Tomorrow it will be our 60th day locked in our houses here in Bolivia, like everything in our life this has possitive and negative consequences.

The good

One of the best consequences for me at least, is the time I spent with my family, for the last five years I have been seeing my kids just early in the morning, to get them ready for school, and late at night when I finally arrive home from work, where I have been spending more than 10 hours a day.

Now that I am working from home, I do still work the same amount of hours, sometimes I feel they are even more, and there is no line between home and office, and you are always at home, but also always at the office. But anyway I can see them play, sleep, eat and study. I can spent my time seeing them, something that before I can only wish.

Another good thing is that just because all of us are at home these days, and connected to the Internet, where we really are is in the cyberspace, therefore, we are working more as a team than before this situation arrived. Let me explain a little, I work with a team that are spread mainly in four offices in three cities. The usual way to get in touch with people in another office or city, was by phone, we did had zoom, and Skype for Business before, but the use of those tools, was not part of our culture. Now with everybody at home, we are using those tools, so I have held more meetings with my team in other offices in these 60 days than in the last four years.

Of course we are not using fuel, we are spending less money, we are eating healthier as we are cooking everything at home (I still do not trust on food someone else manipulated)

The bad

Of course, not everything is good, we also have bad consequences. And there is one in particular that is really bad, and that is the damage to the economy.

The whole country has been locked in for 60 days, we are not a rich country, with plenty of money reserves, our people live on a daily basis, day they work, day the eat, we have some of the biggest informal economy in the world (proportionally speaking). Bus drivers, market workers, construction workers and I can continue all night, does not have working contracts, they work independently, so these days they were not able to work, therefore, they were not able to make any money, considering that their economic situation was already precarious now it is desperate.

And even if this situation (the quarantine) ends up in june the first (I am almost sure it will), it doesn’t mean that everything is going to be normal again. People will still not go to the movies, people will not go to sports, nor they will go to malls. People will still try to stay at home as much as possible.

This only means, that all those people who depends on those habits to make a living, like hotel employees, restaurant employees, bus drivers again, and a big etcetera will not going to get their full income again, considering they will get any.

A lot of people are going to suffer from this situation, and as usual, those will be the most vulnerable ones.

Final words

Everybody know that there will one before and one after this situation, it is going to be bad for almost everybody, it has its good concequences, but in the end it is not good at all.

As usually is up to us to see the whole situation as positive as we can, in order to keep our mental health.