Love is one of the strongest feelings in the world. It is a game where heroes show that they are stronger than time, distance and adversity. This occurs every day, even if we don't know it, but now it happened on a large scale as a consequence of the pandemic. The closed borders and the difficulties to see our loved ones made this situation almost unbearable for many, but the protagonists in this story, nothing less than heroes, work hard to overcome the difficulties and are here with their valuable testimonies.
Their stories are not for the light-headed; they describe real-life around the world, the inevitable reality for some that are disadvantaged by the global happenings and their life situation. They are a wake-up call even for those who haven't had such problems to realise that strength in adversity is shared by people in every corner of the world. Here are some lessons that we learn from their experiences.
Don't stop looking
Alida is a cancer survivor living in Boksburg, South Africa. She wants to visit her daughter in the Netherlands and has applied for a Schengen visa, a procedure that should take roughly ten days and which was costly for her, as she not only had to pay to gather the documents as well as three months of negative tests (for every time she had to go to the hospital for treatment) but also to drive from Boksburg to Pretoria to apply. Having left her passport on a Friday morning, she received it back by a courier early on Monday morning with a refusal note stating that she is a health risk to the Netherlands. Surprised by receiving an answer so fast and wondering about the decision, she has contacted the Embassy, where she has been informed that the offices shouldn't have been opened because of Covid-19, but they don't have instructions to close either. She feels for all the other people who, just like her, have been waiting in line for a visa and paid for the application -- money that won't be reimbursed. For Alida, it was important to visit her daughter for her 40th birthday and her grandson for his 8th birthday. She feels concerned as her daughter will undergo an operation, and the purpose of her trip is to help her, not to have a holiday. Alida goes through a hard time and is fighting cancer as well as the difficulty of being far from her family members. She needs a stress-free life in order to get well and is working every day to stay strong so that soon she can be together with her daughter and grandson. No matter how hard life gets, she doesn't give up.
Update: Alida received a visa to visit her family last December. She is still looking for help to understand if the three-month visa can be prolonged, although she has been informed by a lawyer that she needs to be over 80 years old and to have income to maintain herself in order to get a residence permit.
Search for any opportunity to communicate
Mariia comes from Moscow but lives in the Netherlands. Being a young woman, she is facing an issue that is very common for adults; her 67-year-old mother needs help. Mariia visited her mother to assist her during a surgery when she realised that she would need to take care of her until she had fully recovered. That's why she looked for a possibility to bring her mother with her to be able to combine the care and her other life responsibilities. However, after making a request, her case was refused by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service. One of the issues, according to Mariia might be the differences between vaccine approvals in the countries, as no EU-approved vaccine is available in Russia. The behaviour perceived by the Immigration and Naturalisation Service authorities when asking for an exception caused a lot of anger and distress for her as she says that she was treated with a lack of empathy and that she is shocked by the political nature of this problem. She points out that her mother is vaccinated and is ready to do an additional PCR test in order to be with her family. “I can't understand why parents are not family members. Even non-registered partners are, but not parents,” she says, heartbroken for the difficulties her mother has to face. She says that she has been informed that parents can enter the country with an exception, but this has proven difficult to discuss with the officials. Mariia mentions that there are alternatives for her mother to come, but she needs it to be in a proper way, as her mother is a lady in older age that needs peace and recovery and should not have the stress of entering the country unofficially. She wishes that people could be more aware of this situation to create awareness and help for the stress that a family can endure as a consequence of being apart. She raised a petition for the European Commission to lift the vaccine requirements (to allow PCR or other alternatives) for family members who may live in a place where getting the (approved) vaccine is impossible.
Two most powerful warriors are patience and time
An interviewee who did not disclose his name, so we will refer to him as Redelinghuys, as he comes from this village located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Both Redelinghuys and his wife are past retirement age. They have three children and six grandchildren. In 2018 two of their children moved to the Netherlands, and he and his wife visited them in 2019 when they shared the joy of touring around the country and the love of their family excited to see how much their eldest grandchild has grown and changed. The same year their third child received a job offer from the Netherlands, but suddenly the world stopped. Because of the pandemic, he was forced to work remotely for months until he managed to get help to arrive in the Netherlands with a repatriation flight, but his wife and children had to wait until they could join him. Now Redelinghuys has all his children in the Netherlands and, with his wife, they have been trying to visit them for at least a month. They have been experiencing difficulties setting an appointment, but finally, they managed to get one in Johannesburg. They were finally able to visit their children after two years of being apart.
It always seems impossible until it's done
Elana is a South African front office receptionist living in Amsterdam. She has lived in the Netherlands for three years now, far away from her entire family. Recently she gave birth to her first child, a joy that she wishes she could've been able to share with her closest. She believes that it is very important to celebrate special moments with the presence of the family, not via WhatsApp or video calls. Luckily for her, her husband's parents are in Poland, which made things a little more bearable. Elana was relieved to understand that the Netherlands has an exemption list where grandparents of newborns were allowed to enter the country for a visit. However, this procedure was not smooth, as they had to wait for the baby to be born to obtain a birth certificate before applying for the visa. From that moment on, things got simpler and were mostly collecting documents, negative tests and vaccination proof, which was exhausting for Elana's mother. During this time, she has felt helpless, as she was not able to see her family, especially her twin sister, which caused a great deal of suffering for both. She feels like sometimes the authorities forget about the families that the expat communities have and the pain that being apart can bring. She notes that family visits are not tourism and that there needs to be a lot of sympathy for these cases, as living far is already a great burden, and keeping loved ones away can only make things worse. But, luckily, everything ended well. Elana got reunited with her mother, and she recalls the moment she saw her walking through the arrivals gate. As they hugged and cried together, she has felt like the emotional burden had finally been lifted. She finally felt whole.
There are many stories about the difficulties that Covid posed all over the world. These ones have been shared thanks to the community in the Netherlands created to bring awareness for the struggles that families face when being apart. It is a new front of learning both for the people as for governments, and vocalising the issues is a step closer to finding a better solution. Understanding the need for love as a basic human need is probably the key element for every government to make their further decisions. For sure, this attitude would make the world a better place.
