Out of Africa — lady who lunches

Over the past few weeks, we have been weighing the pros and cons of staying in Tanzania. We weren’t even supposed to still be in Dar es Salaam - it was the initial outbreak in China that delayed our original February move date.

International flights between Europe and Tanzania rely heavily on tourism and had started dwindling in early March. The first notice from the US embassy came on March 17, the day after the first case was confirmed in Tanzania, urging all Americans who want to leave to do so now while commercial options are still available, but also collecting contact information for a future, not confirmed, evacuation flight.

We eventually decided that even though we were settled and happy in Dar and could probably ride out coronavirus in Tanzania just fine by staying inside, we were not ok with not being able to leave the country when we wanted and potentially having to separate if the US embassy wouldn’t evacuate non-Americans - ie Man who works, who is Mexican.

But where to go?

China was starting to look better, as restrictions outside of Wuhan lifted. It would mean a 14-day quarantine with our four-year-old on arrival, but on the other side there was some semblance of a normal existence. So Plan A was getting visas as soon as possible. Then the Chinese canceled all existing visas and barred foreigners from entering until further notice.

We don’t have a house in the US, and going to stay with my family would potentially expose them if we picked up the virus during our multi-continental journey. Plus, it was unclear if Man who Works would be allowed to enter the US, even with his visa, and our international health insurance covers everywhere in the world except the US, due to our ridiculous health system. Not a plausible Plan B.

Our house in Mexico was mostly booked on Airbnb, but then came Airbnb’s full refund policy and with it every single reservation until the end of June canceled. Not great financially, but the best place for us to ride out however long this is going to be. However, the few Tanzania-Mexico route options were narrowing daily, and countries were closing borders overnight, leaving the possibility of being stranded somewhere in transit.

The night we started searching, we saw the last flight Dar–Istanbul-Mexico City, leaving in 16 hours. We passed. We found a flight to London, where it was still possible to enter the country, then London-Mexico City. The next day the Mexico City leg was canceled.

Soon Ethiopian Airlines was the only option to leave Tanzania, and then they reduced from daily to only three flights a week. Every day the embassy sent an updated email encouraging us to leave. When I asked if my American daughter’s Mexican father would be allowed on an evacuation flight, the response was that we should leave now by commercial means.

We finally got confirmation from Man who Works’s UK office’s travel agent that he would be allowed to transit through the US. He found us a flight to Chicago via Addis Ababa, then Chicago-Houston-Leon. We asked him to book it. A few hours later the Tanzanian government suspended all international flights indefinitely.

I accepted that we were stuck, and filled our apartment with food, water, and malaria test kits and treatment. Expats had self-imposed various measures of social distancing, while life for the vast majority of people stayed the same aside from an extra dose of fear. The predominant strategy of the government has been a national call to prayer, and the realities of urban poverty make flattening the curve all but impossible. We braced for the bodies to start piling up as they had in other developing countries like Ecuador.

Then one Friday morning I got an email from the embassy giving me 24 hours to confirm if I wanted seats on an evacuation flight being organized for the following Tuesday, subject to change. I said yes- this could be our last chance for months- but would they take non-citizens? On Saturday I got a call that all three of us had seats.

We packed up our things, gave away our stockpile (including my hoards of non-essentials), said goodbye to friends and colleagues. Thankfully I’d been preparing for this moment for three months, and we easily fit what we wanted to take into our existing, beaten-up luggage in well under the 40 pound per bag limit.

Only thing not pictured- Man who Works’s computer bag. Minimalism for the win!

On Monday rumors circulated that the flight plan had changed. That night I got another call – we were now on standby since non-citizens are last priority. The plane would stop in Ethiopia and Sudan first, so chances are not everyone would show up.

A few hours before going to the airport I got one last call, confirming that there was space for all three of us. The airport was packed with embassy staff in masks and gloves, and we filled out lots of paperwork including a release for photos and videos of us and a promissory note that we would repay the government for our tickets.

Multi-station check in. Man who Works almost left his suitcase full of his entire wardrobe here…

There were some stressful moments getting through immigration as officers blatantly asked Man who Works for a bribe because he was not American, even after the immigration checkpoint, but the embassy staff thankfully smoothed out any ‘misunderstandings’.

The plane was an Ethiopian Airlines charter, with no working TVs, Wifi, or power outlets. In the middle of the flight, also the middle of the night, we stopped in Togo to refuel. All 400 or so of us had to get off the plane and go through a TSA-approved security check, as no such thing was available in Dar (they had even let us bring liquids onto the plane in Dar, which I have always had taken away from me even on short domestic flights). There was of course only one of those fancy put-you-hand-up-for-three-seconds scanners, so it took hours.

We finally landed in DC, about 6 hours late, to an eerily empty airport. The immigration officer, not wearing a mask, let us all in with minimal questions. We spent the night in the Marriot airport hotel, which was mostly closed down.

The next morning we got a flight to Leon via Houston and arrived at our house Thursday night, about 4 days since we left our former home. We are now halfway through self-quarantine for 14 days. Mexico is mostly closed at least for the rest of this month, so we will have to wait until at least June for Man who Works to get a new passport.

For this month of limbo, I’ll probably need some new new rules. Right now, I’m just resettling into our old house and trying to get by without a nanny for the first time ever…