PRIYA BEEGUN
A Mauritian citizen residing in South Africa
Day 15. Cabin fever is an under-statement. I am more in an AFF – Accelerated Free Fall mode and waiting edgily for the Ministry of Health (MoH) to come home and run what will be my 8th PCR test (including antigen tests) in two weeks. My nostrils feel like paper-muslin.
Two weeks ago, I landed in Mauritius after almost two years amidst a just-as-old deadly pandemic and growing concern over Omicron. A month ago, I was rejoicing about reuniting with my loved ones after months of missed opportunities. Three weeks ago, 26th of November, on learning that Mauritius was closing its borders to South Africa on the 29th of November, I immediately purchased one of the two last tickets on South African Airways for that Sunday. Packed my suitcases. Booked my appointment for a PCR test through the travel clinic. I was sorted and ready to board the final flight to Mauritius the next day until photos and videos of passengers freshly disembarking at Plaisance airport from South Africa went viral. I promise you they did. And I promise you that narratives of this arrival are here to stay – at least for a while.
I was supposed to leave for the airport at 5.30 a.m. on Sunday. Packed an extra luggage for quarantine. PCR result came in negative. 23 00 hours South African time – Mauritius is closing its borders to South Africa with immediate effect. No flight for me the next day. All this hullabaloo in 48 hours. London 1 – Port Louis 0. First World 1 – Africa 0. To be honest, I am not even sure if we consider ourselves as part of Africa but let’s not go there. Bending over backwards can perhaps be one of those colonial traumas. I don’t know much about epigenetics but I care. I care about this continent that has taught me throughout this pandemic and in spite of the Zoom fatigue, the tales of resilient Africans. Of countries that stood and are still standing tall to countless diseases – HIV/AIDS, TB, paludism, malaria, Ebola virus disease (EVD) – you name them. It is with this matured vision of the continent that I embarked on that repatriation flight to Mauritius on the 5th of December after booking my own quarantine and grateful for the savings that I set aside to make this trip possible.
Hopping on a plane with a cabin crew in full protective gear and total discomfort at tasting the food that you are being served on a plane with over 250 passengers on board and no social distancing was stressful. But home was just a few hours away and landing home was nothing less than epic. We were greeted by men and women – many many of them – in full protective gear, hurried to the PCR test zone, screened from top to bottom by fearful looks, rushed to our shuttles (no social distancing) while our luggage was shoved into trucks. I don’t know if being escorted by the police on the highway while all shuttles and buses left the airport for the quarantine hotels made me feel more of a celebrity than a plagued human being. I recall seeing those images of men and women in full protective gear in pictures or videos during the first outbreak of EVD in West Africa between 2014-2016. I am talking of EVD as if people cared. Like the others, it is an African problem – 45 years since the virus was discovered, it still is. Anyhow, anywho as a dear friend of mine would say. Exhausted, we checked-in at our quarantine hotel at almost midnight where we all had to drag our own delta-nised and omicron-ised luggage to our rooms. Our temperature was monitored every day and our hope was that we all test negative on the 7th day so that we can finally go home to our families. On day 7, we all probably woke up at 6 a.m. eager to have our nostrils bulleted. Only that the results came in past 10.30 p.m. Some lucky ones had families cueing up since 9 p.m. to pick them up. Others, like me, preferred to pay an additional Rs. 3000 for 4-hours of sleep just not to wake an elderly parent in the middle of the night.
Everyday I keep myself abreast of the latest findings on COVID-19, I watch and read in awe the stories of people gone too soon, of brave frontliners who were never prepared for what 2020 brought us, but I also watch and read in complete disbelief and anger the discrimination with which Africans are still subjected to. I would relive my trip to home again should all of us be subjected to the same scrutiny, the same screening and the same welcome. We are not quarantiners from South Africa. We are the sacrificed quarantiners in the name of power, money and politics.
Merry Christmas and to a 2022 full of hope.
P.S.: My 8th PCR test is done.
