We were living in Siem Reap, Cambodia, at the time. The jungle school in the Philippines was no longer enough for my older one, she was seven, she wanted to read, write, do maths, and the little one was five and needed structure. In Siem Reap there was an international school with a British curriculum and English teachers, the girls were accepted, and we rented a house nearby.
Then I saw they were doing lockdowns. Word was the king would close Cambodia, everything shut, indefinitely. I did the maths. If the country closes, I’m stuck here. With two children.
Being locked up in a flat in Vienna with two small children was not an option. I looked at the map and thought: Where in the world will it be the least crazy? And then I said: We’re going to Taiwan.
Two days later the border was closed. Whoever hadn’t left that morning was stuck. I booked three tickets, and it was the last plane from Bangkok to Taiwan. After that, everything was shut.
We ended up in Kenting, a village on the beach in the south of the island. The only place, no lockdown. It was beach parties, volleyball, barbecues, live music on the beach. And at the same time I had full responsibility for two little girls in a country whose script I couldn’t read and whose language I didn’t understand. The teacher barely spoke English, the kids spoke no Chinese at all, and still it worked, because children have a language that doesn’t need vocabulary.
On the day the news channels started ticking death tolls like stock prices, I switched off the TV. Not for a day. For good.
The world was crazy. We weren’t.
Everyone was locked in, and I was on the road with my daughters. I spent thirty years building options, and on days exactly like these they make the difference. Where would you have been if you had missed that plane?