Surviving the pandemic in the Diaspora

IN March 2020, most people in upstate New York were planning on how they would escape the end of the biting winter: after the sub-zero temperatures and feet of snow had become too cumbersome for most.

Intentions were made and plane tickets purchased, but a massive concern was looming over the entire world, preparing to reveal its hand through a series of lockdowns, vaccines and tests.

Trepidation towards the effects of the Covid-19 virus began to envelop me on March 11 2020. In what was the American Spring semester, I was beginning my senior year of college at SUNY Plattsburgh, a state school about four hours north of New York City through the cautious Capitol region and the adventuring Adirondacks.

A few friends from Zimbabwe had purchased suspiciously cheap tickets to Miami, and the prospect of getting to spend Spring Break with familiar faces was exciting; however, I could not shake an eerie feeling regarding recent events.

To my knowledge, a small Chinese city called Wuhan had been closed off from the world during the month of February, and the virus they sought to contain in Wuhan had begun to find itself in Europe: leaving a trail of dead bodies in its wake.

That alone was not enough to deter me from the thought of sandy beaches, Cuban music and company. On my way to negotiate my PayPal balance through my e-mail, a recently released school circular informed me and a few thousand other students that the dorms would shut down effect of immediately and the remainder of the semester would be completed online.

All domestic students staying on campus were forced to leave and international students with no options for alternative accommodation were given shelter in one of the campus’ low rise buildings.

At this point, the gravity of the situation had not yet made itself apparent, what with my inoculation to the inconvenience that was on-campus housing in the form of 5 Lafayette: my humble home.

Equipped with an open plan kitchen and living room that was more often than not was described by visitors paraphrasable as “spacious” or “big for a college apartment”. The big green couch in the centre of the living room was famed for its open invitation to anyone that might need a place to sleep.

I shared an apartment with three of my friends at the time: a Nigerian, an American and a Jew, which admittedly sounds like the beginning of a horrible joke. Our four bedroomed apartment that part-timed as a haven of hospitality had, overnight, become isolated.

In the months that we were still in school, we occupied our free time with lengthy games of Monopoly (that all but left me unable to enjoy the game), 1000piece puzzles to stave off boredom, chess, the occasional drink or our guiltiest pleasure of all: an Amazon purchase of the different editions of mystery board game “Exit: The Game” that would guarantee you at least 10 used hours.

This all became a weekly routine in an effort to avoid lethargy, repeated to the point that it became tiresome.

Classes were taken from the bed, and as a journalism student writing for more than one publication, interviews were conducted through email and over Zoom, often suffering through poor internet connections and technically challenged fifty-something year-olds.

Plattsburgh was a student town, when the students were there to occupy it. After the waves of campus evacuations, less than half of the undergraduate student body remained in the small town.

The streets grew silent as the snow finally began to melt. Anonymous masked figures occupied front porches and terraced decks, in groups of four or five, waving from a distance.

Self-incarceration was only lifted on the occasional trudge through the snow to the grocery store Price Chopper at Market 32 to siphon the Western Union of the US$200 from Zimbabwe that was to hold one over indefinitely. Money invariably became tighter as the months progressed.

Coronavirus established a foothold in Southern Africa and as lockdowns started in Zimbabwe, my lifestyle in America began to buckle in response.

The US$200 halved itself and became US$100, which stretched itself to last two months sponsoring minute ramen and eggs almost exclusively.

Slowly, it became apparent that coming home would not be an option in 2020.

By the summer in America, our lease to the haven that was 5 Lafayette expired and while searching for a new home for the following semester I found shelter and warmth on a friend’s couch.

The lifestyle of couch-surfing is vigorous and requires an adaptable and patient person, both traits that did not elude me. The generosity of my hosts was met by home cooked meals from my hands, really the only reimbursement I was capable of providing regularly.

Having traded one prison for another, this time one that I owned in no way: it was at this time that I truly began to feel alone.

Homesickness always appeared to me as a blight I had not time to have conceived, it was foreign to me like I was to the ground on which I stood.

Working through feelings like loneliness while also attempting to prepare for the future in an environment where you feel trapped can overwhelm the mind and body easily; however, it is in these times that one stands to understand themselves the most.

I would not find myself flying back to Zimbabwe for an entire year, in fact I would not find the same boy flying back at all.

The man that flew back to Zimbabwe is thankful to have felt alone, beaten but unbroken, braced for any stumbling block.