The way Back to Belgium

I've been meaning to write something down for a long time now, but I've been lazy or busy with all kind of things and very fast distracted by other things. A lot has changed since my last post and nothing went really how I thought it would go but here we are and let's update you guys a little bit.

My last post was after one month of quarantine, thinking I was halfway. In the end it lasted almost 3 full months. After that post i made i kind of got tired of anything social media, specially because people everywhere weren't having a real lockdown or could start getting out and it was really not motivating at all, specially because there was no communication about prospects in Morocco.

Now i had broken my phone too, so i lost some contacts and that made it even more hard, luckily i was travelling this time with my laptop. I got back in my music obsession that i once had, but kind of had let go since i started travelling. It was good to hear some new music again. Also i rewatched some of my favourite tv-shows (Treme, The Wire, ...) also watch some new tv shows. Luckily there was contact with some people that really helped me through the hardest time, just an e-mail every few days or a simple message sometimes already helped a lot and it actually made me see that i need to keep more contact with people (although i am still pretty bad at it)

After almost 3 months of quarantine they finally let us out to go for a walk. Although the rules weren't that clear yet on the first day what was allowed so i actually went in the water ( later that day i was told, we weren't allowed in the ocean or on the beach yet). Now because the place where I stayed that wholesome wanted to do some reparations and I was allowed to move again, i had to look for a different place to stay or find a way to get out of country. I have to thank those people so much by the way to give me accomodation and food through this whole quarantine. I been very lucky to be helped by them and i appreciate this so much.

Luckily on one of my walks just after quarantine I met a couple that recognised me from the pictures from their daughter of the camp. After talking with them, they tried to help me out. She knew some people in an organisation to get Belgian people out of Morocco. Because that far i had not been able to be in contact with the embassy of Belgium. Never an answer on e-mail or calls. Now i had mostly kept it with e-mails after my phone got fucked up but still only reaction you got from them was an automatic e-mail.

Because of their help one of the next days i got a phone call from the embassy that they heard about my situation and somehow i was told that in a little more than a week i could be on repatriation flight back to Belgium. Sometimes you just need to meet the right people at the right moment to be lucky.

Now in the meantime i had to look for a different place to stay too, after a short message on facebook i got many reactions and i decided to stay in the next town, to do at least a bit of travelling and meet some new people, that were all kind of in the same situation as me. Although i didn't do much, because more than walking around town or near the beach, you couldn't do much. Specially because i had to be near a phone all the time, to wait for that one call to actually know if i was on the flight (what came on the day before i had the flight late in the afternoon).

The way home was one long day of travelling. First a taxi for a 5 hours because the flight was from Casablanca and there was still no public transport. Also i had to get papers that day to leave morocco, what all made look like a very bad organisation for the repatriation. Everything was kind of last minute. When finally at the airpor i got controlled 3 times if my name was on a list. Apparently my name was not on the last list, although i already had my ticket for the flight from Tui. So with a few other i just had to wait for almost 2 hours not knowing for sure if I now could make it on the flight or not. specially because i had no idea what was happening, although the embassy said that the flight wouldn't leave without us, it was waiting with a little bit of uncertainty. But in the end i made it on the flight.

Back home, there was not really communication about the fact if i had to stay home or not or quarantine. My doctor said i would be allright but i stayed home anyway the first 2 weeks. Back home i also went through all kind of stuff and decided to sell my cd's. Because after all this i want to keep living abroad and travelling. Now i am back in Belgium and i want to save some money for future travelling, i decided to work again my old job. Maybe not totally what i want to do now but the safest solution for now because i don't think this corona will go away soonish.

What I will do while in Belgium, is explore the country. I finally went to look at Bruges, went recently for a small hike in De Panne in a naturally reserve. Went to different parks in my province. That all in the last 10 days and i will definitely explore more when i have the time and the weather gets better. Hopefully i can meet with some international friends somewhere. I will also try to find a way to maybe surf in Belgium or meet some expats here in Belgium. To keep me going in the next weeks and months, no idea how long i will be here but I'll keep you guys updated.