An Unexpected Trip Home

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

March 2020   

The minute we walked into the Quito, Ecuador air terminal on March 14, my wife Hillary and I realized something big was amiss.  We had just landed from the Galapagos islands where we had shared a week with 12 other U.S. citizens watching and learning about the island’s strange creatures.  Things were about to become strange in yet another way.  

Having been hundreds of miles off the coast and without wi-fi news about the developing coronavirus pandemic, our group was aghast when our Quito-based Avalon Tour guide greeted us by saying, “I’m so sorry, but tomorrow midnight, on orders of our Ecuador president, the airport will close!  No more flights in or out.  You will have to cancel your connections and travel back home immediately.”

 Hillary and I turned out to be the only ones in our group who were not already scheduled to return home before the deadline.  We had planned to fly on to the Amazon for a week of hiking.  While we fretted, we migrated over to a Johnny Rockets restaurant, grabbed burgers and shakes, and got on the phone.

Our bucket-list trip had been planned years ahead, with expert guidance from our favorite travel agent Mary Szafarski (Airwave Travel 716-560-9209; mary@airwavetravel.com).  She is always calm, honest, and resourceful. Within just a few minutes after calling her, Mary had set up alternate flights that same evening to Buffalo via Miami and Charlotte.  She even emailed us the electronic tickets! 

Potentially being stranded in the Amazon for weeks with no flights out had certainly worried us, but not for long thanks to Mary.  Conversations with nearby travelers, especially those who had arranged things on their own, suggested they would face confounding delays getting home. Fortunately for us, at 4 a.m., when very few were processing in at the Miami terminal, we moved quickly through immigration and flew home without a hitch.  It took 30 hours, but after standing on the steamy equator, thankfully no snow storms awaited us in the Queen City.   

 Now as we shelter in place, we hope that everyone made it home safely and in good health.  Undoubtedly, our next trip abroad will owe its efficiency and assurance to our awesome travel agent. 

4/8/20

The Coronavirus Will Make Us Stronger

The Coronavirus Will Make Us Stronger

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

We are awash in a tsunami of bad news about the spread of the coronavirus and the urgent preventive steps we must take to curb the disaster and reduce the death rate.  Not for one minute should we deny or belittle the seriousness of this monstrous thing, but it may help to think just a bit about mitigating factors.  The news is not all bad.  Here are 10 examples of possible silver linings in our storm clouds of crisis. Probably you can think of many more.

•       Americans have always been resourceful, adaptive, and creative.  It is no coincidence that we register more patents than any other country in the world.  Research institutions and retooled businesses are rapidly developing promising medical interventions, health and safety equipmen   

•    Volunteerism is burgeoning as we look for ways to help one another; for example, consider the thousands of qualified retired medical staff who are arriving to support hospitals in New York City.  Meanwhile, many residents are sewing together home-made protective face masks to share with neighbors.

• ·         Staying at home and avoiding travel is not just reducing infection, but also lowering our consumption of fuel, thereby renewing the environment and improving the climate.  Also, less dependence on motorized transport is encouraging healthy outdoor activity like walking.

• ·         Whether through schools, businesses, and social media, we are developing nontraditional communications technology.  As we become more adept with electronic connections, we are gaining impressive practical benefits while breaking down social isolation and enhancing mental health.

• ·         Family life is enriched in ways we never expected, opening up communication channels among relatives and friends, and improving relationships for the future.  Going through a trial like this together has a unifying effect, despite the many emotional stresses togetherness may create.

• ·         We are learning, perhaps the hard way, that organized preparation and planning for disaster has a massive practical payoff.  What is more, efforts like this demonstrate the need for competent, reassuring leadership across all levels of government.

• ·         We are discovering that the knowledge afforded our children in this crisis may not be measurable in test scores, but certainly can and will be in terms of authentic, relevant real-world learning.  As many parents are discovering, teachers are an invaluable bridge between home and school.

• ·         We are learning that our dependence on immigrants, “legal” or not, makes them in many ways an essential cog in the machinery of our economy and national welfare.

• ·         There is dramatic, definitive evidence of world interdependence. Urgent cues for international cooperation may inspire new configurations of diplomacy, economic reciprocity, and peaceful coexistence.   

• ·         The science of disease is percolating, with benefits that will reach far beyond Covid-19.  New medications and innovative solutions are being tested,   hopefully with bureaucratic delays minimized.

The consequences of the coronavirus are truly at a crisis level.  Yet in every terrible trial or situation there is something we can learn, something we can gain. Besides all of the above, the gain stems partly from perspective.  Perhaps when all this reaches an exhausting conclusion, we may say some good things came out of this mess after all.  Surely we are being tested, and we will grow stronger.

4/4/2020