mountains, through the humid jungle, and winding back up to the high jungle, or the “ceja de la selva”. If you can handle a 12-hour bus ride or 8 hours of changing cars a few times “en escala” by “collectivo”, it is well worth the experience!
I will continue to share my experiences diving below the surface and exploring some of the beautiful nooks and crannies of Peru. In the meantime, here are some photos traversing from la costa, to la sierra, to la selva. Can you guess which region each is from?
Answers (from top left to right): 1. between the coast and sierra 2. Coast 3. Between coast and sierra 4. Coast 5. between the coast and sierra 6. sierra 7. sierra 8. between the coast and sierra 9. between the coast and sierra 10. sierra 11. sierra 12. jungle 13. jungle 14. jungle 15. sierra (between sierra and jungle) 16. sierra (end of rainy season so it’s green) 17. between the coast and sierra 18. between the coast and sierra 19. between the coast and sierra 20. between the coast and sierra 21. between sierra and jungle (end of rainy season so it’s green)
On October 14, 2023 I began the 5-hour descent from the Peruvian high jungle of Villa Rica (a small town known for coffee production and coffee tourism) to the low jungle town of Iscosazín to begin work on our Engineers Without Borders (EWB) water project with the indigenous community of Shiringamazú.
Road to Shiringamazú
It was a beautiful drive, especially because the road had been serviced earlier in the year. My past three trips to the community (since 2018), I had always arrived feeling like a maraca after a Cuban music festival. This trip was much smoother!
…Except that the car broke down about 40 minutes before arriving. In the dark. In the middle of the jungle. Where there wasn’t cell phone service. After about 15 minutes, a truck passed by and was kind enough to give us a ride and even tow the car the rest of the way in!
Thanks to the kind people in this truck, we were only stranded for less than an hour.
And so I arrived, cognizant of the foreshadowing of all the twists and turns that would probably lie ahead, (not uncommon in any engineering and construction project – especially an international one – and especially in a rural area, deep in the jungle).
I barely had time to thank my lucky stars that I had made it safely, and the next morning I was meeting with our NGO partner and our contractor to review our plans… then driving an hour to conduct a site inspection/assessment… and then detouring to a recently installed well system about 40 minutes away (Chuchurrus) – all while getting caught in the first rainstorm of rainy season!
Caught in the First Rain of the Rainy Season
The site inspection had brought another surprise, making me grateful we packed it in before we met with the community. After hacking our way through the jungle to the spring site, we realized that our plan to capture spring water from this site would not be feasible. Our team had hoped to be able to do a spring capture here after having reviewed more than 10 different possible approaches to bring water to the community. This meant that we would now need to pivot to focusing on the other part of our design and another one of our options: a hand-dug well.
We heard loud claps of thunder as we hiked over to inspect the site we planned for the well and to consider how we would pivot. There was a nearby stream, and we could potentially capture this surface water. However, the treatment system would require maintenance that would be challenging for an already under-resourced community. Rain drops began to fall, and as we were hiking back to the car, the sky opened up and poured on us, as if teasing us about the conundrum of this site: plentiful rainwater during the rainy season but no source of water sufficient to supply the community through the dry season.
Julia and her two kids fetch water from an almost-dry stream in the dry season.
If you’ve been on an EWB trip, you know that the days are packed full – both physically and intellectually challenging, as we travel to an environment we aren’t used to, where we design and implement a technically challenging project – all in the context of a culture and language that we don’t typically work in. And this trip was already checking all of those boxes!
The next day was one of the most important days of any EWB trip – we met with the community leaders. These meetings are especially important because of the nature of EWB work: there is no cell service or internet in the community, so these meetings are our primary communication with the community. That’s right – for most of the year, while we are in the US raising funds and doing technical work for the project, the community doesn’t see us and probably thinks we forgot about them, like they say many NGOs have done in the past.
In this meeting, there was a mix of new leaders and those from the previous year, so it was important to explain who we are and what we were doing. As the meeting went on, some people from the community began to gather around and listen in. With the help of our NGO partner, we explained that we were volunteers, working on this project outside of our normal work and family commitments and that we even have to raise the funds on our own to pay for the project.
That incited multiple leaders (and even some community members) to give moving speeches about the importance of water, especially for the children in the community. They offered to help in any way they could and urged the leaders and other community members to do all they could to help make the water project a success. The community leader pledged to feed and house the workers for free and provide and transport aggregate material to the site for the duration of the project.
Two community members that live in the neighboring sector were so moved that they congratulated us for the work we were doing and offered to help us during the whole week, even though they would not directly benefit from the water system since they live in the neighboring sector. For the rest of the week, they became my core surveying team.
Survey Team: Mario and Alex and our NGO partner, Juan
After returning to town to use internet to consult the EWB team through photos, videos, and whatsapp conversations, we decided to move forward with the hand-dug well and determine if the well could provide enough water to meet the community’s needs. If it didn’t, we could consider other options, such as using the well as a pumping chamber for treated surface water from the stream, digging a well near the river and pumping long distance, or finding a drilling rig that could tap a deep aquifer.
While the contractor led a team of workers to prepare the well site and begin digging, I began the land survey, first with a volunteer, Carlos, and later with Alex and Mario surveying along the road where the water mains will run.
Clearing the well site and starting the well.
Surveying from Tank to Main RoadSurveying from Tank Site to Well Site
Despite the extreme heat from the sun beating down on us all day long, our team maintained good spirits and made good progress. Mario stopped by tiendas (community stores) we passed and always showed up with a donated bottle of water to keep us hydrated. A few people even came out of their houses with drinks for us or invited us in to drink from coconuts.
Carlos and his family invited us in and gave us coconuts to drink.
Since the community had offered to provide food and housing for the workers, we ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the “comedor,” a communal restaurant that was an outdoor eating area with a small kitchen area where two women prepared food. Meals were light and consisted mostly of fish (sometimes chicken) – the main protein of the area – and rice.
The “comedor” where we ate all our meals during the week and found shelter from the heat. From left to right: Alex, Benamin, Juan, Mario, Hugo, Daniel, Elmer, me.
During the week I was able to speak with a couple people about their life without tap water. Dry season is really hard for everyone because they have to go long distances to fetch water, and even then the water sources are contaminated. Carlos told me, “We really suffer for water in the dry season, especially this summer. The water we do have is from spring-fed ponds, but it is contaminated because the animals are there in the ponds when we go get our water – sometimes ducks, chickens – and this affects our health, the health of the whole community.”
I was quite sad to leave the community after we had all worked so hard together and enjoyed each others’ company. Our contractor remained in the community and hired two locals to help with the hand-digging of the well. After about a month and a half, the team encountered an impassable layer of rock, and we had to bring this phase of the digging to a pause. While we wait for the rainy season to pass, we are working hard to raise funds and looking for a company in Peru with a drilling rig that can help us complete well construction after the rainy season in 2024.
Please donate if you can, and please let us know if your company or a business you know would be interested in supporting the community of Shiringamazu! For more information and history about the project, see our EWB Peru Project webpage.
I drive across the country a lot these days, visiting family and friends and doing a little work travel too. When I’m not spending the night with friends or family, I always find a state park where I can camp. In the last two years I’ve camped at state parks in Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, and West Virginia, and every one has been a great experience. (Utah was a different experience because there’s so much BLM land, you don’t even have to find a park, just a piece of BLM land where you can set up camp!)
Every now and then it really hits me (and today was one of those days) – not only how awesome it is that we even have state (and national) parks to visit, but how great it is that people help maintain them and keep them safe, AND even help foster the little communities that pop up because of them. (If you’ve seen Nomadland you might have gotten a glimpse of how temporary/mobile communities pop up and people look out for each other even though they’ve just met).
The community that I’ve felt at state parks is great – sometimes built by the staff, locals, volunteers, long-time campers, or just by the people passing through, enjoying their time in nature. It’s experiences like these that have reinforced over and over again for me that most people are decent people and even would lend others a hand – and some people even go out of their way to help out strangers and make this world a better place for all of us.
For example, there’s the biology teacher and mountain biker who frequents Palo Duro Canyon State Park and keeps the mountain bike trails clean and safe – in his free time. Even when the park hired a company to do it, he would still go out and help. My encounter with him was an auspicious one.
I was hiking on a windy trail when a mountain biker came around the bend, hopping off her bike, clearly startled and breathing hard. I asked her if everything was ok, and she said that she had just ridden over a rattlesnake! As she was telling me this, another mountain biker pulled up behind us. While she and I pulled out our cameras and carefully rounded the bend to get a glimpse of the snake (and video proof), the other guy dismounted and started walking around looking for a stick. Afraid for the guy’s safety and feeling like that stick was WAY too short, I raised my concerns. He responded saying, “I’m a herpetologist.” As my brain registered his words, I couldn’t believe it. The day that I encounter a rattlesnake on a trail, I also happen to encounter a herpetologist at the same time!??
“You said herpetologist? Like someone who studies snakes?” I said in disbelief. “…and other reptiles and amphibians,” he responded. I approached him cautiously while he slowly and gently prodded the snake so it would move off the trail. Once the snake was hidden in the bushes (but still rattling up a storm in fear, the poor thing!), I proceeded to ask a million questions. (He was also a biology teacher and in grad school had actually milked snakes in a lab and knew how to tell male from female! It would take whole separate blog to share all the cool things I learned about snakes that day.
But instead, I want to tell you about my most recent encounter with another good-hearted state park volunteer, this time in the swamps of Louisiana.
This was my third time at this park, and I have always loved it. As you can imagine, it is extremely humid (think 100% humidity at night) and buggy in the summer – it is a swamp afterall. But it’s a quiet spot, and the night sounds of the swamp animals* sing me to sleep. (*Bugs and frogs? I don’t actually know what is in the swamp making those sounds, but I love the music!)
Since I had trouble reserving a site online I planned to pay upon leaving just like I had done the last two times. The website indicated that none of the sites were reserved so I should be able to have my pick of campsites!
I arrived past dark and there was not a single other person in the tent camping loop! I love a quiet camping spot, having my choice of sites, not being worried about disturbing anyone else, and enjoying those nature sounds without having to hear generators or car doors or other pesky human sounds. I quickly set up my tent and was surprised that the bugs weren’t quite as bad as I had expected.
But then when I tried to close my tent window, the zipper broke. Now I couldn’t close my tent window/door to keep the bugs out. As much as I’d love to just sleep with my tent open, I didn’t want to be a feast or an amusement park for the bugs that night.
Then I remembered that I had seen these yurts interspersed in the campsite. Once before I had peeked inside one of them and they had a bed and even a toilet! GLAMPING in the swamp. I had a plan B.
I walked over to the closest yurt, bent down to unzip it, and found it locked up tight. Dang. I could sleep under the stars in long sleeves and just hope not to be eaten by mosquitos. I could sleep in my car and sweat all night.
Or.
I could walk around to all the yurts and see if one happened to unlocked.
I checked them all, one by one, and I was about to give up when I found one open! Another auspicious camping day for me! I threw my sleeping bag on top of the bed and slept great!
In the morning two guys parked a noisy golf cart by my campsite as I was eating breakfast. “Good morning!” I greeted them. Their response was a little delayed and hesitant. Then the young guy asked if I had reserved the yurt. I explained that I hadn’t reserved it but planned to pay on my out of the park like I had done the past two times. I told him about my tent zipper malfunction and my unexpected stay in the yurt instead of my tent.
He got kind of agitated and began explaining that the yurts didn’t actually belong to the park but to a private company and that I had to reserve it online -and that since I hadn’t reserved it “I better leave right now”. I calmly reassured him that I was about to leave and that I was happy to pay for my unexpected stay. But that didn’t seem to calm him down, and he said gruffly that I better call and pay AND he added, “I’m going to make the circle and you had better not be here when come back around.”
I wasn’t used to running into people so stressed out at campsites, but I was feeling so peaceful that I just calmly moved myself over to a regular campsite to finish my breakfast and have my morning yoga. Afterwards, I heard the golf cart pull up again, but this time with only the older man and not the young, agitated guy.
“Hey there!” I greeted him again. “Hi! I just wanted to apologize about interaction earlier,” he said. “I don’t like the way he spoke to you. And I don’t want that to be a reflection on the park. He’s not with the park; he’s with a company in New York. We’re not like that here. You’re on a park site now, and you just take your time and enjoy yourself,” he added.
Now that just warmed my heart! I couldn’t believe this guy took time to come try to make me feel welcome! This was the kind of people I was used to encountering at parks! A skinny older man with long grey hair, he was a retired firefighter and he explained that he was the campsite host. I don’t know much about campsite hosts, but I have seen them in the parks and I understand that they are park visitors that stay for a while and kind of keep an eye on things.
He explained how he got to be camp host. When he retired in 2019 he and his wife bought a camper and did some traveling. They had stayed at this state park and really like it and were asked to be campsite hosts. They loved it so much they had been staying here for the last 4 months, even though they live just 14 miles down the road in a nice house on a few acres!
He commented on how he really loves the community – he meets so many people, even from other countries! (He had recently met folks from Germany, and others from Sweden.) As he headed off on his golf cart, I was left with such an appreciation for our parks and for all the volunteers, visitors, and staff who make them a welcoming place for whoever comes through.
Today I found myself on the roof of an apartment building, overlooking the downtown Houston cityscape.
As you can see, this is not just any apartment building (though it would appear so from street level).
The residents of this apartment complex get a unique amenity that you don’t typically see when apartment shopping. They also can rent solar PV and battery backup that is already installed as part of the building.
That means that when the power goes out, their power doesn’t – their apartments are powered by batteries that were charged with energy from the solar panels mounted on their roof.
Many homeowners install solar PV on their roof, either for lower electric bills, because it is a good investment that pays back over time (even better than retirement funds in some cases), or because they want to contribute to fighting climate change.
Some homeowners pay for the system and own it, while others rent their roof to a utility who installs, owns, and maintains the system.
Some people even add battery back-up to their solar PV systems and make sure they have power even if the grid goes down.
But this is the first time I have seen renters – especially apartment dwellers – have the ability to take advantage of the benefits of solar PV and also energy resilience.
In fact, this is a kind of pilot project done by PearlX (based out of Virginia) and led by Joey Romano, who developed the building in 2010, with an initial row of solar to offset some of the electricity cost. Then, in 2022 he worked with PearlX (and the residents) to expand the system and add battery back-up.
This is a unique approach to advancing clean energy and making it accessible to more people – not just homeowners but those who rent too.
Since the power outages during the great Texas freeze of 2021, many Texans would be willing to pay extra to ensure have power during a grid outage. That isn’t usually an option for apartment dwellers, but maybe this project can help pave the way for renters to be able to contribute to fighting climate change and have more reliable power.
I have said a few times about Houston that I love the diversity here.
(Side note: I make a real effort to identify the things I like about Houston. So far the running list of things I love:
My aunt who lives here (and bonus: her neighbor friends!)
Great bird watching. (Houston is smack in the middle of the migration path so the bird diversity in fall and spring is spectacular – it is one of the best spots in the US for bird watchers.)
Discovering the parks (like the Arboretum and Brazos Bend)!
The beach is just an hour away. (Even if it’s not the most beautiful beach you’ve ever seen, it is still refreshing to the soul).
From here it is only a 3-hour drive to visit my parents and hometown friends.
And…
The diversity of people that live here
That’s about it. But after a day of 104-degree F heat index, I am extremely impressed with my ability to be so positive about H-town!)
So, back to my point… I do love the diversity of people (and birds) here.
I don’t think racial diversity was something I really noticed as much… until I experienced being the minority in a less diverse place. Standing out all the time, every time, even when you least expect it was new for me when I served in the Peace Corps. Even after 3 years, the assumptions people made about me based on my different appearance sometimes caught me off guard.*
When I traveled from my Peace Corps site and suddenly found myself immersed in greater racial diversity I was surprised to observe that I felt more at ease, more comfortable. (Maybe I felt I could blend in more? Maybe there was an assumption that people used to seeing a lot of people that looked different from them would be more open-minded?)
However, even in “diverse cities”, there is still segregation. (See title photo.) In someone’s daily life they may rarely have meaningful encounters with people of different ethnicities, races, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or different political ideals. As humans we naturally tend to seek people similar to us and so we naturally end up with somewhat segregated neighborhoods, friend circles, cultural events, and even micro economies. It can actually take effort to step out of our “bubble”.
My experience in Houston has been a little of both – I have seen a very segregated diversity (like a restaurant with all white clientele and the only people of color were employees), but I have also experienced deeper diversity in some places – like at the grocery store, when visiting the arboretum and other parks, at Miller Outdoor Theater’s summer concerts, and at some popular, low-key restaurants.
But the “winner-takes-all” diversity experience (so far?) was during my surgery at a major hospital.**
The guy who checked me in was a young, white man, and the cashier woman who took (a large chunk of) my money was a friendly Latina woman who joked around with me. She left me in the hands of a lovely Mexican woman who tested me to see if my Spanish was fluent and taught me to say anesthesiologist in Spanish. (Wow – but she didn’t teach me to spell it – thanks to Word for helping with that.)
I then met my nurse, a young, white American female who somehow managed to be friendly and humorous despite being at the end of her long shift after having been called in last night. She handed me off to the young, black American woman nurse, who then left me to the east African women (one older and one younger than me) who made sure I saw all the right doctors before heading into surgery.
Meanwhile, my surgeon showed up – a young Persian woman who grew up in Iran but has lived in Houston since she was 17. And then finally my anesthesiology team came in – two Asian men: a young, witty and mildly cocky MD and an older the nurse.
When I awoke from the surgery, a kind, no-nonsense, older woman came and helped me use the restroom as I struggled to balance while the anesthesia was still wearing off and I had a surgical shoe on my freshly operated foot. (I was too groggy to notice or remember much else about her, as I was focusing on not toppling over.)
The discharge nurse was a young south Indian man who plays cricket. He feels right at home in Houston’s heat and humidity, which isn’t so different from his hometown.
I never would have guessed that just going into an outpatient surgery I would have the opportunity to travel around the world! Or at least get such a great peek into Houston’s diversity. I really would like to throw a party for my whole hospital medical team. First to thank them for being so great, but really to hear more about their varied experiences and backgrounds…THAT would be a trip around the world.
Until I figure out how to make that happen, I am so glad I had the surprise opportunity to peek into this melting pot and so thankful for the friendly exchanges and mini-conversations we had, not to mention the excellent care they each gave me!
How can/did you step out of your bubble today? (Without going to the hospital, please.)
Famous Footnotes
*Being a racial minority and being white is still a different experience than being a racial minority and being darker skinned. The assumptions people made about me were different than those made about my dark-skinned friends. For example, it was often assumed that I had more money, wealth, or resources or was more knowledgeable about certain things. On the other hand, there were also assumptions that I didn’t speak the language, that I was less knowledgeable, and that I was gullible… all depending on the person’s biases and experiences.
**Don’t worry, it was a minor surgery.
**I couldn’t attend Pride due to my surgery so I missed out on what I’m sure is the real “winner-takes-all” diversity experience in Houston. Next year.
***Photo is from https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-houston-tx/
I LOVE the snow. But I grew up in south Texas where snow is something from the movies but not something that actually happens in real life. Except that ONE TIME when I was two years old. But I wouldn’t see snow again until I moved to Nashville, TN for college. (I did not make it to classes that day it snowed because I was busy studying the physics of sledding.) Then I got to know REAL snow in DC where I was lucky enough to live through two snowmageddons of more than a foot of snow!
But never in my life would I have dreamed that I would live through a snowmageddon (also known as “snowpocalypse”) in my childhood home in south Texas. As fate would have it, I was visiting my parents when the 2021 Texas snowpocalypse hit.
To wake up and see those snowflakes falling…and falling…and continue falling throughout the day, accumulating multiple inches of white fluff across the landscape of my childhood home (where we often wore shorts at Christmas and New Years celebrations), was surreal to say the least. As if fulfilling a childhood dream, I played in the snow, made a snow angel, a snow person, and a snow caterpillar.
It was all fun and games until the electricity went out. And stayed out. Who am I kidding – for me it was still fun and games because I love a good primitive living challenge. We didn’t have hot water at first, so I heated water over the stove and took a bucket bath. (Later, when we got spurts of 5-minutes of electricity, we used a blow dryer to warm the frozen pipes coming from the hot water heater until we had hot water again.)
We were lucky; we still had running water AND we had a gas stove that kept the house from getting too cold. Our neighbor’s house got down to 50°F for multiple days.
Running in the snow on a city trail I saw three different groups of people gathering wood to start a fire outside their house or apartment to stay warm.
An elderly neighbor that had no water or electricity tried to book a hotel, but hotels (that had been struggling because of the pandemic’s hit on tourism) were suddenly booked full, as locals searched for shelter for a few days.
My friend and her family collected snow and icicles to boil for water because she didn’t have running water for multiple days, like many of my friends (and millions of people across Texas).
Photo courtesy of Ashley Haley
A few days later we got our power back. But another friend who had had power the whole time, suddenly lost power. Her sister and niece and nephew had been crowded into her small apartment after they had lost power, but suddenly my friend was migrating to their house.
After three days without consistent power and nearly a week of icy roads, the temperatures rose back up above freezing, and with the sun shining brightly, I found myself wearing a t-shirt. The roads cleared up, and exactly one week after the first snowflake had fallen, my snow friend was long gone, and there was no sign on the ground that the Texas snowmageddon-snowpocalypse had ever happened. It was just another warm, sunny, “winter” day in south Texas.
Except for the people like my aunt, whose pipes had frozen, then cracked, and who now had water damage in their ceilings and walls. For a while she was collecting water from her neighbors. After an emergency fix, she was able to collect water from her outdoor water hose to wash dishes and flush the toilet. Two weeks later, she is still waiting in line for the contractors to fix the damage to her house – which is not so surprising, considering that billions of dollars of property damage resulted from frozen pipes and lost power across Texas.
And then there are the loved ones of the more than 50 people who died.1
But there is a silver lining. A few people have profited greatly because of the skyrocketing gas and power prices during the snowpocalypse. While some energy and utility companies and traders lost millions of dollars due to excessive energy prices, others made millions.2
Those profits are now going to help those who suffered, and to prevent something like this from happening again.
Just kidding.
That’s what SHOULD happen. That’s even what COULD happen. But that is not what IS happening
Instead, we are witnessing a grand market failure and an even bigger failure in governance.
The market failure
In an ideal market, you can pay to receive a high quality and affordable product or service and the service provider makes a profit. If the provider fails to provide what was agreed upon, you receive a discount or some kind of compensation.
My mom pays her utility bills on time every month, and she is promised reliable power and water. In February, she did not have power for more than 50 hours, and yet, she will not be receiving any kind of discount or compensation for the lack of service. Instead, her utility bills will COST MORE over the next decade, and she, (along with millions of other Texan customers) will be paying off a debt accumulated by many utilities during the storm, due to the excessive surge in gas and electricity prices.
Let that sink in for a minute. The customers who suffered the consequences of the power failure will be paying for it, rather than receiving compensation for the lack of service.
In an ideal market situation, you could require the provider to compensate you for not holding up their end of the bargain. And, you could also change to a more reliable provider. But my mom (and the millions of Texan power consumers) do not have that option here – a clear indication that the market is not working as intended.
Fun Fact: Texas law actually prohibits charging excessive prices during an emergency, (and the governor had called a state of emergency before the storm.) But that did not stop Texas regulators from allowing electricity prices to rise nearly 3,500% their normal, while gas prices rose 6,000% to 16,000%! (I can’t even wrap my head around that number.)2b
And yet, the most powerful regulators and politicians in Texas are defending the market as is, resisting making any corrections or changes so that it could work better for customers.
The now-resigned Public Utilities Commission (PUC) chairman vowed to protect the billions of dollars made by investors on the energy market during the artificially high price hikes, rather than defending plans to protect customers.2c Most of the leading politicians seem to have forgotten the original purpose of the market – to provide reliable and affordable energy to millions of end users.
This is a serious…
Governance Failure
Some politicians are actually saying that there was not a market failure and that there is no reason to correct the market with appropriate regulations. They argue that the high prices during an emergency are an incentive for utilities to prepare for extreme weather.
Fact Check: Texas had a similar power crisis caused by extreme weather in 2011, and regulators spent the next 3 years doing analyses and drafting reports on how to prevent it in the future. However, utilities still were not prepared, ten years later. Those charged with ensuring the grid was reliable never did REQUIRE utilities to comply,3 and we have now seen the outcome of recommending but not requiring measures crucial for energy reliability.
More than 50 people died because of the February outages this year.1
Billions of dollars in property damage in Texas (as costly as some of the worst hurricanes in recent history)1b
Millions of customers suffered countless financial and emotional burdens – most that will never be known or even considered by regulators, much less compensated. (As mentioned above, customers will not only NOT be compensated, they will actually pay MORE over the next few years.)
Many energy and utility companies will likely file for bankruptcy or go out of business because of the debts accumulated during the storm.2
Yet, instead of defending Texan customers, those responsible for governing stand committed to defending the market that failed those customers.
I have NOT heard any regulators or lawmakers say, “We will make sure customers are compensated for their losses and for the lack of reliability that we were responsible for ensuring.”
Instead, when presented an opportunity the help customers they have said, “government intervention into the free market… would have major consequences for consumers…” (Texas Speaker of the House). He seems blind to the “major consequences” that Texas consumers just experienced. Not to mention the consequences that they will continue to experience, as they pay off this debt that they never signed up for. (Not only did we not sign up for it, out taxpayer dollars go to funding lawmakers and regulators who are responsible for ensuring reliability of the grid – ensuring this does not happen. They failed and they are passing the buck onto us.)
Granted, the statement above comes from the representative from Beaumont, an area not affected by the outages. Yet he is in control of the Texas House, and he prevented lawmakers from passing a bill that would recoup $4.1 billion in excessive charges for customers.4
I have yet to see any argument of merit that justifies Texas leaders’ actions (or inactions, as the case may be). The loudest arguments I’ve heard so far indicate a lack of understanding in economic theory compared to economic reality, as well as an outright bias towards investors and the stock market over customers who suffered the consequences of the market failure.
This disaster is a clear example of why “protecting the free market from government intervention” is simply an excuse for keeping rules that protect investors instead of customers.6 Yet those in power seem blind to customer interests, which indicates a clear failure in democratic governance – the interests of the people are not being well-represented in the important decisions being made.
The Hope…Texans
Paying for the Storm
Since legislators did not help protect customers’ financial stake, one last chance for hope might be in the judicial system. Many utilities will likely be filing for bankruptcy, and some are suing ERCOT and the gas companies that price gouged during an emergency.2b The lawyers and the judges hearing those cases could (and should) enforce the Texas law and settle on a reasonable price during the emergency. Lowering the utilities’ debt would protect Texas customers from bearing such a high cost of this storm (as well as demonstrating that rule of law still functions in Texas).
Preventing Future Catastrophes – it’s up to Texans
As for Texas legislators and regulators – they have missed their first chance to reduce the financial impact on customers, but they still have a chance to prevent (or minimize) future catastrophes by putting appropriate regulations in place, and making sure that customer interests are better represented in the market. Unfortunately, the bills they have proposed so far are not any stronger than their ineffective response to the 2011 outages.4b
If you want to ensure this doesn’t happen again, and you are a Texas resident, your only hope at this point is to contact (or bombard, if you prefer) your state representatives and senators and let them know this is important to you. I would recommend the following key points:5
Customers lost power and need to be compensated for the outages. It is not fair that we bear the cost of this mistake.
The current bills in the house aren’t sufficient to protect customers from future outages.4b
Utilities and energy suppliers should be required to meet national engineering standards for reliability – and there should be a penalty for not meeting them.4b
Regulations aren’t always bad. As a customer, I’d rather pay a little more upfront to make sure utilities are required to meet reliability standards, rather than be forced to live through an outage and also pay more later to recoup costs.
If this ever happens again, customers should be compensated for the outage, not forced to carry the financial burden. I want to see legislation that will protect customers in the future.
The ERCOT and PUC board should NOT be political appointees. Customers’ interests must be well-represented. The boards should be made up of Texans from diverse professions, including customers not invested in the energy industry. Require that members be Texans from multiple political parties, multiple sectors, various professional backgrounds, and include individuals not invested in natural gas and financial institutions.
Update the Texas energy market by:
Setting a lower cap on wholesale electricity prices
Including capacity payments to improve reliability
Updating standards to have the option to join one of the larger US interconnects for added reliability.
If all else fails, Texans can always vote for new state senators and representatives that recognize the value of certain regulations to protect consumers, especially in markets providing essential services, like water, energy, and health care.
For more on the Texas grid, market failure, and my musings about it all, see the footnotes below.
Day after day, front porch after front porch, I’m still exploring the world. But these landscapes are a little different from my previous travels.
I find myself on a journey that I never imagined being on in a million years.
But here I am, first in Arizona, and now in Georgia, knocking on strangers’ doors, talking to them about issues that are impacting their lives and our collective experience as US citizens.
For 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, house after house, I approach front porch after front porch, and I raise my hand to knock on front door after front door.
And I wait.
I wait on a strangers’ front porch to see who and what will present itself.
I bring all of my hope for a better future and faith in our collective power to create the world we want to live it. I bring encouragement and information to make it easier for people to make their voices heard.
But will someone answer the door, or will I just be greeted by their barking dogs? (Some days I talk to more dogs than I do voters.)
Will I hear movements and voices quiet down as the people inside pretend they aren’t home?
Will they answer the door, puffing up their chest as if to defend their territory against enemy attack, and yell at me to go away, as if my approach to their personal space bubble was a threat to their very existence?
Or will the welcome me, ask me questions, and even thank me for what I’m doing?
Will they cuss at me angrily from inside as if I had personally offended them by knocking on their door? Or run outside yelling and call the cops on me?
Or will they be interested to engage in dialogue about our diverse collective experience in this country, and how we might make it better (whether we agree or not).
Maybe they will be the person who wasn’t going to vote, didn’t feel like their voice mattered, and needed a nudge to feel empowered.
Maybe they are the person who accidentally threw away their absentee ballot and needed to know where and when they could go vote in person.
Maybe they are the overwhelmed parent who just wouldn’t have made time to vote if I hadn’t been there to help them make a plan and send them a reminder text.
Maybe they are the first-time voter that didn’t know how or when to vote, and will thank me profusely for helping them to participate in American democracy for the first time.
It is for these last few people that I keep walking and keep knocking. I take those blows from the unwelcoming doors, so that I can find those people that benefit from my work – thankful for the reminder to vote, thankful for the information about where and when they can vote, thankful to talk about how policies are affecting their lives and to hear about alternative policies that could improve our collective American experience.
I keep knocking, sometimes annoying the #*@ out of people, getting yelled at, trying to extract people from their routines to make time to vote – not just for them, certainly not just for me, but for all of us, including the people who can’t vote – future generations that will be impacted by today’s policies, the disenfranchised, those who have passed away due to irresponsible response to the pandemic.
First-time voter braving the freezing cold and rain.
I do it to stand up against the racism and classism that wears on in our society, changing shape but persisting. I do it to fight against the voter suppression that our history books led us to believe no longer exists, and that some call “protection against voter fraud” despite studies showing that voter suppression is much more prevalent than voter fraud.
Empowered him to cast his ballot in AZ literally at the last minute
I do it for those that fled their country of origin to seek refuge only to have their basic human rights violated here in my country too.
I do it to fight against corruption and lies in their most blatant form, because I have seen how it breaks apart communities and cripples democracy. And as a kind of personal project, I knock to try to provide an alternative perspective for those who are only taking in the propaganda saturating our politics worse than ever before in my lifetime, and I recommend reliable information sources.
And I do it for my fellow teammates, who are far from family and friends for the holidays. Each one also pounding the streets for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. Pouring out their hearts to strangers, working to make this country better for their families, friends, and fellow citizens.
Maxwell – the guy who got me here, team lead, and fellow tortuga
Karlia – my BFF and pretend wife
Ana – My 1-second team lead and inspiration
As I approach a front porch, I take in my surroundings, and often a personal touch made to the yard or front porch makes me smile. Ironically, sometimes the most unwelcoming responses come from the front porches with the extremely sunny “Welcome!” mats. And some of the most pleasant interactions have come from people with front porches adorned with, “Go Away”.
So as I come to the close of this great adventure, as always, I will share some of the great landscapes from this journey.
I saw this a few weeks ago, but wow is it relevant today, Jan 7, 2021.
I’ve always loved to travel, but over the past year, I did something I’d never done before – I lived my life traveling, backpacking through South America. I stayed in countless places, trying to stay long enough to get to know people and get a taste of the culture, but usually not staying in one place for more than a week. While that rhythm allowed me to see many different places, it meant that just as I was getting settled in and feeling at home in one place, I was packing up and moving on, which meant constantly adjusting to a new place, constantly trying to feel at home in a new place.
Having to start a home from scratch over and over again, one learns to find home within, so that you always feel at home, wherever you are. (That’s a topic for a whole book, but here’s a peek into one way I carried home with me wherever I went).
Early on, I found I could feel at home wherever I was when I would do yoga. Despite having just left all stability and familiarity, when I did those familiar yoga poses,* watching the sun rise over Lake Titicaca, I felt perfectly at home, and right where I wanted to be in that moment.
Sunrise yoga at Santuario del Pacha Tata in Island Amantani, Peru, Lake Titicaca
From then on, I tried to do yoga in every place I visited, and it never failed to make me feel centered and right at home, even if I had recently been feeling that strange, subtle sensation of being a wanderer, far from home. It wasn’t always easy to do yoga everywhere, but I always found a way.
Sometimes it elicited strange looks, but it was always worth it. It was a great way to connect with a new place – physically and socially. I have fond memories of yoga-ing in the cold of the Bolivian Andes, in the hot, humid Peruvian and Colombian jungles, the hot, dry desert in northern Chile, and the cool autumn air in Argentina.
Yoga at Guatavita, Colombia with new friends from Venezuela and Colombia
It was also something I could share with people who had shared something with me, like the Argentine rugby player, or the kind, Quechua-speaking woman who did some yoga poses with me in her traditional clothing trying not to be too embarrassed when her neighbors passed by.
Yoga at Ccotos, Peru on Lake Titicaca, with the daughter of the family that hosted me.
I am now back in the US, but in a way, I am still traveling. And my journey has taken me unexpectedly back to my childhood home, visiting my parents. I haven’t lived here during my adult life, and I have only been back for short visits as an adult. It is in the same physical location where I grew up, but it has changed, the city has changed, my parents have changed, and I have changed.
And so, despite the undertones of familiarity, I feel like I have arrived to yet another new place to adapt to and to explore.
Within a few days of arriving, my mom told me that her chair yoga class was starting up again and she invited me to go with her. My first reaction was one million questions about the preventative measures being taken due to the coronavirus. (Yes it’s outdoors, yes everyone has to wear masks, yes there’s extra spacing between people, and yes, you have to bring your own chair.) We agreed that if it didn’t seem safe we’d leave. She pointed out that the instructor is an 84-year-old woman, so she probably wouldn’t have started the class back up if she didn’t think she could do it safely.
My second reaction was: “chair yoga?” Having recently hiked through the Andes and traveled around South America with a 40-lb backpack, you can imagine my expectations for a chair yoga class taught by an 84-year-old woman. First of all, I didn’t know that “chair” and “yoga” could go together to be one thing. (I typically do yoga to get out of the chair.) And even though my mom had told me it was a cool class, I admittedly imagined a few neck stretches and thought it might be kind of boring. But then I hadn’t met Gloria Simmons.
Ms. Simmons is a gem of a person. This 84-year-old woman is way more flexible than I could ever hope to be. She is one of those fierce, gentle spirits that is a natural leader, but in a subtle way that inspires you by making you feel comfortable and appreciated.
Walking into one of her classes, the atmosphere is casual, comfortable, and respectful. One of the first things one notes is the diversity of the class. There are participants of different ages, body types, flexibilities, abilities, and different races – about half black women and half white women, and sometimes a few Latinas. A woman in a wheel chair often attends and another with a walking cane.
The magic of Gloria is that she skillfully leads this diverse group of abilities so that everyone gets a good stretch and no one feels left out. And she teaches yoga with a chair! (Even though I’ve been to many classes now, I’m still impressed by the concept of chair yoga.) She didn’t invent chair yoga, but she did modify what she learned from videos and a PBS program to make it something interesting and versatile.
Our fearless leader, Gloria Simmons
Chair Yoga – Warrior 1
Surprisingly, Gloria came to yoga by accident, wandering into a class about 20 years ago when she was teaching an aerobics class at a rec center. She had never heard of yoga and expected it to be boring, but she realized that she had already been doing some of the stretches in her aerobics class, and she found that she actually liked it!
After about a month, the instructor encouraged her to become certified, so she signed up for what would become “the hardest week of her life”. She almost didn’t make it past the second day of the certification class because her body was so sore and tired. But she recounts that her daughter made her dinner, told her to rest, and encouraged her to get through the week, so she stuck with it…and the rest is history!
Now she says she does yoga when she wakes up in the middle of the night, and later is able to go back to sleep. It’s her go-to way to relax and get centered, kind of like it has been for me during my travels.
She always reminds us to do the best we can and not to force anything since our bodies are all different. And at the end, she turns up the music and gets us out on the dance floor,** leading us in an aerobics-type dance at first, and then encouraging free style, making sure each person takes a few turns in the center of the dance circle. Even the woman in the wheelchair gets out there and shakes it!
She also does mat yoga classes each week, where she really blows us away with how flexible she is! (I definitely realized how ageist I had been with my preconceived notions of what an 84-year-old instructor would be like; she showed me!)
All of this, she does as a volunteer, sharing something that has helped her, something that she enjoys, with others.
Here in Texas, we are all dealing with the stress of the uptick in COVID-19 cases, and we have leaders that openly stated their concern for the economy over people’s lives. Then the death of George Floyd. And the subsequent protests and racism – anti-racism clashes. We are all living in challenging times, and Ms. Simmons creates this safe and healthy space, where we can escape from all of that for an hour, do something good for our bodies, and feel at peace for an hour or so, two times a week.
And that safe space, where everyone is welcome and accepted – all body types, all ages, all abilities, all races – is just what we all need right now during these turbulent and strange times.
Once again, thanks to yoga, (and to Ms. Simmons) I have been able to feel a little more at home along my journey.
Famous Footnotes
* Around 10 years ago I started doing yoga-like stretches every day as part of my routine to help manage back problems, and I’ve kept it up ever since. During my Peace Corps service, I held yoga classes for the over-worked elementary school teachers, and we all enjoyed a few moments of de-stressing at the end of the day. So, when I really think about it, it’s not surprising that doing something that has been part of my daily routine for 10 years would help me feel at home in a new place.
**We dance in a huge circle, all with the appropriate physical distancing, especially since most people are in a high-risk group for complications from COVID-19.
Most of the photos are credited to Majic, Gloria’s god-son.
Remember that big question raised at the beginning of the pandemic – How bad is COVID-19 anyway?
This question is really fun because it’s like an optical illusion. The answer greatly depends on perspective, and the final outcome greatly depends on what we believed at the beginning. This time it’s not one of those inspirational “if you believe it, it will be!”, but rather the opposite.
Ironically, if we had believed it was bad when we saw the first cases in the US, we would have done everything possible to contain it and it wouldn’t have “been so bad”.
But because of the outbreak and the tragically lost lives in the northeast, the rest of the nation decided that it was something to take seriously and took preventative measures…which then kept it from being tragic in other parts of the country…(leading to protests to open things back up because “it wasn’t so bad after all).”
What a clever trick. By believing it isn’t such a big deal, it becomes a big deal. Believing it is a big deal, we keep it from being a big deal.
While we’re talking about the importance of perspective, let’s look at the question of the magnitude of COVID-19, first from a birds-eye view and then a more personal perspective, using hard data. (What did you expect from an engineer?)
During its first five months,1 the coronavirus has already killed more people in the US than the flu AND pneumonia did over the course of the entire year in previous years, having killed 34.52 people for every 100,000 people. That means it is already more deadly than the flu, diabetes, and Alzheimer disease, and it continues to climb. If you calculate the rate of deaths per month, COVID-19 is the third deadliest threat in the US this year, after heart disease and cancers.
* The first reported case in the US was January 21, 2020. I took data publicly available from the CDC, which has published the leading causes of death in the US in 2017 and 2018. Data from 2017 and 2018 are averaged because they show similar rates between the two years and the top 10 causes do not vary between the years nor does the order. Monthly death rate assumes that death rates from previous years were equal across all years, and assuming that the current deaths were evenly distributed across the number of months since the first COVID-19 case in the US. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db355_tables-508.pdf#page=2
Here is the trend worldwide instead of just in the US, and a much cooler infographic than I can do in Excel. (Here’s the link in case it doesn’t show up for you.)
So there you have a bird’s-eye-view perspective. Now let’s look at the perspective of personal experience – how individuals might be experiencing the mortality rate of COVID-19.
First, there are those that have lost their lives or lost loved ones due to the disease, like my friend who lost her grandmother. My heart goes out to you. These numbers that I’m analyzing will seem really cold and useless to you. But they might help explain why there are many people out there that are apathetic and ignoring or even denying the pandemic.
In the US, people are currently (as of June 11) dying from COVID-19 at approximately the same rate (actually a bit higher) as people died from accidents in previous years, making it the third most prominent cause of death after heart disease and cancer. Did you know someone who died in an accident last year? Odds are that if 1,200 people read this, only one person will answer “yes”.
Another way to look at it: How many people do you know (think Facebook friends and real friends.) If you know 1,200 people, the odds are good that you will know one person who died from COVID-19. But actually, even that’s not completely accurate because nearly 42% of deaths have been in New York state, New Jersey, and Connecticut.1 So if you don’t live there or don’t know many of people there, the odds of knowing someone who has died from COVID-19 go down to one in about 1,700 people. If you don’t know 1,700 people and you don’t know someone in an outbreak area, odds are good that you don’t know someone who died from COVID-19.
So to summarize:
Is COVID-19 killing more people than the flu?
Yes – at more than five times the rate of flu deaths.
Is COVID-19 is a major cause of death for people in the US this year?
Yes – it’s the third leading cause of death this year so far.
Are you likely to know someone who has died from COVID-19?
Depends on where you live and who you know, but the majority of Americans likely won’t personally know someone who died from it.
From a birds-eye-view and for those who have lost loved ones, it is obvious that COVID-19 is a deadly disease. That said, the majority of the US population has not been directly affected by a COVID-19 death, and that might help explain why some people are more upset about the shut-downs than the sickness itself.
Speaking of those shut-downs, let’s not forget that they are the reason that the death rate isn’t higher than it is. Closing things slowed the spread, buying us time for at least three important preparations:
Public health education. Closing things drew attention to the problem – it forced people to pay attention, creating an environment and time to disseminate information so that people could protect themselves and others. Even after opening, the virus will not spread as quickly as if we hadn’t shut down, simply because many people are now taking precautions.2
Hospital preparation. The closures slowed the spread, gaining the majority of the US time to reinforce hospitals, acquire supplies, and train staff.
Improved treatment. The closures bought us time to learn how to more effectively treat patients. Every day we learn something new about treating the virus (like patient positioning, monitoring blood oxygen levels, and the use of oxygen and ventilators). Additionally, every day researchers are working towards a vaccine.
So closing down and slowing the spread means that thousands of people didn’t get sick in April. Now that they know how to protect themselves, thousands might not even contract the virus. As things are opening up in many places, many people will get sick in June and July, but by then, doctors and hospitals will be better prepared to treat them, which will mean the difference between life and death for many.
But we are not through this yet. We still control our destiny. Remember the paradox: COVID-19 was deadly at first because we didn’t believe it was so deadly. Once we believed it to be deadly, it became less deadly because precautions were taken.
So as things begin to open up, and we continue with our daily lives, remember that while we bought ourselves time and our hospitals and doctors are now more prepared, if we take it too lightly, that tricky paradox could get the best of us.
What a clever trick. By believing it isn’t such a big deal, it becomes a big deal. Believing it is a big deal, we keep it from being a big deal.
Famous Footnotes:
This article was an interesting survey of how epidemiologists are managing risk in their personal lives to find that right balance between taking care of their mental and physical health while protecting themselves and others from the virus. It reinforced my decision to engage in outdoor activities, maintaining 6-9 feet from people outside my safe circle, to wear a mask in public, and to avoid indoor spaces with people outside of my safe circle altogether.
I calculated the current monthly death rate in the US to be 7.3/100,000 people, and 5.0/100,000 excluding NY, NJ, and CN, compared to accidents at 4.1/100,000 people.
There is still a great deal of misinformation out there and some people not taking the necessary precautions, but the fact that many are really help control the spread. We will see in the following months if it is enough to keep things under control.
