I am from Guatemala, found in Central America. I am thankful for the opportunity to share my story here because I have a story to tell about how COVID-19 had a negative impact on my life. Though it is not a long story it is something that struck deep into my soul. I work as an agronomist but this wasn’t the case, let me start my story.

If my days were not bad enough before the coming of the disease as I had to wrestle to find a stable job, now the virus added to the stress. You see, Guatemala has a percentage of reliance on the agricultural sector owing to its huge resources and productive land. However, over time the country has had devastating nutrition outcomes. The arrival of COVID-19 didn’t add any good news as it brought further disruption along with food distribution challenges. This meant a massive economic hardship on the entire country for an indefinite period of time. This hardship was carried by the people including me personally. I remember waking up and feeling scared about what lay ahead and if I would be able to survive knowing that I had no stable job at the time.

Another thing that hurt me so much was seeing my relatives; small-scale farmers who couldn’t sell their produce due to the closed or reduced operations of marketplaces. This affected them badly since they depended on selling the produce to put bread on the table. It was sad for me to know that I didn’t have the resources to help them. The number of those who contracted COVID-19 was so scary. I am thankful that no one in my family had the disease. The major impact I want to put in writing that really tested my faith was the economic hardship. I didn’t have a job at that time so having much food to eat was a dream that I could make up whenever I slept and it was something that scared me a lot, especially thinking about not knowing how long that hardship would go on.

Things have started to quiet down however, COVID-19 continues to affect a lot of people in my country. It would be nice to sit and just wait for this pandemic to end but I have to work to provide for the needs of my family. I have been lucky enough to find a part-time job that I enjoy so much.