<![CDATA[How I escaped Europe's coronavirus crisis and made it back 'home' to the end of the world]>
I've always said that New Zealand is the place you'd want to be in the event of a zombie apocalypse. I just never thought I'd get to actually test that proposition.
I was in the Serbian capital of Belgrade when Covid-19 went global, and I had thought I'd ride out the storm there. To go anywhere else, particularly home to distant New Zealand, seemed to present a significant risk of catching the virus. In contrast, if I simply stayed in my flat, except for grocery shopping I would have almost no exposure to anyone.
But with each passing day, more and more Covid-19 cases turned up in Serbia. The writing on the wall came when it became apparent that the kind of exponential growth seen in Italy might repeat itself in the Balkans. President Aleksandar Vucic seemed to agree: he declared a state of emergency on Sunday, March 15 and closed Serbia's borders to all non-citizens. But my landlord, affable Aleksandar, remained optimistic. A man in his forties who had watched Nato fighters shoot down Serbian ones in the 1999 Kosovo War, he felt that his country was too familiar with trauma not to handle the situation with aplomb.
I grew less sure, not least because he was in his own country, while I was an outsider. Could I avail myself of Serbian health care if the need arose? The day after Vucic's declaration of emergency, the women working at the barbershop down the street refused to serve me on account of my race. What if some doctors or nurses felt the same way?
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during a news conference in Belgrade last month. Photo: AP alt=Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during a news conference in Belgrade last month. Photo: AP
Then, as if on cue, the New Zealand government issued a statement recommending all citizens overseas return home.
By Thursday, March 19, I made up my mind to leave Serbia, but on that same day Vucic abruptly closed Belgrade's airport. His decision came so suddenly that there were planes on the runway ready for take-off that had to be turned around. There was now no way for me to fly out of Serbia. A friend suggested waiting " and hoping " for a repatriation flight organised by the New Zealand government, which might never come.
I concocted a new plan of escape, but I had no idea whether it would work. Serbia's neighbouring countries had also sealed their borders, with the exception of Romania. I checked and found a flight out of Bucharest that could, a day and half later, put me in Auckland. But many details remained unclear: when the Serbians said that they had sealed their borders, did they mean only that no one could come in, or that no one could leave either? When the Romanians said that they had officially not closed their borders, would a local official nonetheless deny me entry on a discretionary basis?
I had no way of knowing other than to try. The next day I paid Aleksandar to drive me to the Romanian border, where I bade him farewell. Immediately afterward, however, a Serbian border guard tried to dissuade me from leaving.
Serbian soldiers patrol in central Belgrade following the declaration of a nationwide state of emergency last month. Photo: AP alt=Serbian soldiers patrol in central Belgrade following the declaration of a nationwide state of emergency last month. Photo: AP
"You understand that Serbia is closed now, even to Serbians," said the stocky, stereotypically Slavic soldier. "There are six Serbians over there right now who are stuck because I can't let them in."
"I understand," I said. "I'm trying to get out, not to come in."
"But if you go out now, and the Romanians don't let you in, you can't come back. You will have to stay in no man's land," he said, gesturing to the narrow stretch of land between the two borders dotted with a few rundown sheds and patches of jaundiced grass. "You will need a tent."
I asked if there was any way the guard could check with his Romanian counterparts whether they would let me cross " an outlandish request under normal circumstances, though now it didn't seem so unreasonable.
Even so, he declined. "No," he said, shaking his head. "I am over here, they are over there." It was up to me to chance it, it seemed. "Why don't you stay in Serbia?" the guard said.
Should I explain to him that I was going to, but then I thought I might live to regret it? Should I say that I wasn't sure how his compatriots would feel about me in a couple of weeks' time? I decided against it.
"So, do you go or do you stay?" he asked finally. I went.
A normally busy street in Belgrade pictured on Friday after the imposition of a nighttime coronavirus curfew. Photo: AFP alt=A normally busy street in Belgrade pictured on Friday after the imposition of a nighttime coronavirus curfew. Photo: AFP
After one last wary look at me, the man stamped my passport with finality. I took it back from him and proceeded across no man's land.
The Romanian officer was quite unlike his Serbian counterpart, a bespectacled, bookish-looking man. My appearance painted a pained expression on his face, as though he had a sudden onset of stomach ache, or as though I were the school bully coming to take his lunch money. "Why you want to come into Romania now?" he asked.
"I'm not going to Romania," I said. "I'm only trying to go home. But as you probably know, the Serbians closed their airports yesterday. So all I want to do is to get to Timisoara," the nearest city from the border, "fly from there to Bucharest, and then out of Bucharest to my country."
"Do you have tickets for those flights?" he asked
Police in Romania check motorists amid quarantine measures imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Photo: AP alt=Police in Romania check motorists amid quarantine measures imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Photo: AP
"No," I said, "because I wasn't sure you'd let me through." My escape plan was terribly contingent, terribly dependent on luck, on my ability to persuade, and on the kindness of strangers.
The pain in the man's stomach seemed to worsen. "Where have you been?" he asked.
"I've been in Serbia for the past month," I said, knowing the Romanian government was categorising countries based on how many known cases of Covid-19 each had. Travellers from countries with more than 500 cases were to be barred, but Serbia's numbers were not yet that high.
Reluctantly the man stamped my passport. Only then did he remember with a start that he was supposed to check my temperature. "Oh!" he jumped out of his seat. "Wait here." He ran into another office and returned with the thermometer. Luckily I was all right.
Municipal workers wearing protective outfits spray disinfectant chemicals in the Romanian capital of Bucharest last month. Photo: AP alt=Municipal workers wearing protective outfits spray disinfectant chemicals in the Romanian capital of Bucharest last month. Photo: AP
My plan had worked thus far. But now I really needed the kindness of strangers, because I knew of no way to get from the border to Timisoara, 60 kilometres away, other than hitchhiking. And the traffic coming from the direction of Serbia was no more than a trickle of trucks. I began walking in the right direction and stuck my thumb out a couple of times as trucks passed by. No takers.
I ducked into a duty-free shop near the border to inquire as to how I could get to Timisoara. A middle-aged and clearly well-educated couple were inside shopping. They informed me in excellent English that from the nearest township a kilometre away, one bus at 4pm ran to Timisoara. I thanked them and carried on walking. A few minutes later, though, they caught up with me in their car and offered to drive me to the bus stop. Hearing that I only had Euros on me and no Romanian lei, the husband stuffed thirty lei (US$7) in my hands. "That ought to be enough for the bus," he said. Like I said, the kindness of strangers.
And yet I didn't spend the money on the bus, as it would have got me to Timisoara too late to catch the flight to Bucharest. I stuck my thumbs out a few more times to no avail until a pair of much less sophisticated men, chain-smoking working class guys, offered to drive me there for a fee. They didn't speak a word of English, so I had to summon as much Romanian as I knew, which basically meant fragments of Italian or Spanish or Latin with a Slavic patina. I paid them with a mixture of the Romanian lei and Euros.
Only when I reached the airport at Timisoara and booked myself onto flights not yet cancelled could I allow myself to believe that my plan of escape through Romania was probably going to work. The next day, while in transit, I learned that Romania sealed its borders as well. Had I left just a little later, I wouldn't have been allowed into that country, and the plan wouldn't have worked.
An ambulance leaves hospital on April 4 in the town of Tandarei, the second place in Romania put under lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: AFP alt=An ambulance leaves hospital on April 4 in the town of Tandarei, the second place in Romania put under lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: AFP
As I made my way across Serbia and Romania, it was impossible not to feel terrible melancholy, as this departure marked the end of my travels, the life that I had led for nearly five years.
It was not how I had imagined that my travels would end, but there are bigger things happening all around me. A great many people are dying and the kind of world we have taken for granted for so long, the way of life we have all taken for granted for so long, may be at an end.
I have been so lucky, so privileged, to have been able to do what I have done for so long, to see so much of this beautiful world with such people in it. Will I ever be able to do it again? Will it ever be the same again? Your guess is as good as mine.
And thus a world ends " and so does a way of life. For me. For everyone.
A temporary hospital in Belgrade set up by the Serbian military to treat people suffering from mild coronavirus symptoms last month. Photo: AFP alt=A temporary hospital in Belgrade set up by the Serbian military to treat people suffering from mild coronavirus symptoms last month. Photo: AFP
I find myself at home in New Zealand: a place I never really go, for good reason. Between my Asian face and American accent, I don't feel particular at home, at home. Never have. And yet here I am. Fate has sent me fugitive to the shores of Half Moon Bay.
And now that I have made it here like a refugee out of the Balkans, I find that I may have found no refuge at all. My original supposition that New Zealand would be the last country standing in the zombie apocalypse may have been mistaken. A dramatic rise in Covid-19 cases in days immediately before my return prompted the government to announce a four-week nationwide lockdown right after I got back.
What does all of it mean? What do I do with the mournfulness in my heart for a world and a life so abruptly taken from me? What do I do with this dread of what may be about to happen in my country? I don't know, though I know that a great proportion of the human species is trying to process similar feelings alongside me. In our collective lamentation, I am by no means alone, because no one is.
A near-empty motorway on the outskirts of Auckland last month during the coronavirus lockdown imposed in New Zealand. Photo: Bloomberg alt=A near-empty motorway on the outskirts of Auckland last month during the coronavirus lockdown imposed in New Zealand. Photo: Bloomberg
So I can't help but reach for the deep biblical wisdom of Ecclesiastes, and its exhortation that there is "a time for everything".
A time to be born, a time to die. A time to embrace, a time to refrain from embracing. Perhaps the author of this seminal work knew of ancient pandemics and quarantines.
And I suppose there is a time to travel, and a time to sit still. A time to venture to far away lands, and a time to return home as the prodigal son. What no one has control over is the changing of the seasons and the times. All we can do is make of it what we can.
William Han is a lawyer and writer. Born in Taiwan and a citizen of New Zealand, he is a graduate of Yale College and Columbia Law School
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
