Teacher trying to return home from China

NEW FAIRFIELD — With two cases now reported in Rhode Island over the weekend, coronavirus seems to be knocking at Connecticut’s door.

But for 29-year-old New Fairfield native Alan Sheaffer, the virus has been close for a while.

Sheaffer has been working as an English teacher in China since 2015, and lives in Xiamen — a city in China’s Fujian province — with his wife, Ceren, and two dogs.

After weeks of self-quarantine and no pay, the 2009 New Fairfield High School graduate is trying to get his family home to the U.S.

“We had considered staying longer [but] with our rent and daily expenses, we are not able to support ourselves. We already used all our savings and currently, we are surviving by the money our families have lent us and need to find a solution as fast as possible,” he said.

Sheaffer said “everything turned upside down” in China with the January outbreak of the coronavirus. “Finding masks and supplies is difficult. People couldn’t go to work for almost a month,” he wrote on a GoFundMe page he started Saturday, which had raised nearly $700 as of Monday morning.

Xiamen, where he has quarantined himself, is more than 1,000 miles from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. As of Monday, China had 202 new cases, bringing the total there to 80,026, including 2,912 deaths, according to The Washington Post.

Sheaffer said sitting at home since the Chinese New Year has been “tortuous.”

“The middle of January is when it started for us, and we got two weeks paid vacation (for the Chinese New Year),” he said.

After that, Scheaffer said, they were told to stay inside and avoid crowded areas.

“Many businesses closed down during this time because they go home — but they just extended it, and kept extending it,” he said.

Businesses started to reopen about two weeks ago, Sheaffer said, but schools have not.

“There is no specific starting date. People are talking about not reopening the schools until May 1,” he said.

With schools closed, Scheaffer said he and his wife have not been paid and don’t know the next time they will be.

“Our training center has been hurt by this deeply and we still have not gotten our salaries for January and February. Our management keeps telling us the only thing we can do is to wait until schools reopen, but even after that, there is no guarantee that they will pay us,” he said.

Scheaffer has had to borrow money from his family back home.

“It’s been almost two months since I was supposed to get paid. I make an OK salary here and I can’t even pay my rent. I’m just trying to make ends meet now,” he said.

“If I don’t pay rent, they can just throw me out on the street,” Schaeffer said. “It’s not like in America where if I don’t pay rent, I have a couple of months to figure something out. They don’t have laws like that in China.”

Sheaffer and his wife are trying to get back to the United States but are unable to due to their current financial situation. He said that’s why he started the GoFundMe.

He said there are many in China who think they’re going to get the virus from their pets even though there’s been no link between pets and the coronavirus.

“It’s sad because even now, you see pets on the street because people are getting rid of them,” he said.

Scheaffer said leaving his dogs is “not an option.”

“We need to buy plane tickets not only for us but for our pets, which currently is more expensive given the situation,” he said.

Flights to and from China were suspended by many airlines and it wasn’t clear when restrictions would be lifted.

Scheaffer said the $5,000 fundraising goal would be enough to get them back to the States and pay rent for another 20 to 30 days while they things in order so their pets can travel with them.

Sheaffer said the paperwork required to fly their dogs is “very expensive,” and their options are limited due to a lack of airlines flying to China.

“We have lived here for five years, and this has been one of the hardest things we have ever had to do. Our lives are here in China and to leave this all behind has been a challenge for us, both mentally and physically. We just want to go back home and be safe,” he said.

Contributed photo Alan Sheaffer, left, with his wife, Ceren, and their two dogs.