WORLD TRENDSTUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY III
Aurélien Breeden, Elian Peltier,
Daniel Politi, Tiffany May
and Vivian Wang contributed
reporting.
ALESSANDRO GRASSANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Lighting a candle for the sick during
quarantine in Milan, Italy.
By DAN BILEFSKY
and CEYLAN YEGINSU
MONTREAL — After the pair
had sanitized the tops of their beer
cans, Morgane Clément-Gagnon,
33, and the man she had met online
sat spaced apart on a park bench
in Montreal. The two had greeted
each other by touching the tips of
their sneakers. But as laughter
gave way to talk about their fears,
she leaned in for a kiss.
Racked with fever and confined
to her cramped two-bedroom
apartment in Istanbul, Zeynap
Boztas, 42, was feeling trapped,
not only physically but psycholog-
ically: The husband she planned to
kick out of the house and divorce af-
ter finding dating apps on his iPad
was now lying next to her in bed.
In his apartment in Berlin, Mi-
chael Scaturro, 38, was attending
a virtual “happy hour” with 15 sin-
gle friends from Berlin, Madrid,
London and New York. The group
sipped merlot and discussed the
wisdom of finding a “corona boy-
friend” or girlfriend to help get
through the crisis.
These are glimpses of the rad-
ically altered lives of millions of
people around the world who are
navigating love, hate and the ex-
tensive terrain in between under
the tyrannical rule of the corona-
virus.
In a matter of weeks, the global
epidemic has transformed rela-
tionships, dating and sex. Wed-
dings have been postponed, while
divorce rates have reportedly
soared in China as the crisis has
eased. Lovers and family mem-
bers are suffering aching separa-
tions as borders have closed.
The crisis has spawned a new
lexicon. Where once there were
“blackout babies,” we can now
expect a wave of “coronababies”
and a new generation of “quar-
anteens” in 2033. Couples whose
marriages are fraying under the
pressures of self-isolation could be
heading for a “covidivorce.”
Getting away with affairs has
also become tougher. When a man
from a small town in Santiago
del Estero Province in Argentina
bragged to friends that he had a
tryst with a former lover return-
ing from Spain, they reported him
to the authorities. The entire town
was put on lockdown on March 14.
The man later became the first
confirmed coronavirus case in the
province.
Dr. Lucy Atcheson, a Lon-
don-based psychologist, said that
lockdowns were engendering a
new togetherness for some while
amplifying friction and conflict for
others.
“It’s like putting all our issues
into a frying pan and really heat-
ing them up,” Dr. Atcheson said.
“Something like this also makes
you realize how short life is. So if
you’re in a bad relationship, you’re
going to leave when you can, be-
cause you’re going to realize life’s
too short to suffer like this.”
Ms. Boztas, the Istanbul woman,
said the coronavirus had sent her
to the brink of a mental breakdown.
She had decided to separate
from her husband of 12 years two
weeks before the city went into
lockdown. After she confronted
him, he agreed to move out.
“I finally thought that I would be
free,” she said. But he insisted on
staying in the family home
until the threat of the coro-
navirus outbreak subsid-
ed. Now, both she and her
husband are fighting off
cold and flulike symptoms
that she fears could be the
coronavirus.
“Should I worry about
my fever?” she said.
“Should I worry about
putting food on the table?
Cleaning? Entertaining
the kids? Picking up my
husband’s dirty clothes
off the floor? There is no-
where to escape this in-
sa n it y.”
For single people, the corona
crisis is bringing a different kind
of challenge.
After matching with a New Zea-
land musician on Hinge, a dating
app, Ms. Clément-Gagnon said,
the two began a video call. Eager
to meet, they opted for a “socially
distanced silent disco” date in a
park.
Ms. Clément-Gagnon said she
wanted to see him again. But there
were obstacles: Her sister had just
returned from Australia and was
living with her in quarantine. The
man wanted to return to New Zea-
land to be with his family.
The two texted constantly and
weighed the risks of seeing each
other again. In the end, Ms. Clé-
ment-Gagnon decided to breach
her quarantine and meet him in a
friend’s empty apartment, talking,
watching movies and finding com-
fort in each other’s arms.
“Is corona making something
magic with all of this?” she asked.
“I feel fear everywhere, and in this
unexpected meeting I felt no fear.
Maybe this is the corona story that
will die with the disease. Whatev-
er happens, it was a beautiful mo-
ment.”Relationships Worldwide
Are Tested by a Virus
By JULIE TURKEWITZ
MARACAIBO, Venezuela —
In their final minutes together,
Jean Carlos, 8, held his mother’s
hand and promised to “take deep
breaths” so he wouldn’t cry. His
sister, Crisol, 10, hid. His brother,
Cristian, 12, hauled a blue suit-
case into the yard.
Aura Fernández, 38, a single
mother of 10, beat back a surge
of tears. Her bus came rolling
down the road. Then she kissed
her children, climbed aboard and
disappeared.
“I love you,” she said just be-
fore setting out. “Study hard.”
Seven years into an economic
collapse, Venezuela’s migrant
crisis has grown into one of the
largest in the world. By the end
of 2020, an estimated 6.5 million
people will have fled, according
to the United Nations refugee
agency.
But hidden inside that data is
a startling phenomenon. Vene-
zuela’s mothers and fathers, de-
termined to find work, food and
medicine, are leaving hundreds of
thousands of children in the care
of grandparents, aunts, uncles
and even siblings who have barely
passed puberty themselves.
Many parents do not want to
put their children through the
grueling and sometimes very
dangerous upheaval of displace-
ment. Others simply cannot af-
ford to take them along.
The exodus is so large that it
is reshaping the very concept of
childhood in Venezuela, sending
grade-schoolers into the streets
to work — and leaving many ex-
posed to the abusive players who
have filled the vacuum left by
the collapsing Venezuelan state,
including sex traffickers and
armed groups.
By one assessment, migrating
parents have left behind nearly a
million children.
“You grow up fast,” said Ms.
Fernández’s niece, Silvany, a9-year-old. Her mother went to
work in Colombia in October.
Silvany and her cousins have
remained with their ailing
grandparents. And the fourth
grader has assumed many of
the responsibilities for her little
brother, Samuel, age 1, feeding
him and cradling him at night.
In rare situations, children
have been passed from grand-
parent to cousin to neighbor, with
each caretaker migrating or dis-
appearing, until young people
are on their own.
“This is a phenomenon that is
going to change the face of our
society,” said Abel Saraiba, a
psychologist at Cecodap, which
provides counseling. These sep-
arations, he added, have the po-
tential to weaken the very gener-
ation that is supposed to one day
rebuild Venezuela.
The arrival of the coronavi-
rus in Venezuela has isolated
these children further. President
Nicolás Maduro has announced a
countrywide lockdown, sending
the military to enforce the mea-
sures.
The effort has cut many young
people off from the teachers and
neighbors who may be their only
means of support. At the same
time, borders are now closed.Here in the state of Zulia, where
Ms. Fernández left her children in
January, the economic collapse
is particularly stark. It was once
rich in oil and cattle, and home to
a flourishing class of petroleum
workers who bought nice cars and
took expensive vacations.
Today, it is home to rolling
blackouts, and jobs with monthly
wages that barely buy two days’
worth of rice.
The day she left, Ms. Fernán-
dez hauled the empty blue suit-
case that she planned to pack
with goods to bring home to her
children.
At a taxi station, she boarded
a battered Ford Bronco and said
a final goodbye to her son Eras-
mo, 19. Then she sped out of town,
past a welcome sign that read
“Zulia, a shining destination.”
Already the distance from her
children was ripping at her in-
sides.
In Venezuela, Ms. Fernández
had managed cleaning supplies
at a food company but found that
she couldn’t survive on the mea-
ger salary. She left for Colombia
for the first time in late 2016, plac-
ing her children in the care of her
mother, Mariana Uriana, now 55,
and father, Luis Fernández, 77.
At the time, the country’s re-
cession had already become a
crisis, and the Fernández chil-
dren were eating only once a day.
Their fathers had long disap-
peared.
In Colombia, Ms. Fernández
found a job as a housekeeper in
Barranquilla, and she began
to send money home every two
weeks, about $35 a month.
But when Ms. Fernández came
back in December, for Christ-
mas, it was clear that not much
else had changed. Her sister, In-
grid, the mother of Silvany, had
joined her in Barranquilla, leav-
ing the grandparents in charge
of 13 young people, with the help
of a sometimes present group of
aunts and uncles.
And Ms. Fernández’s children
were still eating only once a day.
So she set off again.Leaving Children to Find Work
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESSheyla Urdaneta, Meridith
Kohut and Isayen Herrera
contributed reporting.Aura Fernández with her son
before leaving Venezuela.
Top, Silvany Vargas, a niece,
caring for a brother.