Surviving a Pandemic When Living Abroad
Can Covid make us closer, even when we’re far apart?
What do you do when you’re living in a different country from your parents, grandparents or other loved ones and a pandemic hits? It’s a question few policymakers recognize in their vaccine rollout plans, lockdown agendas and ‘being together’ holiday planning platitudes. While borders and societies are shutting down, politicians and societies are debating when families can reconnect, when a holiday meal can safely be shared, and how far someone might be able to travel for a staycation or getaway. But what if your closest family is thousands of miles away and you need international borders to be open to see them? It’s a layer of the pandemic rarely making headlines, but a subset of individuals for whom rare family moments together are all too precious, and around whom a roadmap for their connectedness seems farthest away.
When I moved abroad from the US to the UK in 2013 and started a life in London, I imagined I’d face some hurdles in staying connected with my family and friends, as well as opportunities to explore or relationships in new ways. I’ve never been more grateful for technology, as Skype and FaceTime got me through the toughest periods even long before the idea of Covid lockdowns became the latest new global trend. Regular and surprise visits to (and from) family were a lifeline. I then started to plan my wedding for 2020, in London, with loved ones from the US, South Africa and Europe destined to join. But then, the unthinkable hit.
A surprising gift Covid has brought internationals was something that rarely happens for a life abroad — a sense of shared global experience.
Let’s start with the good. A surprising gift Covid has brought internationals was something that rarely happens for a life abroad — a sense of shared global experience. While every nation is facing the crisis slightly differently, there is, for the first time, a shared global challenge that’s been forcefully placed front of frame across cultural and geographic divides. When I was learning what ‘lockdown’ and ‘vaccination target’ meant, my parents in New Jersey and my partner’s family in Cape Town were learning the same. When we were stuck at home, loved ones around the world were suddenly home too, available for midday and midnight facetimes, glued sometimes to the same news channels. We were, as a globe, regardless of our continents, histories and economies, going through some aspects of the same life-shattering experience. And in some ways, oddly, I’ve never felt closer to loved ones in other countries than I have in Covid times.
Now there is, of course, the monumental list of the ‘challenging’. What do I do if I get sick, or a loved one does, and we’re not in the same country? As we learned Covid means ‘life of death’ the prospect became all the more scary. If I visit a sick loved one in the US, I might not have health insurance for myself. Border processes were constantly changing and ambiguous. Time zones meant I would wake up in a sweat, hoping a night’s sleep hadn’t missed some terrible news from my elderly relatives abroad. Life moments already feel fleeting and challenging when living thousands of miles away from loved ones. But a sudden closure of global borders is about the worst thing that can happen to families that are far apart, when the opportunity to see one another is so rare and important, a lifeline suddenly and ruthlessly stolen in largely confusing politicking and, for most, without routes for feeding into domestically-focused debates.
Then there were the perhaps more unexpected challenges. A life abroad means logistics are always a little…extra complicated. As I’m a different nationality to my partner, our visa status constantly requires some ongoing applications and documentation with relevant border agencies and embassies. Expensive processing fees, complicated and confusing rules, and languid wait periods are commonplace. Then, Covid hit. Embassies mid-way through processing visas shut down completely. Government help lines stopped responding. Some international couples have been forced to wait years with unclear waiting times as visa backlogs jam up, with complicated rules barring them from visits to be together while they’re forced to wait for unknown processing timelines. These systems already work at a confused and snail place. Global families simply cannot afford what Covid has so horrifically gifted to the global visa system which has essentially been ignored as governments turn to more urgent matters — the ability to marry, work, relay citizenship to children and loved ones, and to simply be together, all turned into massive backlogged bureaucratic nightmares as countries focus inwards.
Finally, the pandemic has left an indelible scar on the imagination of the expat. As technology and progress made living and loving internationally easier and easier, a Goliath sized shadow has marked us for life. What once seemed easy and exciting to live and love with an open, global heart has left some of us with incredulous fears for our own futures and that of our families. If we survive this crisis, what would the next one bring? Is living global opening us to the potential for this nightmare to unfold again? How free of borders can we ever be, really? Will governments always be able to shut down our basic ability to cross a border and be together in the moments that matter most?
The pandemic has brought with it so much devastation. And of course the health and safety of our loved ones, and deepest sympathies for all suffering, are paramount. But how sad if the pandemic takes with it one silent, shadowy victim: the open, global heart, and the fearless adventure many once felt in pursuing an ‘international’ family life. With all its challenges, these families have shaped global experiences, bringing culture to new corners, appreciation and love to new heights, and putting love in unexpected places. Politicians should consider them, and the benefits global families can bring society, in their policy making and legislation if at all possible, at least more than the current rate where many in this situation feel invisibilized. I desperately hope, despite the clear challenges international families living in a pandemic now face, that Covid will not be allowed to take the openness to this experience in our collective aspirations and imaginations, too.
