Just a week ago, in mid-December, the picture in London was clearer. A group of young international students, meeting in Waterloo, discussed where their Christmas holidays would be, shared their WhatsApp contacts and compared train ticket prices to go for a walk around the UK after a characterized first quarter by the anxiety caused by the pandemic.
Three days later his plans went overboard. The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced a confinement in the capital and with it a ban on travel outside London.
The discovery of a new strain of the coronavirus keeps thousands of international students in suspense, who will in most cases spend their first Christmas away from home in university residences, where they have also imposed restrictions.
The UK receives an average of 700,000 international students each year, according to a report released in 2018 by the UK Migration Advisory Committee. Since that group arrived last fall, they had to do a mandatory fortnight of quarantine.
Weeks later the government introduced more restrictions that ended in a one-month national confinement, ending on December 2, a date that for many marked the end of the measures, the beginning of the Christmas season and with it the meetings, dinners and trips characteristic of the season.
Before hearing the news, Alejandra Alonso Angulo was hoping to at least spend Christmas at a classmate’s house. London was already in Tier 3, but Johnson had reported weeks earlier that between 23 and 27 December there would be a gap to share with family and friends during the festivities.
“Ale,” as she likes to be called, came from Cuba on a humanitarian flight. Airports were closed due to the pandemic. When he left his country he could not hug his parents or grandparents for fear of spreading it. Neither do his friends. Now he would like to be with them, mainly with his grandmother who always prepares for Christmas his famous torrejas.
At first Boris Johnson reported that during the five-day break they could meet with at least a couple of people. However, at present restrictions force people to stay home and avoid mixing indoors.
Ale was waiting to spend Christmas drinking rum, playing dominoes and listening to Cuban music while having dinner with friends. The reality is that she will spend it in her “little room,” as she describes it, at her university residence in Westminster, London.
“I will properly celebrate Christmas and other important events when all this madness is over,” says the 24-year-old who is studying a master’s degree in Multimedia Journalism.
Ale asks as a Christmas wish to be able to see his grandparents again. He has not communicated with them since he left Cuba because they do not have internet at home.
Until December 18, a day before the announcement of the confinement in London, most London universities were taking free tests to detect coronaviruses and allow international students to travel to their favorite destinations for Christmas.
Now more than forty countries have banned air connections to the UK for fear of the expansion of the new strain which, according to Boris Johnson, could deliver seventy per cent faster than Sars CoV2.
His plans have already changed
Selene Mazon is also studying for a Masters in Journalism at the same university as Alejandra. She arrived in London in September and her plans were to spend it with other Mexican compatriots at a Christmas dinner, where she would also share with other students.
Dinner was to consist of four menus. It would be made at the home of one of the students and each of the guests had to contribute to make the traditional Mexican dishes.
“I was very excited to meet these people I only know through messages. I didn’t want to spend Christmas alone, I wanted to spend it in a family atmosphere, in the family sense of Mexico,” explains the young journalist.
Selene, who lives with other young foreigners, says that even though in Mexico City her family didn’t prepare a big dinner or decorate a giant Christmas tree, they always spent it together watching TV and taking the punch her mother prepares.
“I miss my sisters, my dad’s laughter and I’ve missed my mom’s hugs. I’m going to miss her punch which I think is what I like most about this season, which is a hot drink with guavas, with sugar cane and tejocote, ”he says.
Since hearing the measures last Saturday, December 19, he has received them with resignation. So far he doesn’t have many plans other than reading and running regularly around his neighborhood.
“The day before the announcement of the ‘lockdown’, I was a little hesitant about how many people we were going to be at this dinner because in Mexico it was also declared a red light and all over the world this virus does not stop,” he says. Selene.
Antonio Romero Rubio, who is studying for a Masters in Health, Planning and Finance at the London School of Economics (LSE), is also Mexican. His initial plans before arriving in the UK were to do a “Euro-tour”, go to Christmas markets in Brussels, Italy and France.
Later restrictions in the United Kingdom and other countries cut short their plans. Faced with this scenario he chose to plan trips to England and Scotland, but they were not possible either.
“Also within the plans was for the Mexicans to get together for dinner. We were going to gather three ‘households’ (people from different houses), but as ‘households’ could not be mixed they already warned us that it was not going to be able to do. Now everyone will pass it by their side “, adds the young man.
Toño, as he is known among his friends, says that this Christmas they will be complicated and that although at first in the student residence where he lives they would have dinner with the students, he was also suspended due to last weekend’s restrictions.
“For people living alone I think it’s more complicated because they can go through depression, they can’t go home for the quarantine issue. We hope we have a good time anyway,” he says.
Before you arrive
Before Joan Santanyí moved more than 10,500 kilometers from her home to Malaysia she was already thinking about how she would celebrate Christmas and New Year in London. It is not the first time that the student from Birkbeck, University of London, is in the English capital, but he is living in the United Kingdom.
“I was here before, in 2016, during the festive season and it was so splendid. But right now I am very frustrated with the London restrictions. The government should have started with stricter rules two months ago so that now we could have a Christmas meeting with friends from different backgrounds “, explains Santanyí, who is doing a Master’s in Journalism.
Unlike other students, Santanyí, 34, will not spend his Christmas alone as he lives with three other classmates whom he was going to introduce to other people during a multicultural Christmas dinner in his apartment.
Had he heard of the measures taken at present he would have traveled back to Malaysia to spend it with his family and friends.
Still she is grateful that she can at least celebrate Christmas and even though she won’t be able to go to church in the morning and have a big get-together at night, if she plans to have dance sessions in her apartment to entertain after dinner with the his housemates.
I wanted to share
Dalia Elasi is Muslim and for her Christmas is not a traditional holiday. In Egypt it is common for people to go out to celebrate and, above all, shopping in malls for the end of the year.
However, the young woman, who studies Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wanted to share with international students during this December holiday.
His initial plan was to meet in a house with friends living in London. But for the measures he only has the option to go to a park, have a picnic and see another person to continue with the measures and avoid contagion of the new strain of the coronavirus.
“The challenge we have is that on December 25 the trains and buses will not be working so our choice would be to walk or ride a bike,” Elasi comments.
Another plan is to invite an Egyptian friend with whom she shares the same college residence to prepare dinner and then watch a movie together.
“My only consolation at the moment is that the restrictions allow us to go out for fresh air and walk with someone else,” he indicates.
In Egypt, Christmas is officially celebrated on January 7 and is a public holiday.
The “Tier 4” measures began last Sunday, December 20 in London and consist of only essential businesses such as supermarkets, banks and pharmacies offering services; restaurants and bars will be able to work under the concept of “take away” or delivery.
Travel outside London is prohibited unless they are an emergency, as well as visiting friends or staying overnight away from home.
In the event that the Police become aware of a breach of one of these rules they could pay fines of between £ 200 and £ 10,000, depending on the offense.
As of “Boxing Day” on December 26, an average of 24 million people will be under more confinement measures in England. The cities added by the government were Essex, Sussex, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.