All my friends, most of my neighbors, and even my son had received the text message notifying them of the place and day to go for the vaccine against the virus. In a way, I was waiting for that message. Because I wanted to get out of that health commitment I had with myself and the people around me. A very important health commitment for me.
I received the message last week, so from that day on I started to plan how to go to the place where I was vaccinated. It seems unbelievable that now to go out to a place near the neighborhood I have to think about how to do it. It's not easy, many times you have to walk long distances, but I did't want to walk to get a vaccine. So first I had to secure a car to get to the place of the appointment. Here in my country, we are suffering from another kind of virus, besides the pandemic, we are suffering from a pandemic of bad government, it is a very serious and destructive virus, which we have endured for 21 years. That virus has destroyed many things. And one of them is to ensure the supply of gasoline to the whole country. As a consequence of the lack of gasoline we now have no public transportation. In order to move from one place to another you have to plan days in advance. So to go to get the vaccine I had to ask and search among my contacts who could take me. Thank God my son's mother-in-law was scheduled for the same day, she is due for her second dose. Her car had enough gas to pick me up and then return home.
With transportation already secured I just had to wait for the week of free circulation, here it is 7x7. One week you can go out taking security measures and the next week you can't go out, it's confinement. If you circulate with your car during the week of confinement, there are security agencies that are in charge of stopping the car and ask for the safe-conduct to the driver of the vehicle. If you do not have it, the car will be retained. Most of the time with 5 dollars you solve the problem and they let you continue. But this only happens to those who drive. Citizens who go out on foot are not stopped.
Yesterday was the day, my son's mother-in-law arrived at the agreed time and so I took my cell phone and my identity card, which are the two requirements they ask for prior to the application of the vaccine.
When we left the car parked, we walked a short distance until we got to where the queues were, in an open but roofed space, there were people standing in two long lines. An official applied alcohol to our hands with an atomizer. He told us which queue we had to stand in. Here my mother-in-law and I separated. She was in line for the second dose and I was in line for the first.
In the line, I waited for a while, about half an hour, for a national guard to arrive who verified with your ID card and cell phone if you had really received the text message. Once verified, he gives you a card with a number, I got the number 61. Once the card was given to you, we went to the part where the medical staff and the assistants are.
The national guard guided us. We walked under the open sky, and in the pouring rain, to the place where we had to wait again, but this time we were all sitting indoors with card in hand, waiting for an official to call the numbers. When she said 61 I went to where she told me to go. Again sitting in front of a health official. Here everything went quickly. They asked me for my identity card and my personal data, he wrote it down in his register, one of the indications he said when I got vaccinated, was that I should not get wet in the rain. Ironic indication, since a light drizzle was falling outside and when we went in we had already gotten a little wet. Then he told me to go to where the nurse was. I finally made it to the finish line. I told the nurse to give me the injection in my right arm because I am left-handed. She did. I was vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine, the one they make in China. Nothing, I felt nothing. If I had not watched the nurse when she injected me, I would have thought nothing happened. But I did see her when she injected me and passed the liquid, what a good hand that nurse has, and I told her so. She thanked me for the compliment with a smile.
An official showed me out and when I arrived at the exit my son's mother-in-law was also ready and waiting for me. We went back to my house. I invited her to lunch. At home, we shared a delicious lunch. On the card they gave me for the vaccine control, it indicates that the second dose is due on September 15. My son's mother-in-law has already told me that if her car has gas she will take me again. So on that date, I will start again with my odyssey to get to the second dose. I will let you know how it went. I feel fine, the vaccine did not cause me any reaction, no fever or discomfort, I just feel a slight heaviness in my arm, no discomfort in general.
Thank you for reading my story of what it was like to get the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine. Thanks to God and to my sponsors, who together with my followers make me write every day about my experiences in this beautiful and beloved country called Venezuela. Quite an odyssey!
Interesting to read how it works in your country. I should think if you survive so many years of government pandemics you don't need that shot.