CARTAGENA, Colombia — Marlon Mendoza, certified Cartagena tour guide, stopped in the shade of a Spanish Colonial balcony and scanned the old slave market for prospects.
“#Localcartagenatours. Nobody Does It Better Than the Locals,” his T-shirt promised, although there were hardly any tourists left to look. Hundreds of miles away, American beach towns, amply supplied with vaccines, were back in business. But here, the pandemic was only getting worse, evaporating the seas of sightseers in the bougainvillea-lined streets of Old Town.
The stocky 36-year-old sized up the slim pickings and zeroed in on a pale European couple.
He hesitated. He is a Black Colombian, and his market was African Americans. They’d filled his Afro-centric tours exposing the heroes of Colombia’s showcase city as slavers. But that was before the pandemic punched a hole in the developing world’s middle class, sending millions careening back down the social ladders they’d spent lifetimes ascending.
If history were any guide, it would take a Black man in Latin America far longer to recover. And Mendoza was down deep. In the 15 months since Colombia’s first confirmed coronavirus case, he’d been evicted from his office and pulled his 7-year-old out of private school. He’d moved his family out of the city and back to the dirt-road village of his birth.
The rent was due in five days and he was still short $60. A day’s worth of tips before, a king’s ransom today.
Business card out, he approached the Europeans.
“It’s cool. I’m a winner, a builder, a creator,” he said, flashing a broad smile. “Better to laugh than cry. It gets you more clients.”