Uff da. It’s been a hard 4 weeks hasn’t it? I, for one, am EXHAUSTED. Trying to work, oversee school and cook/clean left me feeling hopelessly ineffective at all 3. There’s a reason why each of those is a full time job!
When I last wrote March 13th, we were on the cusp of starting virtual school and teleworking. If I’m being honest (which I always prefer to do), it was even harder then I anticipated. There’s a reason I didn’t become a teacher… turns out my patience is non-existent! Nick ended up being far more effective at overseeing school then I was. I have a theory that because Nia and I are both anxious perfectionists that I inadvertently trigger her when trying to help her with performance-related things. Well, no matter what the case, it’s a constant challenge, but one that is helping build my ‘parenting chops’.
Work has been frustrating too. All the momentum I was beginning to get with my teams came crashing to a halt. And although I did my best to telework from home 100%, it just wasn’t feasible given that I wasn’t able to access certain systems or documents from home. I ended up going in about 2-3 hours a day, but would shoot for early morning when few people were in and there were limited chances of contact. My concentration has also been impossibly low. Returning emails seems to be about the extent of what I can do right now.
The Situation in India
As I mentioned in my earlier email, it’s hard to get an accurate picture of just how widespread COVID-19 is in India, as there is a lack of testing & the death toll is masked by the myriad of other diseases present. The government of India took a really strong position from the start, which I believe was necessary given the density of population and the lack of basic sanitation. They did a full-on ad campaign with newspaper articles, billboards and radio/tv commercials. Seemed fairly effective.
A 21 day lockdown was announced starting on Wednesday, March 25th. Along with the lockdown, airspace was also shut down. Nothing could take off or land, internationally or domestically. Movement was greatly restricted in the city via the presence of police check-points. If you weren’t deemed essential, you weren’t getting through. For the first week, this really impacted the food supply, which caused a lot of panic. Eventually the appropriate government documents were acquired by food suppliers enabling them to deliver again. So that was good.
Throughout this whole debacle, I wavered on what was the best course of action for our family. I had initially intended to stay in India and ride it out, but as the days passed and my mental health deteriorated, I found myself longing for the comfort of America. By that point it was too late to leave though, as commercial flights had already stopped. But then came some good news – the government of India had agreed to let the US government charter commercial flights to repatriate Americans living in India back to the U.S.
It was a massive undertaking and our consular team worked miracles to make it happen. And so that’s how it came to pass that Nick, Nia and I got out of India on Saturday, April 4th even though airspace was technically closed. Due to high demand, 4 more flights were added for the following week. As if that wasn’t a massive undertaking in itself, we also sent buses out to our consular districts like Goa and Gujurat (places 10-15 hrs away) to pick up American Citizens that wanted to leave. They wouldn’t have otherwise been able to get to Mumbai due to all the driving restrictions that were in place.
I just realized how long this post has gotten, so I’ll save the details of our repatriation flight for my next post. The most important thing for you to know is that we are safe and settling nicely into our new normal in Bend, Oregon. Stay safe & healthy friends!
