COVID Story #2: Wack-a-Mole at the Cancha

A few friends have asked about the impact of COVID on rural Ecuador. My perspective in Ecuador is limited to that of the listener. Unlike home, I am not practicing medicine, and I do not have front line experience caring for COVID patients. To capture the pandemic's effects on this community, I share a series of COVID stories people have graciously shared with me. I filled in details where some were missing, and you will see my own reflections sprinkled throughout the stories.

When COVID shut down the world in the Spring of 2020, one of the many unanticipated ripple effects was that many rural Ecuadorians could return "home".

Over the last two decades, many Ecuadorians, particularly young people, have left their rural birthplaces and their family farms for cities in search of the promise of higher education, steady work, and financial stability. Some of these young folks live and work in nearby urban centers (e.g. La Mana and Quevedo); some have gone as far away as Honduras and Cuba on university scholarships; many live in the Sierran cities of Pujili, Latacunga and Quito. 

Once COVID hit, many of these opportunities dried up -- university classes were cancelled and/or went virtual, jobs disappeared overnight -- and all of a sudden, people didn't HAVE to live in cities anymore. People quickly discerned that if they were going to be stuck somewhere for an indefinite length of time, tropical weather made La Josefina a much more pleasant place to be sheltering than the chilly high Sierra. Plus, in this rural area, the harvest is plentiful, and moms and grandmothers make really good almuerzos. 

So, people returned home.

My friend Lucia describes the influx of city people as impressive; the tiny town of La Josefina during the height of the pandemic was as bustling and busy as it had been in decades. Houses filled with intergenerational families, more cars than had ever been seen, people buying and selling a plethora of items from every doorway, oh, and the games. . .

One of the things people from this region like to do when they gather is to play -- team sports, specifically, indoor, futbol (soccer) and Ecua-volley. This small town boasts its own soccer stadium (really it's just a dedicated field, though a beautiful one, that they keep well cut for soccer matches); several carefully tended volleyball courts, as well as multiple indoor/basket covered courts. One fairly unique attribute in this region is that it is not just the men who play team sports; women's leagues are just as common as men's, particularly for soccer, indoor, and basketball. And the men love to watch the women play!

And so with so many people stuck home due to pandemic shutdowns, it was a great opportunity for team sports. For rematches. For tournaments. For fun!

Unfortunately, however, one of the national mandates for much of the pandemic was a prohibition on gatherings -- in any form. Despite early evidence that congregating outdoors considerably decreases the risk of COVID transmission when compared to indoor gathering, outdoor congregating was strictly prohibited. Remember that during this same time in Sonoma County, neighborhood playgrounds and parks were cordoned off with yellow caution tape for months without a clear reopening plan.

And so, the people of La Josefina, desperate for connection and physical activity (without work, without school) would actively disobey. They would covertly start a pick up soccer game or a rival volley game;  others would come to watch (there are lots of dedicated spectators around here too), some even to bet on the games.  It would get exciting -- sometimes it would get REALLY exciting.  

And inevitably, the County police would roll into town in their police cruiser, break up the games, remind people that it was prohibited to congregate and promptly head out of town (there is no police station here, so they were always transiting). The people would obey the officers and relatively quickly disassemble. But as soon as the officers were gone, the games would pick up again.

And so it went. A game of team sports wack-a-mole with local officials in La Josefina. Start a game-police would come-break up a game. Start a game-police would come-break up a game. Imagine a town overflowing with people who just wanted to play. And police officers under strict orders to stop them. It would almost be hilarious, if it weren't true.

This happened so many times that one neighbor told me that dedicated teams and athletes would sneak off to the edge of town to the stadium, to play there. In order for the police to find them there, you have to go off-roading. The big problem is that once people start playing, people would want to start watching, and then congregating would unavoidably happen. The police would catch wind and show up again. And the whole scene would play out on repeat. 

As with so many things with COVID, it is interesting to consider the intent vs. impact of policies that were employed to protect people during a crisis, but which ultimately caused harm to people as well. We knew pretty early on in the pandemic that outdoor transmission of COVID was not zero but was definitely much lower than indoor transmission. We also know that physical activity and team sports have tremendous positive impact on physical and mental well-being, stress relief, and their community cohesion. The benefit of playing a soccer game (vs. drinking alone in your crowded inter-generational house), is undeniable. At what point did the risk of COVID outweigh the benefit of team sports, and on the flip side, at what point did the benefit of team sports outweigh the risk of COVID, particularly in a younger, less vulnerable crowd? These are questions we may never have answers to. . .but it's worth thinking about them in anticipation of future pandemics.