A film in real live / The CoVid-19
Bogota, Colombia
After my time in Santa Marta I was planning to visit a new project where a Swiss Strider is going to work for two years in a city called Monteria. So I was making sure to spend good time with Chloe and Abi before traveling again.
One day i went to our local "Lidl" ( called "D1" here) I noticed that was a big queue and loads of things missing in the shelves... no milk, no toilet paper, no rice... what was going on?
I had to check the news online, realizing that people was getting very worried because the government announced that the virus came into the country and the fist case in Bogotá was reported.
The next day I was doing another queue in a supermarket with Chloe when my phone rang from a U.K. number. It was unusual, I thought, but people was stressed, Chloe was with me asking for attention, I had few products in my hands, some Colombian music was playing in the background (as Colombians shops do, loud and noisy!) so I decided to check later who was calling me. But then I received a WhatsApp text from Neil, the leader of the Britain and Ireland office with the words: "Urgent. Could you call me ASAP?" .. something was no right.
I called back and basically the news were, that the team of 4 that I received 2 weeks ago had to leave the country as soon as possible!!!
How do you communicate that without worrying them? How can you communicate that in order for them to take that with acceptance? they were loving it!
I arrived home and I told them honestly the situation. That was the beginning of a race against time because borders were closing, against airlines because they were cancelling domestic and international flights, and against the virus! we didn´t want for them to get it!
Later in the week we received from the International leaders the news from the U.K. government to all their nationals to come back home. So in coordination with the Swiss and the B&I office we had to organize the flights of the team of 4, 2 Striders ( Emily and Brett) and the mum of a Strider who was traveling in Colombia when all this started! The flights that we were getting them were canceled the day after, and when we tried to re-schedule them hundreds of people were doing the same! getting seats in a plane was never so stressful! But thanks God, in the weekend of the 13th all of them flew and now they are on their homes in England, Switzerland and Bulgaria!
Massive thanks to Joanna Mcgree, STC of the B&I office, staying till very late talking with parents, the other members of the office, other Striders in all South America and the travel agency! And to Silvia Diether, STC of the Swiss office doing the same!
And by the way, we got milk, and rice, and toilet paper and all that we needed! now we are enjoying the quarantine being at the house!
