Thief steals phone of mother whose son traded toys for food

April 29, 2020

Alexis and his toys outside his Tijuana home.

There was plenty of support for a young boy in Tijuana who decided to trade his toys for food, but a thief prevented the story from having a happy ending.

Alexis decided to trade his toys for food outside their home over the weekend after his mother, Yisell Ortiz Vega, lost her job due to the coronavirus shutdown.

“As my mom isn’t working anymore, I was worried, and I have two grandparents. My grandfather is elderly and can’t see and they were going to operate on his eyes, but they cancelled it because of the coronavirus,” said Alexis.

Although many of Ortiz’s neighbors took the opportunity to help out a family in need, one man decided to take advantage of the situation.

Claiming to be an engineer, the man asked to use Ortiz’s cell phone to send the location to a friend who could bring food to trade for the toys. But once he had the phone in hand, he took off running.

On the other hand, the story brought Alexis’ family so much help they decided to share what they were given with others in a similar situation.

Alexis isn’t the only one to resort to bartering in order to get by in the extenuating economic circumstances resulting from the crisis. Street vendors in Baja California Sur have also turned to trading directly for food without tourists to keep their sales going.