Behind the mask: Julio, The night sanitator

​Since the month of March 2020, in many large and small cities around the world, actions have been taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Among these actions there were days of tests, medical examinations and in almost all the cities of the world, sanitizations of streets, hospitals, vehicles and different spaces were carried out to prevent the virus from spreading rapidly.
In the small city of Coatepec, in Veracruz, located in the eastern part of Mexico, Julio Caballero, a 30-year-old young man took the job and responsibility of carrying out the sanitation to try to stop the virus.
Julio volunteered as he has worked as a fumigator and gardener for years, so he was familiar with safety gear and suits.
This job was a great sacrifice because for months he was away from his family for working night and day in double shifts. Julio is one of those thousands of men and women who dedicated great effort to take actions to prevent the spread of the virus without being medical specialists or city workers. 

La casa de los que van a morir/ Tho house of those who are going to die
​Calcuta

​The refuge for those who are going to die is a house where the activity with the inmates takes place on the main floor, a floor divided into one part for men and another for women. They are mostly individuals over the age of eighteen, to whom the last ravages of terminal illnesses like AIDS or cancer keep them prostrate on a cot waiting for the moment when life vanishes from their bodies. Some of them arrive voluntarily and others are referred from other shelters or nearby hospitals where they are simply given the indication that their days are sadly counted. It is not easy to have access to this small temple of death attended by the sisters of charity, a religious order founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, because lately this organization has been involved in various scandals involving corruption, sale of children and Discrimination against the non-Christian population and therefore the doors of this site are usually open only to foreign Catholic volunteers and very rarely for the media.

María 

The dilemma of being a single indigenous mother in COVID-19 Times. 

​The indigenous community of Yohualichan is located in the Sierra Norte de Puebla and since August 24, hundreds of children and young people returned to classes in a remote way and receiving instructions via the internet to avoid contagion by COVID-19. However, in this community most of the families do not have internet or cell phones with which they can carry out their activities and at the same time they have the problem that these instructions are written in Spanish while they speak the Nahuatl language, which represents a problem in the understanding and learning of children and young people. Unfortunately there is a high risk of school dropout among children and also a double burden for mothers who have to find where to print their workbooks in the difficult conditions they live in.
María Hernández is a single mother who sells meat and clothes that she makes herself. Thanks to this work, she has been able to support her 3 daughters and her little 3-year-old granddaughter. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, she has tried to ensure that her daughters have all the facilities to carry out school tasks.
Like her, many indigenous women have taken responsibility for guiding the education of their children even when the best conditions do not exist to carry it out.
 

La comunitaria

​The indigenous community of Rincon de Chautla is located in the municipality of Chilapa, Guerrero. There, the villagers have formed community police that include children, old men and women to defend themselves against the cartels that attack them with violence. The most dangerous cartel in the region is "Los ardillos", a criminal group that is dedicated to drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion to the people.

El Encierro del Burro, en Alvarado Veracruz

El 12 de Octubre de cada año, los hombres alvaradeños festejan el tradicional "Encierro de Burro" una celebración centenaria en donde los habitantes masculinos se visten de mujeres para conmemorar las épocas en que las mujeres adineradas se paseaban con sus enormes y elegantes vestidos por los muelles y el puerto de la localidad de Alvarado. Como consecuencia, los pescadores y las clases populares comenzaron a vestirse de mujeres y montar burros para burlarse de la actitud altanera de esas mujeres y ridiculizarlas. Actualmente grupos de hombres se visten de personajes famosos de películas o de moda y se pasean por las calles del pueblo donde la gente los ovaciona y les invita bebidas. 

Los Boneteros, seres de la Caña. 
Tuzamapan, Veracruz

​En este trabajo presentamos una mirada fotográfica de una expresión cultural de la localidad de Tuzama­pan Veracruz, hogar de un personaje carnavalesco al que los lugareños llaman “Bonetero” por un elabora­do sombrero adornado al que llaman bonete. Dicho personaje es caracterizado por los hombres adultos y viejos de la comunidad, quienes también portan una máscara de madera y visten un traje que asemeja al de la vieja imagen del hacendado local o al capataz del rancho, con sus botas de fuera, machete de mad­era y corbata elegante. Esta festividad muestra el pasado de esta comunidad, donde su clímax económico se debió a la aportación de la hacienda cañera de asentada en su territorio. Es en el mes de abril, cuando los habitantes salen a las calles y edificios abandonados de la ex hacienda y bailan con alegría durante más de cinco días de desfiles, haciendo gala de su ingenio con distintos disfraces, pero también rememo­rando sus orígenes a partir de la figura del bonetero, portando con orgullo su tradición