First Confirmed Case of Swine Flu/H1N1 in Guate

The Maid arrived today and breathlessly informed the Wife that a little girl in Guatemala City had died from Swine Flu.  As my electricity was out and I had yet to get into town to connect, I was slighty alarmed.  Not that I knew it wouldn’t happen eventually, but that it was actually being reported and I was out of the loop.  After all, how can one panic if he is ignorant?

Well, it turns out the little girl has been confirmed as infected, but is in fact not dead, and is allegedly doing just fine.  That jives with my own expectations a little better; I’m sure dozens of Guatemalans (and/or Mexicans in country) have already contracted and died of the illness formerly known as Swine Flu, and their deaths have either gone unnoticed or unreported, or they died of complications of the illness and it was attributed to something else. 

Don’t write me and say I’m an ignorant, paternalistic imperialist who doesn’t understand these people, it’s simply my informed opinion of how things really work here.  (Kind of like the crime statistics here; do you really think most crimes are actually reported?  I recently posed that question to two young female backpackers from DC recently in response to their assertion that the need for dressing modestly in Central America was, “Like, umm, you know, like, sooo much, you know, an exaggeration.”  Anyway, the shuttle got real quiet after that exchange. )

Anyway, the Maid apparently got some instruction from someone, because I thought her advice to the Wife was pretty sound:

1. Wash your hands every hour.
2. Don’t go visit people.
3. Don’t go out unless you have to.
4. If you get sick, go to the Doctor.

Of course, you can always do what I did, leave the safety and health of your own home so you can seek out an internet connection and sit in a small room next to a young woman who is hacking up a lung. 

I wonder if I’m taking enough vitamin C…