I now know what it feels like to be a pariah

Two weekends ago I had to travel to Mexico for a very sad reason. I was gone 10 days and during that time I did not really notice what was going on around me. I did not visit friends, I did not sight-see and I certainly did not check the news. I was in very little contact with the people back in France and even so, my mind was elsewhere so I wasn’t paying much attention to their worried emails.

It was not until this Monday morning when I was scheduled to fly back to Paris in the evening that I found out about the frightening sanitary issue that is currently affecting Mexico City. I have to say that most of my stay was in Puebla and until then, the words Swine Flu didn’t mean anything to me.

But on Monday I started checking the news and reading the worried emails from my friends and colleagues back in Paris and that’s when I realized how serious things were. That day, I had to run several errands all over town and I suddenly started noticing all the face masks on the streets and the worried comments on all the radio stations. I suddenly found myself feeling afraid of walking too close to people or waiting in line at the cash register or hugging my best friend good-bye.

By the time I was at the bus station waiting to take the bus back to the airport I was in total freak mode. The people at the station all wore face masks and had distributed one to each of us to wear on the bus. So after hugging my mom and brother good-bye and my heart breaking from leaving them, I boarded the bus back to the International Benito Juarez Airport in Mexico City.

I was expecting the city to actually be deserted as the news media in Europe were describing it to be but it didn’t seem to be the case. Cars and public transportation were still clogging up the smoggy streets of Mexico City and people were still hanging out eating tacos on the street “changarros”.

But I nonetheless kept my mask tightly on.

I was expecting the airport to be a mexican version of Ground Zero and for Air France to have a smiling girl in a chic flight attendant suit and a face mask inform us that monsieur Sarkozy had canceled all flights leaving Mexico for Paris. But check-in was as slow and boring as usual, the people at the Air France (or any other airline) desks weren’t even wearing face masks. All about the airport I saw people (both mexicans and tourists) wearing their face masks as ugly neck collars or none at all and not looking in the least bit worried. Having arrived to the airport three hours in advance only meant I had more time to kill wandering around the duty free section disguised as a zombie surgeon.

But I nonetheless kept my mask tightly on.

The only unusual thing that happened on the flight over was that the earphones they provide to watch the movies actually worked, which is a first for me, but I doubt that had anything to do with the Swine Flue.

But I nonetheless kept my mask tightly on throughout the entire flight.

I was expecting the arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport to be the French dubbed version of Oubreak and for Dustin Hoffman to come meet us on the tarmac dressed in a yellow suit and a plastic head-mask quarantining the entire flight. Instead, we were met at the gate with un-masked Red Cross volunteers distributing a photocopy with a telephone number to call in case we felt sick and an information booth at our disposal in case we had any questions.

And they told us to take off the face mask.



So why is it that I’m suddenly feeling like a pariah?

Well, when you walk into your office and the people around you treat you like you have Swine Flu then you suddenly start feeling like you actually do have it.

(by the way, why did it have to be called Swine Flu. I get it, coming from pigs, ok… but it’s such an awful term, couldn’t they had name it something else, like they did with SARS? That doesn’t sound too horrible… and don’t get me started on the French actually calling it “La Grippe Mexicaine” (the Mexican Flu)!!! Doesn’t take much to guess the correlation to that!)

It was so awful this morning, people coming over to give me their condolences and yet trying awkwardly to keep at a relatively safe distance (outside of my office door for instance). One girl actually announced me her yet too-premature pregnancy as a reason not to come over and say hello. All the usual bises (face kisses) and hand shakes which are part of my morning ritual were casually skipped and by mid morning I was actually starting to feel a fever!

This only made me feel more and more nervous and guilty, cursing myself for not having checked into the hospital and gotten blood tests done before ever thinking of coming back to the office and putting everyone’s lives at risk like this. I even felt guilty using the photo copy machine. By lunch I was a total wreck. I called Hubby feeling the tears swelling up inside me telling him that I was most certainly sick and was going to die in a few days and best prepare the testament quickly. He only laughed at me and said that if I was sick, then probably so was he after last night.

He told me to calm down and to stop panicking. I have no symptoms, I was not in a contagious zone, I was not in contact with sick people and I took all the necessary precautions during my time in Mexico City.

His words did make me feel better (and made my imaginary fever go away) and by now I’m just hopping nobody gets the (regular) flu in the office in the next few days and gives them grounds to have me fired for Conspiring to Exterminate the French Population.

Fned.