At the beginning of 2020, before the world shut down, I was scheduled to lead two teams of volunteers to do some humanitarian work with Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. Our back-to-back trips were scheduled for March.
As we got closer to the departure date, news reports began talking about a new virus, something called SARS-cov-2, or COVID-19. Three weeks before the second team, comprised of university students on a school-approved service trip, was to leave, the university canceled all travel.
I thought they were being overly cautious — cases in the United States were few and even fewer in Colombia. The day before our first team left, there were three cases of COVID-19 in Utah and the same number in all of Colombia. “We should be good,” I thought.
On March 6, we left for Bogotá. On March 7, we arrived in Cúcuta, where we visited a border bridge between Venezuela and Colombia and then headed into the mountains to Pamplona, a common destination for the “caminantes” or “walkers” who are economic refugees. We partnered with a Colombian organization that traveled seven hours by bus to join us in Pamplona. Our work would be to provide medical and dental care, clothing, and activities for the children of those who came to our makeshift clinic.
Working with refugees
We also provided a month’s supply of food for two refugee shelters to feed the “walkers” who passed through. Both of our teams stayed in Colombian Army barracks that had no heat. Pamplona’s elevation made the nights chilly — in the 40s — and I was underprepared, making it difficult to sleep. Every day, our informal discussions revolved around this novel virus. Was it really spreading? Could it really become a pandemic?
We began to hear of toilet paper shortages in the U.S. We started receiving photos of store shelves almost completely empty. Weird! Still, we felt OK about being in South America. It couldn’t really be that bad, could it?
While the COVID-19 story was unfolding far away, our team of 18 volunteers was helping in the clinic. Our local partner brought medical and dental professionals as well as other volunteers, so combined, we had a team of approximately 30. Some of us had medical skills, while others did not, but there was always plenty to do.
While we worked, we began listening to the stories of some of the migrants. There was “Luis,” (not his real name), a married man with four children who left a very pregnant wife behind in Venezuela because he needed to find work that would pay enough for him to buy food. He had been a professional, with a good job. As the Venezuelan economy cratered, however, he lost his job. Working odd jobs wherever he could, he was paid less and less. He finally determined to leave when he saw his children picking up dried dog poop to eat because they were so desperate to have something in their stomachs. He cried. We cried.
There were many stories like his. An older man and woman, already grandparents, shared with us some of the dangers of being on the road, especially with children. Parents, often mothers, carried their babies in their arms. At night, they had to be especially vigilant because men on motorcycles would ride through sleeping refugees with a large bag, scoop up babies and ride off. They believed the babies would then be sold.
They asked for baby wraps that would allow the mother to wrap the baby onto her chest to keep them safe. I am a mother who would do anything to keep my child safe, warm, dry and fed. I can barely imagine how desperate a father would be to see his children eating dog poop and not have the ability to feed them; or to be a new mother whose baby is stolen while she’s sleeping after a long and tiring day of walking.
Could this actually be serious?
Our first week ended and we returned to Bogotá where we met the handful of volunteers, including my own daughter, who decided they would still come to Colombia despite a virus that was spreading around the world.
We waved goodbye to the first group of volunteers, several of whom took home toilet paper in their suitcases, as shortages had not yet hit Colombia. It was the end of that week, March 12 and 13, when I began to realize that this virus could really be serious, as the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints suspended in-person church meetings and began closing temples.
A few friends and I squeezed in one last temple session in Bogotá as soon as we heard the news, not knowing how long it would be before we could return.
Our much smaller volunteer group hopped back on the plane to Cúcuta and Pamplona, still willing to serve. After we arrived back at the Army barracks and ate dinner, our local partners said we needed to talk. The founder of the local organization told us that COVID-19 seemed to be spreading and we had two choices: We could stay and work, but we would have to wear gloves and masks the entire time, or we could call it good, pack up and head home early.
We all discussed it and made the sad, but unanimous, choice to call it good.
The next morning, March 16, we packed up the supplies in our makeshift clinic and headed to the small airport in Cúcuta in the afternoon. While we drove on the bus, each volunteer was looking up flight options to return home early. In the 1 hour and 17 minutes it took to fly from Cúcuta to Bogotá, the President of Colombia announced the closure of all borders via the waterways. We knew that air travel would be next. Some of the volunteers made it out the same night, and the rest the next day. My job as a team leader was done.
Making it home
My daughter and I left the next morning on one of the last flights out of the country before the borders slammed shut for at least two months. We were delayed in leaving and sat on the tarmac for hours. I began making mental preparations for living in Colombia for the next several months if we didn’t make it out — and I don’t speak Spanish.
Finally, though, we were airborne and made it to Florida. We had missed our connecting flight, so we rebooked to fly home via Denver the following morning. When we landed in Denver, we discovered our flight the rest of the way home was canceled, and the airport was closed because Salt Lake City had been rocked by an early-morning earthquake.
An earthquake! What next?
We just laughed (ruefully) at the comedy of errors that was unfolding for us. We rented a car — and there were plenty available, as travel had already slowed considerably — and drove the 12 hours home, ready to isolate for the next few weeks. As we all know, it actually was months.
Unlike the refugees I left behind, I returned to a safe and sturdy home, with heating and air conditioning. A habit of storing food and other necessities like toilet paper meant I didn’t need to stand in line for two hours just for a pack of TP. I had wifi and home computers, so transitioning to school and work online went more or less smoothly.
We made our own hand sanitizer and sewed masks for health care workers. When Covid finally hit our family in the summer of 2021, it left my husband and me completely drained of energy and gasping for breath trying to climb stairs, but we did not need to be hospitalized. It took a year for me to be back to mostly normal levels of energy and my husband has still not seen his energy return to pre-pandemic levels. The effects of long Covid on other members of our family have been devastating. But in early March 2020, all of that was still ahead of us, and I was focused on the needs of people who watched their children eat dog poop out of sheer desperation.
Originally published in the Deseret News
