Returning Home
Malta is a country full of immigrants. Some of them, like me, are Colombian. Some of us came to Malta to improve our English. Others came to find better opportunities in their lives. In May, almost 200 Colombians were repatriated from Malta. After many weeks of asking the Colombian consulate to help them, Colombians in Malta made their voices heard on TV and social media, and finally the embassy negotiated with the Maltese government to arrange flights so they could return home. Colombians waited 2 months for the flight. In the meantime they had to find a way to make a living during a global pandemic.
Catalina & Santiago
Cata was a student in Malta. She studied at night and worked days to pay for her studies, but the money was never enough. She lived with her mom and her grandma in Bogota, but after some years of hard work she realized that Colombia is not the country where she wanted to live and grow up as a person and as a professional. She saw that even if she tried so hard it would never be enough. She never saw any progress. As time went on her options grew smaller. It was hard to breathe. Without knowing what could come next she left Colombia and started an adventure in Los Estados Unidos; an American dream. She worked so hard there. There was no time for living. Her life was saving money and working, working and working. When her visa and work permit expired, she decided that a better life could be found in another place. Cata’s boyfriend Santiago wanted to explore a new world. His EEUU visa application was denied, so they went to Malta.
Cata and Santiago arrived in Malta in in the summer of 2019. Before the pandemic, Santiago worked in a hostel in exchange for a place for them to live, and they had been studying English. Cata had been looking for work without success. In February, Cata finally got a job at a movie theater and was about to start the process to get her work permit. Their new life in Malta was beginning. Then the virus changed their plans. Cata lost her job because of the pandemic. With no savings and no job, no hope and no more options on the table, the only safe choice was to return to Colombia.
In quarantine from March to May, with no job, no money, and a lot of free time, they tapped their ingenuity and creativity. They couldn’t stay still, so they thought, ‘what can we do to snap out of this situation?’ Thanks to some tutorials, and a lot of trials, they learned how to make delicious cinnamon rolls, and began selling them on Facebook and other online sites. This small business that they came up with paid for them to eat, and to buy the ingredients for the cinnamon rolls. When the yeast, a key ingredient for the rolls, was no longer available in Malta due to the pandemic, they spent the 3 weeks before they were repatriated preparing to re-open the business in Colombia.
Pandemic COVID 19 make ingenious come out, Santiago and Catalina started a small business and here he is in his shared flat, in the middle of the preparation of delicious cinnamon rolls.
Cata’s and Santiago’s story is one of many I am hearing these days about people whose lives during the pandemic span more than one country. Each of us is a whole world, and each world has dreams to realize and sadness to overcome. Moments like these make us confront our fears and show our bravery.
