Travel bubbles - 3

Days 4-18

Thursday 2nd July - Tuesday 14th July

Quarantine Days

Ammu

Wow that took a long time! There were lines to get on the bus to Expo, and then another line for testing! OMG! I was super hungry, tired and sleepy and I’m sure Ichu was too. At Expo, there were a few big screens showing how to collect the sample. You had to make a ‘kruaaaw’ sound with your throat and collect saliva in your mouth first and then spit it into a tube through a paper funnel. I started getting a bit nervous as we got to the head of the line. Would I be able to do this correctly? What if I mess up? What if I test positive because I mess up? Will they take me away to some different place away from Amma Acha and Ichu? Thankfully Amma and I went to the same cubicle and she helped me. I learned that the results won’t be available until tomorrow so all there was left to do was to go to the quarantine center. Finally!

There was a long drive to get to the quarantine center and then yet another long line once we got there. Seriously? It was around 4AM when we got our rooms. I don’t remember staying awake this late. What a day! The rooms were quite small and bare except for the three beds, a couple of tables and chairs and a tiny TV. And it was H O T. There was no AC and only a small fan for the four of us. I thought wow, is this where we will spend the next two weeks, and that too with Ichu? She is not going to like this! 

Things were a bit crazy the first two days. We were still tired from the long trip and getting used to staying inside the tiny room all day and waiting for our food boxes to be delivered to our rooms. And the temperature checks in the mornings and evenings. And the doorbell ringing every now and then with people bringing food, water, toiletries, fruits, masks and even pampers for Ichu! Felt like we were living in a bad hotel where everything is room service and you can’t even go out! 

But then we started getting used to it a little bit. Before I knew it, it was day 4 or 5 already! Amma made a bit of a routine for us and that somehow made the days seem to go by a bit faster. We would get up and check our temperatures and have breakfast by around 9 and then feed Ichu by showing her favorite cartoons on YouTube, Acha and I would play for a while with Ichu and then it would be her nap time during which Amma would take rest Acha would do some exercise and I would watch something on Netflix on my laptop. Thank goodness for Netflix! Lunch boxes arrived usually around 12:30 and by the time we finished lunch Ichu would have woken up and then it’s feeding time again! We would all rest for a while until it’s time to check our temperatures again around 4. After that,  around 5, I would make tea for Amma and Acha and then it was play time again! We all took showers around 7 and by then voila! the dinner boxes would have arrived! After dinner is Ichu feeding time again and then family movie on Netflix or YouTube. We went to bed late around 10:30. Hmm, this is turning out like a vacation. Just that everything happens within a room. 

Amma

So far, so good! Jittery, but good. All of us tested negative upon arrival. The relief was palpable but short lived, after news came in about 8 positive cases in our flight. Among them, a lady who sat across the aisle from Ammu on the final leg, 4 hours from KL to HK! Nothing much to do except hope that the masks and the hand sanitizers did their job. Ammu was careful, we were all careful and whatever comes next we face together. We felt good, healthy and we all tested negative. So far, so good! 

It took us a couple of days to fall into some kind of a routine and stop worrying all the time about the virus and frustrated about being confined to this modest and meager room. Surprisingly, the kids adapted to the cramped space much better than I had thought. For the first few days, Ichu kept bringing her shoes to Acha asking him to help her put them on so she could go ‘bubbye’. But very soon she realized there won’t be any ‘bubbye’. Poor thing, she must have started thinking that this would be life from now on! 

It helped a great deal that we could talk to our friends who went through quarantine before us. That gave us a sense of what to expect and prepared us for the ups and downs throughout the two weeks. It was no doubt an emotional roller coaster, one that could have taken a much bigger toll on us was it not for the support we received. I hope I can pay it forward somehow. 

As we got closer to the end of week 2, once forgotten apprehensions and misgivings roared back. What is this strange dryness and itchiness in my throat? Why was Ammu’s temperature above 37 degrees this afternoon? I heard her cough last night in her sleep a couple of times. Was it the juice she drank after dinner? Or something else? Could we all be asymptomatic carriers? What if the 12th day test came back positive? We almost lost it when an entire family of four tested positive after their second test, a day before we were due to take ours. Can this get any worse?

Acha

Pure, unabated joy. And a huge wave of relief. I almost wanted to hug the lady, dressed in full PPE kit, when she handed over our COVID 19 negative certificates. Amma and Ammu were happy to finally go home. Ichu was happy that we were all dancing around her. I was ecstatic, almost like in a trance. 

We will likely never forget the last 17 days. It was a crash course in endurance, something we had to ride out hour by hour, day by day. And we prevailed! Cliche goes what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Amen! I will drink to that. More challenges lie ahead, cases are on the rise here in Hong Kong as well, the last week saw a steady rise in local and untraced cases. We are probably going back to the very scenario that we ran away from, back in January. But that’s for another day. 

Was it worth it? Air travel during this wretched time, with kids one too young to even wear a mask? What could have gone wrong wins by an overwhelming margin against what went right on this trip. In the end, we can count ourselves extremely lucky to have come out of this relatively unscathed. At least we are home now. It just feels right.