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From study abroad to study from home

From study abroad to study from home

Becca Lo Presti at the Fontaine de la Rotonde in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Photos courtesy of Becca Lo Presti

When I landed in the Paris airport on Jan. 23, the coronavirus was nowhere on my mental radar. Jet lag? Yes. The daunting thought of living with a family that spoke no English? Yes. But a pandemic? No, absolutely not. Like a lot of people, the coronavirus to me was a buzzword that had only made small splashes on the international headlines that I did not read.

On Feb. 24, a month after I had settled in the small southern city of Aix-en-Provence, I received an email from the dean of our small French university asking us to cancel any travel plans that we had in the north of Italy. There had been a coronavirus outbreak, he explained, and noted that while there were no State Department or French government statements, the university wanted to err on the side of caution. The south of France borders northern Italy, and a group of students grumbled about lost Airbnb reservations and plane tickets.

On Feb. 29, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) upgraded Italy to a Level 3 travel advisory as a result of the coronavirus cases in the north. Suddenly, we were getting emails daily about what to do if we came down with a fever. We were told not to go to the hospital, but instead, call an emergency hotline for our university. On March 2, we were advised to not visit the regions in France north of Paris, as cities were getting shut down due to rising coronavirus cases. A few hours later, our dean emailed us strongly suggesting that no students travel outside of France.

The hardest part about this influx of information was the juxtaposing lack of information coming from the United States. While we were getting emails daily from our French professors and third-party study abroad coordinators, the U.S. remained silent on [the outbreak in] France. The CDC had updated the situation in Italy with rapid precision, but by the time the cases in France reached over 1,000, we remained without a travel advisory or mention on the CDC website. Hofstra was also relatively silent; I had to reach out to the study abroad team to see if there were any updates on my situation. Then, Clemson University pulled all of their students who were overseas. We had known programs were shutting down in Italy, and that made sense. Without the same CDC and State Department precautions, it felt like either Clemson was overreacting, or worse, the situation in France was being overlooked by the U.S. government. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, was making daily speeches about safety, but France still seemed to be unimportant to Americans.


The Caves of Chauvet in the south of France.

The Caves of Chauvet in the south of France.

Our dean held an informational meeting on March 3 to address the growing concerns. I can best describe the mood of the room as panicked. The dean of the school, through no fault of his own, was just as in the dark as we were. Again, the U.S. had not issued any strict travel restrictions for France in contrast to the abundance of caution supported by the French media. Students were confused about the sudden travel bans, which at this point had been extended to our city. Our university did not want us to leave Aix.

My last two weeks in Aix were marked by the impending sense that we were sitting on a ticking time bomb that was quickly approaching its end. I could see the tense anxieties on people’s faces, and every email notification made my heart rate elevate. As of March 9, I still felt that I had the possibility of lasting a full semester in France. Both Hofstra and the outside program that I had used to come abroad said that they would not cancel the program unless the CDC increased France to a Level 3 travel advisory. Students were being pulled every day, but I felt eerily reassured by the CDC’s lack of response to France. I had midterms to study for, although they began to seem insignificant as the rest of the world prepared for a pandemic.

On Thursday, March 12, I woke up to about 30 text messages and five emails. While I was sleeping, the CDC had raised almost all of Europe to Level 3, France included. Everything had become very bad, very quickly. I spent the morning on the phone with my parents, as my study abroad program said that I needed to be out of the country within six days. Tickets were astronomically overpriced, but we managed to find one that could get me home by Sunday evening. I, like almost every other student at the university, found myself filling out immediate return forms. Classes were canceled, people were crying and everyone was numb.

I cannot stress how confusing and anxiety-inducing the mess of information was. President Trump made his blundering statement about how the U.S. would immediately ban all travel from Europe. He failed to mention that this did not apply to people who were already U.S. citizens. Pandemics and health crises are inherently political, and we had a president making blanket announcements that did nothing to actually inform the public. Hofstra was also remaining relatively silent. I was direct messaging the few students still abroad to see if any of them had received updates from Long Island, but none of us had.


The streets of Marseille, France.

The streets of Marseille, France.

I packed Saturday night after two days of doing all my “lasts” in Aix; last bakery visit, last night out, last dinner with my host family. I woke up at 3 a.m. on Sunday, March 15, to catch a 7 a.m. flight out of Marseille to London. My flight was almost all American students leaving the country. Coughs echoed in the empty airport, as almost all other flights had been canceled. My parents had made the decision to fly me out on a larger international airline, which paid off. Many students woke up on the morning of their flights to find out that their planes would no longer be leaving.

Heathrow Airport in London was busier, but everyone was still very tense. About a fourth of the people I saw were wearing face masks. I had been unable to find any masks or hand sanitizer in Aix; they had sold out. On my flight back to Boston, we were given a piece of paper to fill out inquiring about where we had stayed in Europe and any health problems we were experiencing. I had to put down that I was coughing, because I had been congested since Thursday and had an audible sniffle and cough. The customs and screening in Boston Logan Airport was the part that felt most out of a movie. I was selected for two additional checks because of the longevity of my time in Europe. I had my temperature taken by a table of people in face masks, gloves and bodysuits. They were concerned about my cough, but we all knew we could not do much about it because I did not have a fever. The doctor that I spoke to told me to self-isolate for two weeks. He said that he wasn’t allowed to tell me to quarantine, which struck me as odd. It was a weird legality that seemed mundane given the gravity of the situation. After a final security check, I was allowed out of customs.

I was there for two hours, but that was small in comparison to other airports. A friend had flown into Chicago the day before and was in customs for five hours. Pictures of the packed screenings went viral a few days later. The irony of the crowded lines in a time of needed social distancing was painful. I flew into Logan Airport on the first day that it was open to international flights. It actually stopped the following day, but I don't know why. I was incredibly lucky.

I’ve been in quarantine with my family since Sunday, March 15. I start classes on Monday, the 30th. My professors are all rewriting their syllabi and grading policies because of the massive time difference between them and their students. As a Connecticut resident, I have the shortest time difference of five hours. I really do not know how the rest of the semester will look for me; France is on a total lockdown. I keep in touch with my host parents, an elderly couple, and they told me that they are not allowed to leave the house except to get groceries and go to the pharmacy. All French schools are closed as well. Unlike the state-by-state basis of the U.S., the French government made nationwide announcements early on.

My situation in France rapidly deteriorated. Things went from tense purgatory to an emergency literally overnight, and I don’t think that anyone in my program expected a total evacuation to happen so quickly. Information was patchy at its best and nonexistent at its worst. I give my French university so much credit for handling us students as well as they did – I never felt unsafe in Aix. I want to return to France after I graduate in December. Hopefully, things will have a semblance of normalcy by then.


Steps to the Marseille train station.

Steps to the Marseille train station.

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