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Global Citizens

~ a blog for Tourists, Expats and Locals

Global Citizens

Tag Archives: stuck in argentina

Life as a pariah in Argentina (part 9)

27 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by katti in Argentina (home)

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

corona in argentina, foreigners in argentina, lock down in argentina, repatriation of belgians, repatriation to belgium, stuck in argentina, we want to go home


I never expected to get to part 9, but here we are, still stuck in Argentina.

We now live out of our suitcase. If they call us, the embassy, we only need to put our pijamas in the suitcase, lock the house and go. We now shower before we have our coffee, we don’t leave the dishes for later, we swipe the floor immediately after a meal, we clean the bathroom after each use. You never know when they call.

We could paint the house -we have all the material- but we daren’t. What if they call when we are in the middle of a wall? We need to be ready to jump into the car and drive to the airport in no time.

But we do need to eat. My husband ventures into town to get some food from the fiambreria, the butcher and the bakery. The food from the local almacén is just horrible, with half rotten tomatoes, plastic tasting cheese, and rubber sandwiches. We didn’t even dare and order meat there.

He sets off. He got stopped at the edge of town where he said his usual opening phrase ‘soy belga’, but this time it didn’t work. They asked for his passport, checked the entry date (check!), but said that as a foreigner he has to stay in his house (quarantaine) and can’t go out, not even to buy food or go the pharmacy. He has to order at the local almacén, they say. When he told him he must go the bank, they decided to call the police….

The police then escorted him to the bank, and then back home, as if he were a criminal, or more like a celebraty. No way he could do something else. No butcher and no fiambreria. And apparently he was lucky his car wasn’t confiscated.

The thought of having to eat the junk from the almacén for a couple of weeks isn’t a pleasant one. Especially knowing that there are such great delicacies for sale close by in the center, but out of reach because we are foreigners! Not being able to chose your own fruit and vegetables. I know, we are too spoiled, but a Belgian and his food!!??

But help is close by. Literally! We have some great new neighbors, who also prefer the food from town and don’t mind helping us out and who, being Argentines, can leave their house to go shopping! They are not afraid of us and from the beginning we have been in close contact. They too are stuck here, their main house being in Capital.

So now that we have food, I can dedicate myself completely to boredom. And bored to death I am. Hardly any internet, we can’t download movies, no video talks. Nothing we can do around the house. Bored.

But then I like to leave the excitement for last.

All of a sudden, out of the blue, I receive an email from the embassy stating that we can book a flight on the French repatriation flight of Sunday. In just a second I kick boredom off and I go into total stress, opening laptop, trying to connect to the internet, going to AF website… trying to book online while my husband calls AF. It takes ages. Really ages. The website constantly blocks, gives errors., time and time again, but on the phone HB had more succes.

A couple of hours later it is official. We leave on Sunday with a special repatriation flight of AF. So until further notice, this is the last part of life as a pariah. These are the last few days as a pariah, more then ready to go into quarantine in Belgium…. I can’t wait to get to work, I have loads of things to do, catch up. I can’t wait to be locked up in my office. Knowing my family is close by.

Thanks to you all for your support and your messages!!

Ps. According to the ambassador it’s not correct that foreigners have to stay in their house. He is checking and doing the necessary to solve that.

Life as a pariah in Argentina (part 8)

25 Wednesday Mar 2020

Posted by katti in Argentina (home), blog

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Tags

checkpoints in argentina, corona virus argentina, lock down in argentina, no repatriatin, repatriation to belgium, stuck in argentina, we want to go home

We leave the airport and look for a taxi. There are none. The airport is closed. We go the other terminal where there is a ‘cascos blancos’ team (whatever that is) who shout as the see us, that my husband and I need keep a distance between us of 1,5 meter. I jokingly tell them we sleep together so there is not much use to that. They don’t think it’s funny.

They also tell us we must go 2 weeks into quarantine as we have left our house. We go into discussion, tell them we don’t come from abroad but have just spend some time in the airport. She gets mad and says we will be detained when we don’t comply. Meanwhile a transfer was offered to us which we accepted, not that we had much choice, and get out of there as fast as we can.

We got into the car. We decided to get back to our weekend house after a phone call with the embassy (they had called me after they heard of our adventures and troubles). They tell us that first 2 weeks probably nothing will happen so we are best there. It feels good to finally hear that they are there and trying to work things out. It feels like there is (again) some light at the end of the tunnel.

But first we had to go back to the appartement where we had left our rental car key. The car was parked in the street. The taxi driver had some special permission and we were asked nothing at the check points. We picked up the key and loaded our stuff straight in the car and got out of the city. Waze made us evade the check points, which was necessary as our permission to be on the road (canceled flight) could not have led us into the city center. Had we been caught it could have resulted in confiscating the car and having us detained.

I find this hard, the only law I regularly break is speeding on the highway, so the probability to be detained and our car confiscated because we got to our rental car in order to get to our house is freaking me out. It sounds like over the top, but I know they must do something to keep the stubborn argentines at home. They have to contain this virus.

We get to our first and only checkpoint on the highway. We start with our usual sentence ‘somos Belgas’, we are Belgians. The guy immediately shouts to the others that we are foreigners. We have to pull over and they first check our passport to see if have to be in quarantine. Check! Then the letter of the embassy saying we can go to the airport. Check! Then we say the flight is canceled and before I can show the picture he says yes, the airport is closed! He smiles and adds that we are good to go, and that Belgium isn’t one of the affected countries anyway! We gladly say yes! and move on.

We arrived safely at the house, and will be living out of our suitcase, ready to drive to the airport once we are called. When we are called. If we are called.

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