Tuesday 28 April 2020

An Unexpected Return to England


On the evening of Monday 16th March, the Chad government announced that it would be closing it's borders, stopping all commercial flights from "midnight on Thursday" due to the escalating Coronavirus situation around the world. Becki was due to remain in Uganda for another 2 weeks but on hearing this news, with MAF's permission, she tried to book the earliest possible flight back to Chad. Unfortunately the airline phone number wasn't working and on visiting their office at the airport she was told that she instead had to go to their other office in the city centre. With this lost time, she was unable to get a seat on Wednesday's flight but we were assured that midnight meant 11:59pm on the Thursday night so she booked a seat for the following day's flight. However, on Wednesday morning we heard that the scheduled Air France flight would not arrive that evening and it soon became clear that airlines were no longer flying into Chad.

Becki carried on with her training and was enjoying living with friends from our first year in Chad but with just 4 days of her training remaining, Uganda closed its airport and entered a state of lockdown. With all form of transport banned, Becki was no longer able to get to the airport. Chad, meanwhile, had announced a further 2 week closure of its borders and initiated restrictions such as banning public transport and issuing a night-time curfew. Both of us were on the look out for flights to England as waiting for a flight to Chad could mean months apart and the children were missing her more and more as their countdown chart ended but Mum hadn’t come back. There were rumours of an Air France repatriation flight ever since the Chad border closed but no date was given and it looked doubtful that it would actually happen.

An online community to help repatriate Brits in Uganda was very helpful in alerting Becki to a planned Qatar airways flight to London and helping get her to the airport without problems from the police. She arrived back in the UK on Saturday 4th April, but we were still no closer to finding out if we would be able to join her there.

A flight for U.S citizens due to leave for Washington DC on Thursday 9th had been well publicised for the preceding week so I thought that any Paris-bound flight would also come with plenty of warning. So I was surprised to hear from our MAF neighbours, Steve and Katie Machell, on Wednesday evening that there was a French military flight to Paris the next day, which may have space if we were interested. Katie gave them my contact details and at 6:30pm, a phone call from a very helpful member of the French military in N’Djamena took my details and told me to report at the base at 0800 the next morning. Bethan overheard my conversation and worked out what was going on. As It was her bedtime she insisted that she would do all the packing when she woke up and I shouldn’t attempt it as apparently she had learnt from Becki and I wasn’t going to be able to do it! Although part of me was keen to see how that would pan out, I declined her offer.

With the kids asleep I had 12 hours until leaving the house so with my mind racing with all the things that needed doing, I got going. Salaries for our house help, arrangements for feeding the rabbit and hedgehog, who’s going to water the garden? Ask Bethan’s teacher if I can collect all her workbooks, tickets for the Paris-London flight, the list got longer and longer and I hadn’t even started on packing for an undetermined amount of time in England! Thankfully Becki was brainstorming 6000km away and my phone was beeping with WhatsApp messages. The last one, at midnight told me to get some sleep!

The next morning, after a dash to school for Bethan’s school work, we left the house with clothes strewn across the floor from the last minute jettison of things to get the suitcase under 20kg. It was a strange feeling as the excitement of seeing Becki and reuniting her with the children was contrasted by feelings of sadness and nervousness to leave our home to go to a country that was in lockdown! Leaving our MAF teammates who were due a home assignment in May and would not be able to go felt unfair but they were very understanding.

On arrival at the French military base we were given face masks and lined up along with the other passengers, some of whom I knew. There was a lot of waiting as we queued before entering each tent in turn on our way to the final waiting area. The highlight for the children was watching the sniffer dog search through our luggage and I was glad for the extra water they provided as we got through our supply very fast in the 40 degree plus heat. Luke was getting a bit impatient by 2pm as he still hadn’t seen the plane but then the MAF Caravan flew overhead and they enjoyed waving at Steve and Phil so he forgot about worrying about the lack of progress we were making. I was very glad to be travelling with Katie and her friend Penny who were brilliant with the children. At last we boarded the bus which took us through the base to our waiting Airbus. It was an old aircraft, without any entertainment or food provided but it was a good flight nevertheless, arriving in Paris around 11pm.

About to board our flight in N’Djamena


I had packed blankets and pillows as I expected a night on the airport floor but while waiting for our flight, Steve Machell (MAF Chad program manager) had found a hotel that was still open and booked me a room for the night. I was incredibly thankful for this when we arrived in Paris, after a very long day. A good night sleep and a shower was great but breakfast was hard to find. There was nowhere open to change a 20 euro note so the only breakfast option, hotel vending machines, weren’t going to feed the hungry children. In the end another hotel guest heard us pleading with the hotel receptionist and gave us change. It was strange to be in such a large airport with no one around and nothing open. At least the train to the terminal was still operating and the kids were kept entertained by leaving excited messages for Becki to update her on our progress.

The final stage of our journey from Paris to London Heathrow was uneventful and the children got more and more excited about seeing their mum after a month away. It was fun to see their reactions when they saw her, both running under the barrier to hug her!

Happy to see each other again


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