Margarita Chango is Ecuadorian and 20 years ago she came to Spain in search of a better future. During all this time, she has made a living working as a housekeeper and caring for the elderly in Badajoz. Whenever his family has been in trouble he has sent them money. He even went into debt when necessary. The last remittance he turned around has been used to buy the coffin of his brother-in-law, who died of the new coronavirus at age 68.
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The first case of covid-19 in Ecuador was diagnosed in a resident who returned from visiting Spain on February 29. Quickly, the government tried to monitor his contacts. First, all the passengers of the Iberia flight in which he returned. Afterwards, those who attended her welcome party. And even though the authorities began to ban mass events, social events like weddings or graduation parties continued to take place. The spread of the virus was impossible to control.
It was difficult for Margarita to know with certainty what was happening in her country. At 58, he does not know how to use the Internet. And television in Spain speaks little specifically about their country. She was finding out, anguished, by what one of her employers told her. Until, in early April, he received a call.
“I had an urgent call from my niece to tell me that my sister, my brother-in-law, my nephew and her son had been infected. He said they were having a bad time. They had gone to the doctor, but he had no medicines and they were not in the pharmacy either. He asked me for help to buy them directly from the distributors ”, recalls Margarita.
He did what he could and even went into debt to send the money to buy medicines and other expenses that they might have. Feeling useful, even if he was so far from them, helped calm his anguish. His sister, his nephew and his son were recovering little by little. However, her brother-in-law worsened. His niece tried to take him to the hospital, but was not treated. They also did not go to his house because some doctors did not make visits for fear of infections. In a few weeks, the health system in Guayaquil collapsed. Hospitals did not serve more people. The sick people died waiting in wheelchairs and the emergency rooms were filled with corpses scattered on the floor.
I sent money to my niece to buy the coffin
At the end of last month, Margarita received another call. Her brother-in-law was dead. Then, the family experienced a drama similar to that of many Guayaquil residents. "He had been dead at home for two days and they did not come looking for him," recalls Margarita with all the strength possible while her eyes sparkle with emotion.
The body that the government created to collect the bodies was saturated and some families had to wait up to a week for them to collect the deceased. Many others chose to take them to the street for fear of contagions below 30 degrees that were breathed in the most populous city in Ecuador. Margarita then decided to send another remittance.
"I sent money to my niece to buy the coffin and pay the funeral home. Thank God we had a little hole of a grandfather of us in the cemetery and we were able to bury it after making a long queue again, ”says Margarita in the first person, as if she herself had been accompanying her relative.
Her brother-in-law finally rested in the Padre Ángel Canales cemetery in Guayaquil accompanied only by three relatives. They were lucky, other citizens do not know where their loved ones have been buried and are waiting for the Government to inform them through a website.
Ecuador is one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus pandemic and most cases have been registered in the province of Guayas, where the city of Guayaquil is located. The death toll is difficult to know. According to GK City, one of the country's leading independent media, there are more than 30,000 confirmed cases and 2,900 deaths. However, the country's president, Lenin Moreno, has acknowledged that official records "fall short." Whatever the figures, the data can never explain the drama they are facing in this Latin American country. Both inside and outside its borders.
Margarita is already slowly returning to work. He says that he has to comply with the families that have been paying his salary despite the fact that in this time of confinement he has not been able to go to their homes. And think that this coronavirus is something that God has sent us to make us behave better and not do things without first thinking about them.
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