A beach town in Mexico isn’t the worst place to be quarantined. While the first things that might come to mind are the white sand and Caribbean turquoise water, I have found that the most comforting things about living here during these unprecedented times have more in common with life in my small home town in New Hampshire than you might imagine. These months have served as a reminder of a few things that I hope to keep in mind even after the pandemic is behind us:
Every morning for the past few months, my partner and I have eaten slow breakfasts on our screen porch in Puerto Morelos, watching colorful tropical birds, gigantic iguanas, and adorable agoutis scavenge for their own breakfasts in our yard. In the evenings, we eat dinner on that same little porch, listening to a chorus of insects singing in the branches of the mangroves surrounding us. Despite the grief we feel over what is happening in the outside world, and the inevitable stress of losing most of our freelance jobs, the slower pace of life has been a welcome shift. For those of us stuck at home, wherever we may be, this is a great opportunity to be present and notice the beauty in our own backyards. I know there’s no shortage of nature and animals to be found in the backyards of the Monadnock region!
On my evening walks around the empty streets of town, I have heard the sounds of singing drifting out of many houses. It may seem insignificant, but hearing those voices lifted my spirit at times when the news I was reading was grim, and the situation around the world was feeling dark and heavy. There’s something magical about how music can connect us, lift our mood, and change our outlook on life. Many kinds of creative practices can do that; for me, this quiet time at home has given me space to get back in touch with my own creativity, and I’ve started taking photos and writing music in the playful way I did when I was younger and had more time on my hands. It’s been a welcome internal shift. Growing up in rural New Hampshire, creativity was a part of daily life, but adult life and years spent in Bangkok and Mexico City brought external distractions and a faster-paced lifestyle that, though exciting, didn’t allow me to focus as much on artistic pursuits. Now, time quarantined at home can give all of us that kind of space to get back to our own creative core, whether we live in big cities or small towns. And in turn, our creations, whether musical, visual, literary, or any manner of crafts, can help us to connect with others despite the distance.
The calm reaction of the Puerto Morelos community to the pandemic has surprised me. During the first few weeks of lockdown in the U.S., I watched my social media flood with images of empty shelves stripped of toilet paper and food, and heard stories of people in cities whose shopping carts were robbed of supplies before they could reach the cash register. I nervously awaited a replica of that situation in Mexico, where lockdown started a little later. But with the official beginning of the country-wide quarantine, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shelves of the local grocery store, though less stocked than usual, still provided the basics. And there were no shopping cart robbers in sight! It isn’t that people aren’t taking this seriously here; shoes are washed and hand sanitizer is used before and after entering grocery stores; the beaches, as places of social gathering, have been cordoned off. I just haven’t seen any evidence of hoarding.
I wonder if this sense of moderation is a by-product of being in a small town, where people care about their neighbors and realize that supplies are limited. Meanwhile, for the community members who have lost their jobs during this time, a local group collects donations and buys basic food and supplies that are delivered to people’s homes every other week. So far Puerto Morelos has been a success story, with very few cases of COVID on record. It seems to me that this success is probably due in part to this tight-knit community’s desire to protect its most vulnerable members. Based on what I hear from my family back home in the Monadnock region, we may be far apart, but that kind of community solidarity is something our towns have in common.
Wherever we are during these difficult times, perhaps small communities can serve as a reminder of one of the oldest lessons in the book: To support and care for each other.
Molly Ferrill is a documentary photographer based in Puerto Morelos, Mexico.