A boy is pictured in San Miguel Amoltepec Viejo, Guerrero state, Mexico, on September 8, 2020, amid the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.-AFPIn the poverty-stricken mountains of southern Mexico, children can only dream of internet or television that would allow them to join millions of others following distance learning during the pandemic.
But in the homes of San Miguel Amoltepec Viejo, a windswept village in one of the country's poorest regions, there are no such modern-day luxuries. Today, the 33-year-old visits every fortnight to bring educational material and meet with parents in the community 3,000 meters above sea level in Guerrero state.Arriaga watched from the doorway as 25-year-old Natalia Vazquez helped her daughter Viridiana do her schoolwork in their modest home while piglets grunted outside.
The 29-year-old farmer said he would try to make sure his children did not fall behind, but he worried it would be difficult."If they couldn't learn much from what the teacher taught before, now we're going to be worse off with this pandemic.""We're in an area that's highly marginalized and falling behind in education because many parents don't even know how to read or write," he said.
Across Mexico, 8,563 indigenous people have been infected with the coronavirus and 1,249 have died, the government reported last week.