Christmas despair - Travel ban sucks joy out of holidays for J’cans grounded in UK

WESTERN BUREAU:

Up to Christmas Eve, Rohan Harriott, Pearl Kerr and her husband ‘Blacks’ had not been outside their London, England, homes in days as they endured melancholy, shock and hopelessness.

The Kerrs had spent every Christmas in Jamaica for the last 30 years and this was the second time since July that Harriott’s attempts to board a flight for home had been hindered.

All three friends were booked to travel on Virgin Atlantic to Montego Bay, last Tuesday, but received text messages from the airline hours before departure that their flight had been ordered to remain parked on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport.

In the case of Harriott, the despair hit him so hard that he stopped taking calls from friends and family members, while Kerr says she has absolutely no compelling reason to leave home because she did not anticipate spending Christmas in England.

“I prepared for Christmas in Jamaica,” said Kerr with the pain evident in her voice.

Spending Christmas in the UK, she said, was like a life sentence.

The Britain-born woman, who is married to a Jamaican, said she had already checked in online for her flight last Monday morning, but at 10:14 that night, the cancellation came through via text.

A new strain of the coronavirus which causes COVID-19 had been discovered in England, triggering panic in Europe and other parts of the world. The Jamaican Government soon announced a ban on all flights from the United Kingdom for a period of two weeks. British Airways and Virgin were given a 24-hour window to drop off passengers already en route and make their turnaround.

The Government announced that 20 of 302 passengers who arrived from the UK as the ban kicked in on December 21 had tested positive for COVID-19, although it had not yet determined if any had the new variant strain which has triggered a new wave of panic.

“My cases were packed. We had shipped a crate with various household items and are now not sure what the Jamaican authorities will charge us for storage. We stocked our house with food because we were under the impression we had to quarantine for 14 days, so all that food will go to waste,” Kerr bemoaned.

Christmas Day was also her husband’s birthday, so the cancellation hit even harder.

FAMILY TRADITION BROKEN

“This has broken a 30-year family tradition,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

A paralegal and foster carer, the grandmother says Christmas in Jamaica would have been a recharge of their batteries.

“The Jamaican climate is different and the food is fresh,” Kerr said, adding that it was daunting to sit out the wait for the reopening of the border.

For their friend and, in this case, travelling partner, Harriott, Christmas in Jamaica is vastly different from that in the UK and he was looking forward to seeing people painting their homes and bushing their yards as the customary sprucing-up for the season takes place.

Savouring the culture of his homeland, Harriott speaks of Christmastime as the period when Jamaicans save their money to buy a pair of shoes and a new suit, something that does not happen in the UK, where they buy clothes every day.

This vacation meant a break from work and possibly a time to worship. His trip here was a surprise and none of his family members knew he was booked to arrive on Tuesday.

“My bags were packed, but I have now gone into a state of depression and I am not taking any calls. I really wanted to be in Jamaica,” he admitted.

And they were not alone. On the other side of London, Maresha Burgher watched all hopes of spending her first Christmas with her new husband fade when the text message cancelling her flight popped up on her phone.

“My stomach sunk with disappointment. The despair that I would not spend our first Christmas as man and wife, the realisation that Christmas will be spent on my own in England due to the tier-four restrictions which prohibits you from socialising indoors, it has caused a psychological and physical impact as I have lost 3lb since the flight was cancelled,” she told The Sunday Gleaner last week.

Reflecting on the impact the cancellation has had on her emotional and mental well-being, Burgher said she spent last Monday at work, frantically checking the flight, praying it would not be cancelled.

Unfortunately, the plug was pulled approximately 10 hours before departure.

LOSS OF APPETITE

“My husband and I were praying it would go ahead as planned, this was the second flight I had booked. I was unable to eat or focus all day at work due to the anxiety of whether the flight would go ahead or not,” she said. “My husband and I had no major plans, other than to spend our first Christmas together. I was also looking forward to the break as I work within the criminal justice system. We intended to make future plans, which have been scuppered with no warning.”

Burgher met her husband, Anthony Brown, two and half years ago and they tied the knot at the Sov Resort in Negril on March 14 this year.

Caught in the March lockdown, she was stranded here until June, flying home to the UK on a reparation flight, which she said was like a “lottery” to secure.

Now that she has somewhat overcome her disappointment, she says the Jamaican Government acted appropriately.

“Their aim is to safeguard the country and they have done so since the start of the pandemic. I do believe travellers from the UK should have been subject to a negative PCR test like the USA as this may have led to a different outcome and alleviated the cancellation of flights and disappointment for loved ones,” she said.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com