{"id":264,"date":"2020-05-27T15:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T14:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/?p=264"},"modified":"2020-05-25T21:24:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T20:24:33","slug":"distance-migration-and-love-in-time-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/2020\/05\/27\/distance-migration-and-love-in-time-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Distance, Migration and Love in Time of Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Denisa Hasieberova<\/em> <\/h6>\n\n\n\n
MA candidate in conflict transformation and social justice<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
21\/05\/2020<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
\n

As a\nchild, I lived in a small, rural village on the outskirts of Brno in the Czech\nRepublic. My parents had built our house next to long stretches of gold wheat fields,\nin which my older brother and I spent most of our early childhood playing.  Each spring, when the peach trees that\nsurrounded our home would bloom pink, we\u2019d stand on the edge of those fields\nand looked up to watch dark flocks of swallow birds dance in the blue sky,\nreturning to Europe for the summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because we\nwere children, we welcomed them with joy and with fascination, but a part of us\nalways felt sorry for them. Imagining tired wings which had travelled thousands\nof miles from their winter homes arriving in an unfamiliar, distant place.\nImagining them lonely and displaced when they finally left the security of\ntheir familial flock to nest on their own. But we were children, and our little\nsorrows were quickly forgotten by a game of hide and seek or the sound of my\nmother\u2019s voice calling us home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still search for them in the sky, all these years later. But green, rolling hills have replaced my yellow fields and heavy, grey clouds loom over the sunny memories of my childhood. I still wait for the swallows to return, no longer a child, but a migrant in a country that does not belong to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In my village, 2001. A few years before our move to Northern Ireland<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Northern\nIreland has been in lockdown for almost nine weeks now, and despite social\ndistancing restrictions slowly easing, while the number of coronavirus cases are\non a daily decline world-wide, many people are feeling extremely lonely as a\nresult of the pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trapped in\nthe relative safety of their homes to stop the spread of the virus, but unable\nto see their loved ones or gather with close friends. For me, the lockdown has\nbrought back memories of my first few months here. The loneliness that came\nwith moving to another country and the sense of aloneness I still feel from\ntime to time as a settled \u2018foreigner\u2019, never quite fitting in. Even after fourteen\nyears, it is a feeling that never really goes away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nmigrants like myself, this feeling of isolation is nothing new. We are no\nstrangers to being alone. We have carried this grief with us for many years, and\nwhile we\u2019ve been living with these feelings unknowingly or even secretly, this\npandemic has opened up old wounds and an all too familiar sense of loneliness\nand loss. The loss of family and friends, the loss of being unable to be with\nthose you love most.  The loss of access\nto basic services and resources. The loss of your identity and even your sense\nof belonging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So while the\ncoronavirus pandemic has come as a shock to much of the world\u2019s population,\nmigrants have been faced with a reality that hits very close to home indeed. In\nthe strange times of Covid-19, amongst an extreme feeling of aloneness that\nmost of the population is experiencing, and with social distancing measures separating\nus from our loved ones, we have all become expats of an old world \u2013 a world that\nwe may never get back.  In less than three\nmonths, we have all become displaced within our own lives. In less than three\nmonths, we\u2019ve had to redirect our paths and even our long-term futures. And in this way, we have all become migrants.\nDisplaced refugees drifting to an unknown and an uncertain destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\nis something we can all learn from the migrant experience, something that may even\nhelp us during these challenging times. Because despite the pain of separation\nand loneliness, for migrants like myself, there is always hope. An undying faith\nin that eventually, we will overcome the barriers of distance and return to\nthose we love. And it\u2019s my hope that we all learn to live the migrant way. <\/em>It\u2019s\nmy hope that we have the power to pick up our lives where they have been unexpectedly\ndropped on the ground, and that we all find the the strength to begin anew,\neven despite our losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So hold on, for just a little while longer. Because like swallow birds, we will eventually join our beloved flock. Soar to the skies at the turn of the seasons and finally begin to make our way back home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Family. Belonging. Love. My grandparents’ wedding<\/em><\/strong> in O\u0159echov, 196<\/strong><\/em>1 <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denisa Hasieberova MA candidate in conflict transformation and social justice 21\/05\/2020 As a child, I lived in a small, rural village on the outskirts of Brno in the Czech Republic. My parents had built our house next to long stretches of gold wheat fields, in which my older brother and I spent most of our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifeinlockdown"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}