Tchau Brazil!

So, here I am.

Six years of blood, sweat and tears, amongst a myriad of other emotions and adjectives has come down to this: fleeing Brazil amid the pandemic we have come to know as "COVID-19."

This whole situation is bizarre to say the least. I mean, if we weren't all living it, you would think it was the stuff of some sci-fi movie being trumped out for cinematic release any day now. But it's not. It's very real and many of us have had to flee lives we loved (and sometimes loathed) in order to be closer to family and friends as we just don't know where this crazy journey is going to take us.

Monday the 23rd of March became a day that I will never forget. I remember sitting on my bed in my share house in the southern suburb of São Paulo in Conceição and receiving the message from Mum: "I have got you a flight home for this Friday. You need to take it." I was shocked. I mean, that was only four days away and I wasn't prepared - in any way what so ever. How do I pack up my life of six years in 96 hours? I can't hug my friends. I can't say goodbye to the things I had grown to love in Sampa. Everything became about what I couldn't do, when in reality what I needed to do was right in front of me and needed to be done - ASAP.

Sad goodbyes sent via WhatsApp and with life belongings now packed, I found myself surreally standing in line at São Paulo's Guarulhos airport. I was in disbelief at how "vacant" this ginormous entity now was. The line was long and the few "skeleton" staff at the counters seem overwhelmed and unsure of just what it is they were actually doing.

After nearly 2 hours in line (I got there early too), I was greeted by a friendly young woman. Her smile was littered with tense quivers as she stared intensely at her hidden screen. She asked me "Why are you leaving and are you nervous?" I explained why I was leaving and as for being nervous, I had never really thought about it. Everyday the statistics on who was getting this virus and their levels of severity were changing. They still are. How many of us actually know what our current medical situation is? For the most part I know what I need to know, but a complete history? I think not.

The flight was long, but the beautiful staff on both the São Paulo > Santiago and Santiago > Melbourne legs of the flights were incredibly compassionate and professional, especially given the extreme working circumstances they were now all facing. Not an easy feat to stay calm and provide exceptional service in a plane full of people fleeing a pandemic, one that may also contain said pandemic and put their health into question too.

Eighteen hours of flight time and a few more of waiting in Santiago and we arrived into Melbourne. The time was 6am. After a lengthy wait of forty minutes to disembark (another flight had just arrived and the social distancing law was firmly in place) we were finally off the plane and the long path ahead out of the airport was now in front of us.

What seemed like a mini marathon, was in fact the track out of a newly desolate airport. I was met every 50 or so meters by someone who either handed me a new piece of paper about something COVID-19 related or simply to be reminded about social distancing. Either way, everyone for the most part was super friendly and welcoming, in true Aussie spirit.

Immigration and declarations were easy and fluid and after all our social distancing, we were put on a bus and sent to The Crown Promenade. I think we were the first bus load of people into the Crown Promenade and the uncertainty of what was happening started to become more apparent. Our full bus load was stalled due to social distancing again, something which was messing with my mind to be honest. We had all just been on the same full flight. Then we were told to distance at the airport. Then we were all put onto a bus together. Then we had to get off the full bus and distance again. Weird and illogical.

Check in was finally done. Finally I had a room.