Quarantined

By Natalie M Brown

A colourful and inspiring memoir of the writers journey during covid times, from living in Thailand with her Thai partner, to her decision to return home to Australia and subsequent preparations, followed by her flights through a world that is changed by the pressing issues surrounding the pandemic, and to how she experienced and why she was forced to stay in a month long extended quarantine in Brisbane, after arrival at Brisbane Airport, and finally her homecoming to family after four years of living abroad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Natalie M Brown
• Release date: Jul 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005326036

Natalie M Brown

Natalie has been writing ever since she could pick up a pencil. In her early years as a writer, she wrote poetry and made small newspapers for her family. She went on to complete a Bachelor Degree in Creative Industries - Media and Communication at the Queensland University of Technology, and followed with a Diploma of Screenwriting from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Natalie spent a great many years working as a journalist, copy and content writer before she decided to follow a lifelong dream of living and working as a teacher in Thailand. She worked there for four years, living in Chachoengsao and Bangkok. She is currently working on a second book about her time teaching in Thailand, which she plans to publish soon. In the future, look out for her life’s work which she is still in the process of writing, which documents her spiritual journey and the understandings she came to believe about the nature of God and spirituality, entitled ‘Don’t Judge the Judging of the Judgements’.

Book preview

Quarantined

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2021 Natalie M Brown

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Part One: Reluctant Homecoming

You really need to come home, Nat. It’s only going to get worse. What if they close the borders and you’re not able to come back?

The whole world seemed to stop for a moment as I contemplated this reality. What about my son? My brother’s words echoed into my Sunday.

I said goodbye and hung up the phone, got up from the stairs where I had been sitting, and jumped the two steps down to the floor, towards the kitchen, in time to hear my Thai partner call me to breakfast.

Are you ready?

Gang’s handsome face turned to look at me with a smile as I walked into the kitchen, although he instantly sensed the shift in the energy of that Sunday morning.

The delicious scent of Pad Pegang’s chili, galangal and red curry drifted through the house. I hurried to prepare the rice bowls and cutlery, as he dished it out into the serving bowl.

I shared about my conversation with my brother as we sat on cushions on the floor at the small table in the sitting room of the house. After I spoke, we ate in silence, neither wanting to speak the thoughts in our hearts.

We both knew I would have to go back. I had not seen my son for almost two years, and I could not risk being trapped outside of the Australian border. I had also been watching a lot of news clips from Australia, and mostly in Victoria it seemed to be really crazy. From what I saw from the outside, the country appeared to be like one big open-air prison, and they were gradually tightening the screws on everyone. Although admittedly, when I phoned my brother in Queensland, he always seemed to be just going around doing his business as normal.

The vaccine situation scared me a lot, and the Australian Government were starting to talk about making vaccine passports compulsory for travel. I had done a lot of research on these experimental vaccines already, and many virologists (who were silenced for being a threat to the all-powerful pharmaceutical industry), had grave concerns about the mass vaccination trial that was being rolled out across the world. I personally had no plans to participate in the experiment which would be going until 2023. However, I worried that I would be trapped in Thailand or would be forced to take one, when they were rolled out here, which was looming fast. They had already begun vaccinating some Thai government people, but it was predicted to be starting officially at the beginning of June, 2021.

Would the Australian Government make it compulsory for people who are arriving to be vaccinated, if they are coming back from a country that has vaccines available? I assumed they would eventually, as they seemed to be following the globalist playbook closely. It seemed like an impossible situation.

I need to go back and be close to my son, I said softly.

Gang sat in silence chewing his food slowly. Grief hung heavily in the air between us. We both knew what had to be done, and we had been waiting for it to happen for a long time, but neither of us wanted our time together to end.

Finally, Gang spoke with forced cheer in his voice. You can come back.

Yeah… I hope so, I said softly.

Of course.

I slowly ate my food, lacking the usual excitement that I would eat this favourite dish of mine cooked by Gang.

What number is this one? he asked. Still number one?

I smiled and looked up into his kind eyes. He often had a way of saying the exact right thing to lift my spirits. As the resident cook in the house, Gang had learnt how to cook amazing Thai food from his Mother, and Grandmother. We had a running joke about the fact that any dish he cooked me I always ate so quickly and gushed about it in amazement at the flavours. He had started keeping track of my favourites by getting me to number where they sat in order of deliciousness. Pad pegang had been at number one ever since he first cooked it for me.

I ate a few spoonful’s with rice, and confirmed that it was still at the top position.

Yep, still number one, I grinned. Aroy maak!

We both laughed, and the intensity of the moment was broken.

After we finished eating, we got up together to clear the plates. I followed him into the back kitchen area and watched as he started to clean up from his cooking. I stood next to him as he rinsed the dishes with water at the sink. We were lucky enough to both have our own kitchen in this house. His was at the back of the house. It was where the fridge was located and had a tiled bench, with a stove area for cooking hot foods, space to prepare the meals and a stainless steel sink where the majority of the washing up was done. Mine was where the cups of tea and coffee were made, the kettle was located, and where I prepared my morning banana smoothies. This was where I prepared cakes and biscuits too. It also had a sink where I washed up the things I used in that area.

It’s just that once you go in, the Australian Government doesn’t let you go back out again… I called back to him in his kitchen.

Allai na? He asked.

I repeated the words as I washed the cups from the sink in my kitchen area and thought about what my brother had said.

What if I got trapped in here forever without my son? I thought. But what if I got trapped in there forever. Australia was so much more sterilised and ‘surveiled’ than Thailand. I didn’t like it so much. Which is why I had stayed in Thailand for this long. Four years is a long time to be living in a foreign country, but to me, Australia felt like the foreign country now. The fact was though, that I could not live with possibly never seeing my son again. I had previously spoken with my only Australian friend in Thailand at the time, Danny, about my dilemma of not wanting to leave Thailand, but also not wanting to risk being separated indefinitely from my son, and his words still rang in my mind, You need to choose whatever you can live with.

I felt like crying.

I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. I had not heard from my son for a long time and I wasn’t even sure if he did want to see me, but my conscience would not allow me to be separated from him for what could be forever. As hard as it would be, I had to go, and be with my son while this pandemic was happening, at least until everything went back to normal. If it ever did.

Maybe he would come back with me to Thailand when things settled down a bit?

That afternoon Gang and I put on our masks, grabbed a cloth shopping bag and walked to the local ‘nut market’ to gather some fruit, vegetables and freshly cooked sweet treats. I pondered the mask thing as I walked single file behind Gang, following his footsteps, walking under the trees along the side of the road, as motorbikes and SUV’s whizzed past us.

I didn’t think it was good to exercise wearing a mask as my body needs oxygen, so I could not wear the mask on for very long while walking. I usually had my nose out to breathe anyway, and would pull it up if I was around people. It was how I survived 16 months of wearing a mask in public places in Thailand. I didn’t want to push my feelings about the masks; as the authorities would not understand about the ‘exemption’ thing, so I would always toe the line when needed. In Thailand people were usually pretty good about it, as long as you wore it at the times when you were in close contact, such as in a shop. But there were a lot of people that just wore them all the time, with no mind of how it might be affecting their lungs to be continually rebreathing their own exhaled waste air. I worried for their health of those who chose to wear their mask all day without opening it up to take air.

This walk had become a regular Sunday afternoon activity for us on his day off, which got us out into the fresh air, and gave us the opportunity to work off our bellies; our ‘tangmo’, as we affectionately called them, the Thai word for ‘watermelon’. Thai people would sometimes tell me that I was ‘oo-up’, which meant a little bit fat, and we had even had old ladies asking when the baby was coming, to my horror!

Thai people are very straight with their observations about your physical appearance. There is never any malice or shame in it, so it’s important to not take things personally. However, having said that, for me it was both amusing, but sometimes embarrassing. We were determined to do something about it. Gang had started doing a morning workout of push-ups and sit-ups in his efforts to work on his own tangmo, but I relied on going for these walks to get some exercise, as I had stopped swimming when the pool in the village had become unusable due to a leak. Every week the water had got lower and lower, until one day it was all gone. Nam mort louwell. Water all gone.

Despite the threat of the pandemic, the market was filled with life and vitality. Vendors displayed their freshly cooked wares openly on their stalls, with meats, fruits, vegetables, cakes and ready-made meals all laid out in a colourful array, tantalising the senses. We bought some popcorn, limes and salad vegetables as well as some fresh squid and a bamboo salad for Gang. I was planning to make a salad for dinner, and Gang could eat his smelly bamboo salad, which to me was menn (stinky). We laughed and chatted as we walked home feeling our spirits lifted by the energy of the market.

That night I messaged my brother to tell him that I was thinking that it would be best if I took his advice and was going to start looking at flights. I also messaged my Mum and told her the news, as I thought she would be glad to hear that. She urged me to check the requirements on the government website, and perhaps to contact the Australian Embassy.

"Ok, that’s great news, Nat.

Don’t forget you need to register with the Australian Government.

You might be able to get a repatriation flight."

Register with the Australian Government? I wondered. Really? You can’t just jump on a flight these days?

Over the next few days, I contacted the Australian Embassy in Bangkok and was told that I would need to register with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, for a repatriation flight. The Embassy did admit that they only had two flights going each month (25 people per flight) with Thai Airways, and their waiting list already had 250 people on it. The lady at the embassy also informed me that their repatriation flights only flew into Sydney, NSW, so I would have to find my