The arrival of the COVID-19 in Costa Rica first generated in my life the fear of shortages. We were afraid that the food would end up in the cities and for that reason, I decided to travel to a farm, where a family member lives in the country. I traveled with my two children, ages 15 and 8, both with autism. My husband stayed in the city to fill the job.

But things became more difficult every day because there was food, but we felt that we made the family where we arrived uncomfortably. We were exposed to criticism for the conditions of my children, it was not easy for them to change their environment.

At that time we worked in the fields of planting, cleaning crops, and harvesting cocoa. It was not easy to expose ourselves to mosquito bites. To support us, we took out a loan, but after 15 days of quarantine, I got sick and went into a fibromyalgia crisis, which needed medical attention, but where we were, there were no health services. So we tried to get permission to move, but it was not possible, so my husband decided to hire a car and travel at his own risk to bring the children home, we spent more than we would have achieved in our home.

After 10 hours of travel, we got home. After three days we all got sick with a high fever, cough, and general malaise. We were afraid of having been infected, but after attending to us and taking exams we discovered that we had dengue. We stopped like 10 sick days, but thank God we recovered.

The most difficult thing is the absence of my loved ones, living my father’s illness at a distance, seeing him suffer and almost die, and not being able to do anything and not being able to accompany him, is the fear of losing them without being able to see them. But thank God we have managed to stay positive despite the limitations.