Marisol Rueda Flores, Playa del Carmen, Mexico:

So here we are trying to reinvent ourselves, restructuring not only our working conditions but also our personal activities, and all together in the same space.

At the beginning of this pandemic it looked like it hadn’t changed so much regarding work for me, and I also felt (and I still do) absolutely fortunate to keep my jobs during this tough situation that not only affects our health (physical and mental), but also economically.

I usually do “home office”, but after time passes by I realized what I actually did was “wherever there is internet”. So, at the end, after 2 months of staying home, I feel confined to a single space without being able to go to the beach and most importantly to dive deep in the ocean. This absolutely changed my work conditions since this is the season I’m supposed to be training people to do reef monitoring and spending most of my days out in the field (sea) rather than at home, plus finding new projects around islands in Mexico which sometimes requires field visits.

The biggest challenge is to survive the drought of my mermaid scales and the infinite desire to spend most of my hours looking for something new, for more inspiration, beneath the ocean surface and around the reef. I feel that I can’t show the people what the underwater world looks like to inspire them to preserve it, I feel like a part of me was taken away all of a sudden and who knows when I will get it back, since reading diverse media outlets nothing ever is clear and we know Mexico’s numbers regarding infections and deaths are not real, or accurate if you prefer to name it like that.

Using digital communication more than ever has become the only way to pass on the message to the people I liked to see, to give a talk to, to answer their questions in an auditorium or even at social media but showing what we have out there in our beautiful ecosystems.

Working and living with uncertainty has been a challenge since I don’t know when I’m going to be able to travel to work in another country or in another Mexican state, or visit my family and friends, and hug them with relief we are all safe. This pandemic has stopped us to look more inside ourselves and less outside, to finish up the work we had pending in our personal thoughts and beliefs. Maybe we just needed this time to slow down and enjoy other aspects of our lives we didn’t consider before or we just didn’t pay too much attention.

As always, wishing we come out of this situation renewed, willing to change the world for better, not going back to bad habits, and keeping the energy to inspire ourselves and others around the world.