Building Resilience: Relocating During the Pandemic

Sarah Hodgson
Aug 23, 2020
6 min read

I recently relocated from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to Bucharest, Romania. We’ve been in Bucharest for two months now. I’m documenting my experience of the move here, as well as recording my thoughts on how I’m going to navigate the coming weeks/months as we move through unknown territory.

Short version:

We made it out. We made it here. We are settling well. I have a plan.

Long version:

We made it out.

Our school in Dar moved to online distance learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic in March. At that point knew we were leaving the school in June as I had secured a new job in January. We went into survival mode, staying home apart from a weekly grocery run. We were grateful to be living on school campus with a community of teachers, a field, and a swimming pool. A friend introduced me to The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. It became my lifeline. I spent one hour every morning, starting at 4am, working on meditation, affirmation, visualization, reading, journaling, and then a 40-minute walk around the field. I also hired a personal trainer and worked out three times a week (socially distanced on a rooftop).

By April, Dar airport had shut down. Our June summer flights to the UK were cancelled by the airline. Once that happened, I stopped thinking too far into the future. We lived day to day, not knowing when, or how, we would be leaving. On May 8th, when numbers reached 509, Tanzania stopped reporting coronavirus cases. A week or so later, on short notice, we were able to secure seats on a repatriation flight to London. 48 hours before the flight was due to depart, I had to cancel. We had nowhere to stay. Air BnB and hotels were taking reservations from essential workers only. The school was still in session (online), so I focused on that and tried not to think too far into the future. One thing I did do, though, was to find an apartment in Bucharest. We decided to take over a place from a leaving teacher there. It felt good to have that organised in advance. We arranged our shipment and they packed up on 26th May and we were able to live relatively comfortably with just the things left behind. By mid-June, Dar airport had slowly started to open up, with only two or three airlines resuming their flights. We managed to get on flights to Bucharest on 25th June, via Doha and then Frankfurt. A huge sigh of relief when we finally took off from Dar. Kwaheri, Tanzania.

Hazmat-suited flight attendants and our route.

We made it here.

Salut, Romania. We arrived in Bucharest on 26th June. We were met at the airport by a school driver who took us to our quarantine accommodation. Truly grateful for our amazing friends who offered their lovely home to us while they were away. Their neighbours, also colleagues, greeted us warmly (from a distance), and had left homemade goodies in the fridge for us. They went grocery shopping for us on our first day there. I felt safe. On quarantine Day 4, a policeman came knocking to check that we were staying home. He called on the phone every day after that until Romania relaxed their quarantine regulations. I am incredibly grateful for those two weeks of solace. My son and I played board games, watched TV, and relaxed for the first time in what felt like a VERY long time. We figured out supermarket shopping online and takeaway deliveries. I also took an online aromatherapy course to keep my brain active! This was certainly not the summer we planned, but it was good to have time to just stop, rest, recuperate, and just be.

Our temporary oasis of calm.

We are settling well.

On 16th July, helped by a couple of friendly school drivers, we moved into our apartment. A flurry of deliveries followed. IKEA. eMAG. And more! I love nest-building and felt rested enough to really enjoy setting up home. It felt like we had an immediate support network of teachers, returning and new, who live in the same apartment complex. WhatsApp groups galore provided chats with newbies exchanging relocation stories, advice from administrators at school, and, above all, connection to other humans. Regular, socially physically distanced, cups of tea on the patio/terrace and chats by the pool provided more connection and great emotional support. Crazily enough, I think this is one of the smoothest relocations we have ever had.

Exactly one week after we moved in, the friend whose home we stayed in sent me a Facebook post from a dog shelter. A dog in need of a home. Two days later, they brought her to meet us and to complete a home assessment. On 29th July, she joined our family and life changed for good (both permanently and for the better). As first-time dog owners, we have enlisted the help of a local dog behaviourist. A female Cesar Millan. It has been a very steep, but also very rewarding, learning curve and we still have a lot to learn and much more training to complete! We always planned to get a dog here. In my mind, it would be around October time. This young lady had other ideas.

4-5 years old. Female. Adorable.

New teacher orientation started online on 3rd August, followed by whole faculty orientation the week after. I feel re-energized by the conversations I have had so far with colleagues and leaders at the school. I know I have landed in a good place with good people. Starting the year online is not what any of us were expecting, but we are finding our way through. I’m really looking forward to being on the school campus with students and colleagues as soon as we can.

I have a plan.

I know that everyone has their own comfort/discomfort level with Covid-19. I know that everyone has their own comfort/discomfort level with the number of social interactions they have. My main thoughts on this are: find what works for you, and accept/respect that everyone is different.

We remain socially physically distanced. We are not going to larger social gatherings. We are not eating in restaurants. For the most part, we are staying home and having groceries delivered. We get out of the apartment as we walk our dog three times a day in the beautiful meadow next door. I take the 6am morning shift, my son does the lunchtime shift, and we walk as a whole pack in the evening before bed.

Our new school has gone above and beyond in terms of making us feel welcomed and valued. Staff spent two 2-hour sessions with Ellen Mahoney from Sea Change Mentoring focusing on Resilience, Relationships, and Routines. She guided us in starting to create our own personal resilience plans. What follows is a (very) rough outline of my plan:

For me…

Having a routine is key.
Exercise is key.
Food is key.
Taking care of me is key.
Creating is key.

Routines are slowly slotting into place. Much as I would love to bring back the Miracle Morning, I’m not sure if that will work for me right now. We have a great routine with doggie walks, so everything else will be built, eventually, around that. Meditation is sporadic right now, but I will find a way to incorporate it into every day. I read every evening in bed.

Exercise is a work in progress. I’m easily hitting my goal of 10,000 steps per day on dog walks (approx. 45 mins per walk). So I am moving every day. I do know that’s not enough for me. I have bought some dumbells, a kettlebell, and a yoga mat. I love weight training. So I plan to get a combination of resistance training, HIIT, and yoga slotted into my routine soon. Exercise is good for my brain, my body, and my all-round physical and emotional wellness.

Food is not where I want it. Yet. I work best when I follow a paleo lifestyle 99.9% of the time. My kitchen is almost completely set up, and the rest is in my shipment. I have found almost ALL of my kooky health food ingredients locally (woohoo!). I’m ready to go. Not at 99.9% yet, but well on the way.

Taking care of me is usually the first thing to be neglected. I’m trying to change that.

I’m doing my best to keep Sundays completely clear. Clear of work. Clear of people.

For my mental health, I know this is important. It was a strategy I used in Dar and I know it works.

It’s not antisocial. It’s essential. As a hardcore introvert, I NEED that day. By the end of the week, I am exhausted from whatever online and offline social interactions I have had. Also aiming for ‘Screen-Free Sundays’, but not sure they will ever be free of devices!

Sunday is our rest-and-reconnect day. Family time. Time to play, together and alone. Peaceful.

Creating keeps me grounded and lowers my cortisol levels. Without fail. So Sunday is also about creating. Time to paint. Time to cook. Time to experiment with aromatherapy. Time to write blog posts, hopefully on this one. I also really want to add more to my photography collection and travel blog (once we feel comfortable to hit the road).

It will take time to get all these elements embedded into my routines.

I’m a work in progress. And that’s OK!