SURVIVING THE FIRST MONTH OF THE PANDEMIC

 By: Sha, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    The beginning of Covid-19 was rough for me. So much was going on and BOOM! all of a sudden our lives changed completely. I learned I was pregnant in November 2019. We were so happy, a little brother or sister for our 1 year old. It was perfect. Unfortunately, I miscarried in  January 2020. It was extremely disappointing, I never had a miscarriage before and I couldn't cope with the loss.

    In February I went to Milan for a weekend. When I returned we heard that Italy had been hit with the corona virus! At that point the whole world was talking about Covid-19, but no measurements were taken in the Netherlands yet. 

    We proceeded with our life, not knowing that soon everything would change. I was still dealing with the loss of our unborn child and wanted a break. I discussed going on vacation with my husband. He understood, but was hesitant due to the Corona virus. If it hit Italy, it could be anywhere in Europe. I said let's go somewhere far. Far from Europe and far from China. We should be safe then (wow, I was insane!). We booked a 2 week vacation to Zanzibar. 

    Before we left for Zanzibar (end of February 2020), things were still the same in the Netherlands. We arrived in Zanzibar on a hot morning, before entering the airport our temperature was checked and with no fever we were allowed to continue our journey.

    The first 5 days of Zanzibar were a dream, we stayed in a secluded hotel and only spoke with each other and hotel personnel. It was so peaceful and gave us the well deserved time to relax. Life was good. It was only my husband, my son and me. 

    On the 5th day we left to the Northern part of Zanzibar, the more touristic part of Zanzibar. We were among a lot of people and that's when we started hearing more and more stories about the virus. 

Italy was now in lock down. Video's of people talking about Covid-19 were all over the internet. People were forwarding voice messages and articles about it to us. Our family in the Netherlands told us about how people were hoarding toilet paper and that all canned goods were nowhere to be found. Also, flights were being canceled. Countries wanted to protect themselves against Covid-19 by not letting anyone else in. 

    Our minds started spinning. What did we do? We are all the way on the other side of the world. What if our flights are canceled? What if the Netherlands has a locked down, were will we go? We can't stay in Zanzibar forever! Zanzibar had no cases of Covid-19 yet. The island was still "safe". However, each day more and more tourists arrived, no one knew how long it would be before Zanzibar would be contaminated too. 

    Our family in the Netherlands said they would try to stock up on canned and dry goods for us. I always have a stock of toilet paper at home, so I wasn't worried about that and hey, you can always use water to clean yourself down there. I wasn't worried about toilet paper at all. I was worried about getting back to the Netherlands. We didn't book our vacation through a tour operator, we booked flight tickets and three different hotels ourselves. We therefore didn't have a contact person in Zanzibar to ask about the flights back. Trying to contact the airline was a drama. I would be on hold for hours and still couldn't get through. I started being stressed out. I had dreams of war, hiding with son from danger, searching for food. It was becoming more and more harder not to think about Covid-19. 

    Meanwhile, two of my friends and my sister-in-law were also on holiday. One was in Curacao, the other in Egypt and my sister-in-law was in Morocco. We spoke to them daily as we were almost in the same position. However, they were all returning to the Netherlands before us. The first one to get back was our friend in Egypt, he had no difficulties. My sister-in-law, had some issues but managed to get on the very last flight back to the Netherlands from Morocco. My friend in Curacao mentioned that the country was in lock down as well but her flight back was confirmed by the airline. She would get backed, guaranteed. So, it was just us and still no idea what was going to happen. 

    We had four days to go and were traveling to the South of Zanzibar, back to a secluded area. We had spoken with the locals a lot during the last couple of days and most of them were calm and stuck to their "hakuna matata" mindset. We decided to go with the flow. Four days to go, we will see what happens. 

    We were back in our bubble, just the three of us, enjoying the last days on the island. The last days went by fast. We met some wonderful people. One couple was taking the same flight as us and was told that it would definitely depart that day. We also spoke to a family, who are from Tanzania. They were warm and welcoming. Promised to help us out with their contacts if we had any difficulties leaving the country. The hotel personnel was awesome as well. I feeling relaxed, but had a strange stomach ache for last two days. The night before we checked out, I went to the hotel doctor and told him about my stomach ache. He took a urine sample and it turned that I was pregnant. Wow! I was still dealing with my miscarriage and now I'm pregnant again. I had so many emotions going through me. But the thought that was the most pervasive was, we have to get home. 

  My husband was as astonished as I was. And said the same thing I thought,  we have to get home. We decided to take no risks and booked a hotel in the city, a forty minute drive to the airport (we were about three hours away now). Our flight was at 9:00 am, we would have to be at the airport at 6:00 am and we were not going to take any risks. 

    Our family asked to buy face masks and hand sanitizer from Zanzibar, as both were no longer available in the Netherlands. On our trip to the city we stopped by several pharmacies. Masks were sold out, hand sanitizer was limited to a small bottle per customer. One pharmacist even asked for $200 for a box of 100 masks ($2 a piece). What was going on??? Did I downplay the danger too much the last couple of days? Was I being too relaxed about the severity of the virus? We have to get home!

    We ended up not purchasing masks and hand sanitizer on the way to the city. We arrived at the hotel and decided to walk through the city. We went to a couple pharmacies, but it was clear, there were no more masks available. Damn, should we have bought that $200 box? We were tired of looking, we decided to stop looking for masks and have dinner. We sat down at a fast food restaurant and placed our order. 

    There was a lot of commotion going on. What was everybody talking about? We asked the waiter wat was going on. He said a women from Germany has brought the virus to the island, Zanzibar has their first infected person and she is in quarantine. Wait, what?! We have got to get out of here, we have to get home. We have a 1 year old and I'm pregnant. I can't handle this right now!!! My mind was going berserk. We finished up our meal and went back to the hotel. Things were still not as certain as I thought they were. 

    I didn't sleep at all. The taxi was ready for us at 5 am. We checked out. Headed off to the airport. 6 am we arrived at the airport, it's jam packed. 7 am we checked in. We still have to go through customs. 7.30 am we're waiting for our flight to board. It's busy. People are insecure. 8.30 am they start boarding. The flight is full. The seats issued are incorrect, find a seat and sit down so we can take off. It's about 10 hours to Amsterdam, with a short layover in Kenya. I can't wait to get home. Please let us arrive safely, I pray. 

    The flight was hectic, the cabin crew requested everyone to stay seated as much as possible. But of course that wasn't going to happen. The halal food that we had requested was not delivered, so we did not receive food. I had a can of Pringles, so we basically lived of that for 10 hours. Our son slept through most of the flight. I couldn't sleep. My brain was still full of questions. 

    We arrived at Schiphol, the Netherlands. Everything seemed normal, no one was walking around with a mask on. There was no social distancing. Is everything ok? It didn't matter, we were home. 

    The next couple of weeks and months turned out to be harder than I ever expected. But, I tell you more about that and my pregnancy in my next blogs. In the meantime tell me about your experiences with the pandemic in the comment section below. 

I hear crying,  gotta run!