Life Interrupted

Stuck inside with no school.

It is all happening so fast that I need to begin to put it down day by day since this past Monday. Only last weekend life was still pretty normal, but that all changed and the change cascaded into a thousand other things which put us where we are today, and I need to start documenting it. In fact, we were kind of arm-wrestling in the kitchen last night over who would get to write this blog this time. It's been a week like no other in my life, and we each have a perspective on it. So, along the way, I (Rebecca) will chime in, using italics. 

Last Friday was a special day. Rebecca and I planned a date night, thanks to our friends the Taylors. As a Birthday present, they had offered to invite our boys over for a sleepover so Rebecca and I could go out. Friday was a normal work-day, with some anticipation of it ending, and when the kids got off the bus after school we went straight home rather than going to Gymkhana -- we wanted to send the kids off to the Taylors' as early as possible. 

We had a lovely evening with a delicious dinner: Rebecca had a brainstorm about using some special French treats that Jessica's family brought us, a bottle of good wine, and imported smoked salmon, to make an amazing light meal (hard to find here). Saturday morning we went out for a hike and had some appetizers at Rivertrees (a safari resort) in Usa River. Although coronavirus came up,  we tried not to make it the central topic of conversation. But cases had just been reported in neighboring Kenya and Rwanda. We had already planned to take some precautions at church: spreading chairs wider apart to promote social distancing, giving ushers gloves who would administer hand sanitizer at the door. 

We went to a school play that evening with the kids and Jessica (Oren and David were not in it.)

Sunday was normal enough with the more widely spaced chairs, but we did have Sunday school. Social distancing is not possible there, but we agreed that if school was cancelled, we would cancel Sunday School as well. It was a fun class, and the kids have been working on their "Dry Bones" song to sing for the church at the end of March.

I (Rebecca) led music for the congregation, together with Jessica playing flute, a pianist and another singer. it was such a joy to prepare music for this service, centered around Jesus meeting the woman at the well and offering her living water. Anxiety was already high in the congregation and we need to worship and pray and focus on the God who quenches our thirst.

We had a special Sunday afternoon going over to visit our friend Erwin Kinsey and his wife Angelika. They have a fabulous house and property. Erwin is a rural development specialist and has an encyclopedic knowledge of local flora. We took a hike around the hill they live on and he showed us many local plants and trees and explained their medicinal and nutritional values. We also toured his garden and left with many clippings. Angelika had prepared a feast to rival a Thanksgiving meal, and our kids were thrilled to eat so much delicious healthy food. The afternoon was slow and sunny, with a passing heavy shower. In retrospect, it felt like a desire to stop time, to take one last deep slow breath in, before the real storm hit.

We got home around 6 pm, and I had the sense that now was the time to get to the grocery store and at least prepare for a two-week lockdown -- taking every precaution possible as I did this necessary task.

DAY 1: Monday, March 16  

We took the kids to the bus as usual and had our morning swim but work at the office was not really normal. We had long conversations with Sharon about setting up new washing protocols in the office and limiting visitors, insisting everyone washes hands. There had been no reported cases in Tanzania-- until about 3pm that afternoon. In fact, it was the Parent's Association at our kids school that was our best source of inside information.  Chats starting coming in, with a live press conference from the Minister of health, sharing a report that there was a case, the first one in Arusha. She was currently at Mt. Meru hospital, just several blocks away from us. She was a Tanzanian woman who had traveled in Europe and returned from Belgium the night before and started feeling sick the next morning (Sunday). And the hour before this case was announced, two partner leaders, based at the very same hospital (Mt. Meru), had been in our office to sign their annual Memorandum of Understanding -- and had completely ignored our new signs to wash their hands before coming into the office! 

I must admit that by the end of the work day, I was feeling kind of flushed and thought I would take my temperature just to be sure (it was only stress) -- only to find that the office thermometer was nonfunctional. So I stopped by a pharmacy after work and it was an utter mad house. As I entered, someone bought the very last small bottle of hand santizer. I must admit, I bought one of the big 5 L jugs to share with our team. And tylenol and a thermometer. Arusha was panicking.

While Rebecca and I predicted that the first case would be in Arusha or Dar (where the International airports are) it was sobering to realize she was in a hospital just a few blocks away. 

Monday evening, by God's providence, we had already scheduled our church council meeting. All other business was put to the side. What was our response to the arrival of COVID-19 to Arusha? We are an internaitonal upper middle class community. A lot of our members (foreign and Tanzanian) travel extensively for their work. We have international visitors come to greet us every week. Every week, children in our Sunday school pray for their parents or relatives who are out of the country. And yet people rely on coming to Sunday worship. We had a number of people who felt that we should still continue services in some form. But we looked around the room --even many of our church elders are people with high risk factors themselves or live with vulnerable elders. We realized that we just couldn't continue to meet normally and made the hard decision to suspend services for the next month -- through Easter. It was devastating and also it felt right.

DAY 2: Tuesday, March 17  DECISIONS

The kids were on the bus as usual the next morning and I had my morning swim. I had my day off, but was following up on the church decision, preparing communications for the church website and Facebook. And parents at our kids' school had been sending desperate messages since the day before, wanting a decision from school about what they were doing for safety. It was non-stop wild on the WhatsApp chats. As the secretary of the Parents' Association, I tried to convey the mood of parents to the Head of School. On the church front, many of our young one-year volunteers were sending their farewells. All European and Asian organizations were calling their people home by mandate.

About 2 pm we got an email from the kids' school that they would be closed for 4 weeks after the end of that day (they would take a 2-week Easter break, them move classes online for 2 weeks). They thought they were taking extra cautious measures, but within the hour, the minister of health announced that all schools were closed for 4 weeks. I also discovered, when driving up the street about 100 meters from our office that 2 intimidating ministry of health landcruisers were parked in front of a hotel apartment complex, with armed guards and yellow tape across the gate. Quarantined. I found out that was where the index case woman had been staying prior to going to the hospital. The taxi driver who had taken her (as well as his family, and his next carload of tourists) was also currently in isolation.

In the evening, Jessica had planned to stay with Sharon overnight and was deeply processing a decision. Her parents were desperately calling for her to return home. And now her job was de facto over. It was hard to believe that just the previous Wednesday, we had sat around a table with her work supervisor. Our biggest point of discussion was how the school was going to continue to function when rain and mud made it impossible for the school bus to get to school. When school wasn't running, what work could Jessica do to keep busy. She was still planning to leave for a brief holiday in Kenya on Friday (which was cancelled on Thursday when a case was announced in Kenya). All that to say, the week before, our biggest concern was MUD! I just want to underscore what a big mental shift we went through in the space of a few days.

DAY 3: Wednesday, March 18  RAIN

Kids were home from school but we could not take a moment to parent. We went to the office. All of us were there, with Chrispin just coming back from vacation. The big issue had become Jessica. She did not feel she could stay in her host family as there were high-risk people she did not want to expose to the virus. The school where she was seconded was closed indefinitely. Effectively her assignment had evaporated. She was in the agonizing position of having to decide to terminate early and go back to France or stay on without anything to do. We knew travel was risky as well, especially to France. Sadly we had to counsel her to leave, although it broke our hearts and she made the decision to go. We were able to get a fairly direct flight for her, for Friday morning at about 5am. She decided to spend her last two nights at our house. 

As a team, we made the decision to work remotely from home as much as possible. We told our house worker, Nai, to only come once per week to clean. Rebecca went out and expanded the shopping list, because Oren had complained that we didn't have enough meat or cereal. And I got stuck in various locations during torrential rains in the afternoon. Stuck in the shelter at the Simba Farm shop, the quietest, safest place I could think of to buy vegetables, I had the picture of God washing and scrubbing Arusha clean of this contagion. But in the evening, we heard that there were 2 more cases of the virus, one in Dar, one in Zanzibar. We tried to enjoy the evening with Jessica and our kids, doing something we've often enjoyed together -- playing a board game.

DAY 4: Thursday, March 19  

This was possibly the most chaotic day I have ever experienced here. There was simply too much to do and the kids were home, cranky, needy, probably picking up on our anxiety. First we needed to drop off Jessica with her host family so that she could pack and say farewells. Later, we needed to pick her up and move her goods and MCC furniture out of her host family, and take her to say a few farewells to her local community.

In the middle of the day, we had committed to do two trainings on our compound for staff at the Joshua Foundation (where we live) on what coronavirus was, how it is spread and how to prevent catching and spreading it. We did 2 sessions so we would not have a crowded room, but it took over 2.5 hours, after nearly 2 hours for me of making a PowerPoint on short notice. Rebecca and I felt very good for having done it. People had both good and also some strange information. There was some rumor that the virus was a bioweapon released by Americans against the Chinese. And we are a bit apprehensive about reprisals against foreigners here. Some had heard that alcohol kills the virus so people who drink heavily are immune. It was good to give them correct information, and since it was a group of Christians who work there, we included some theological discussion about what it looks like to follow Jesus through this trial. (I emphasized NOT testing God, as Satan suggested to Jesus during the temptation. i.e. don't take needless risks believing your faith will save you, or put others at risk, by insisting on shaking hands, or having the sick come to services for laying on of hands.) They appreciated a theological grounding to push back on pastors that often suggest reckless acts to demonstrate faith in God. (For your interest, read Psalm 91 in light of response to Coronavirus, noting that Satan used the same psalm to tempt Jesus).

We were exhausted by evening and had our last supper with Jessica. It was a sober event. That same afternoon we got notice from our best friends in Arusha that they were planning to head to Australia, because their daughter is very high risk. 

DAY 5: Friday, March 20  ADIEU JESSICA!

2:05 AM My alarm went off and Rebecca and I got up and loaded Jessica and her stuff into our Harrier to take the hour drive to the airport. It was nearly empty when we got there and we dropped her at the door which is as far as we could go. We had already shed many tears, but all held out hope that maybe in a year she could come back to do a short stint with MCC Tanzania. It was hard to believe that just the week before we had been talking about her extending her assignment beyond a year, and now she was leaving 3 months early.

At 10:00 am we went to the office after getting another 2 or so hour of sleep. Kids left at home to their own devices (literally!). We went in to debrief with Sharon and talk about what our assignments would be in the current situation. All trainings had been cancelled by all partners, all schools that we support were closed, our YAMENer had just left, and next year's volunteer had just changed her mind about coming (so no visas to work on). That also applied for our IVEP volunteers who we were going to be sending from TZ to the US. It was like our jobs had dried up entirely, except for the work we did on our computers related to emails and reporting. 

The conversation with Sharon was sobering and although we went in to discuss hunkering down here, it had become clear that there were a number of considerations about whether that was a good idea. MCC's policy is to give service workers a choice which they would support. Although in this case support was purely moral. We realized that Sharon and I are both 'high risk' in certain categories, and that up to 20% of high-risk people who are symptomatic may need life support. That would not be available here. Also, the air ambulance service that MCC uses could not move COVID patients from Tanzania to another country. So staying really would mean hibernating and taking 0 risks of exposure. But to make matters worse, Rebecca and I realized that just sitting here without any work to do beyond homeschooling and emails, we would be a burden on our team if we got sick. We do not have a social network here beyond our small group and some friends. Other small group families had sent messages that they were leaving, too. The MCC national staff and our high-risk factor Rep. would need to care for us, risk being infected by our kids, etc. if one of us was seriously ill or dying. Realizing this, it seemed untenable to stay. The decision was abrupt, life-shattering, surreal. 

From there seemed to move at breakneck speed. Communicating with MCC travel to race to book a flight as more airports closed and flights were canceled. It is stressful doing this in communication with the travel agent in the USA, who is 7 hours behind us, and we have to check for answers to questions at 2am. We also called family to see if there was a place we could go for isolation for 14 days after arrival. And then a place to stay for several more months where kids could be homeschooled and watch their class videos online. 

DAY 6: Saturday, March 21

So that is where we are. Sharon decided she should leave as well and has a flight on Thursday. We leave the day before on Wednesday, March 23 on Qatar airways. Just got a message that that is the last day Qatar will be flying into Tanzania.