It took half a year of preparations to go on this internship. With some savings and a big portion of patience for the Brazilian bureaucracy I managed to go to Florianópolis halfway February. An island they justly call the island of magic. The beautiful nature, beaches and kind people promised me six great months.

During my departure from the Netherlands corona still seemed far away. The same hold when I arrived in Brazil, due to the lower risk because of the low density of people around. I was able to fully enjoy the first weeks with carnival and the great hospitality of the Brazilian people. After two weeks a local news reported three cases of corona in the city. Within a few days, everything changed. The university closed, public transport shut down and the majority of the 45.000 students left town. The view of such a silent city showed me it was time to make a decision…

Prepare for a lockdown or travel back to the Netherlands? Because corona was already in the Netherlands for a while and I followed the Dutch news carefully, I was able to prepare for a lockdown well. Wide in time I stuffed my closet with pasta, preserved food and most of all:  toilet paper! I took an extra desktop and keyboard from the university. The fellow student who was working on the same project had extra rooms in his apartment. Soon we forged the idea to live in quarantine together so we would be able to finish the project while enjoying the beautiful island, it seemed an easy choice!

We created a small group of mostly international students to eat together because the university restaurant, where we used to eat with several hundred of students, was closed. Thereby we avoided social isolation and had some company to discuss the situation with. By that time, all European universities urged us to come back. Additionally, it became clearer by the day that the Brazilian healthcare system would not be able to withstand the virus outbreak. In the state we lived in, having millions of citizens, there were only 45 intensive care beds available for corona.

You would expect that the government would immediately take action for this, but president Bolsenaro considered this as “just a flue” which was considered a big displeasure by the population. Every evening at half past eight they opened the windows and made a lot of noise using pans and spoons as a way of protest. For me it turned into the daily moment to doubt whether staying was the right thing to do. Despite my good preparations the feeling of impotence and uncertainty still was (and sounded) in the air. Because I did not want to walk around with that feeling every day, I decided I wanted to go back to the Netherlands.

Close down airspace

The pressure for that decision was increased a lot by then. The embassy of my French fellow students told that the airspace would close within a few days. Buying tickets was not such a problem, the flight not being canceled was. Therefore, I bought the tickets with a Dutch airline, not to have any language barrier in case of any problems. It took quite some money, but it paid off: the evening before my flight I was called and told that I would be able to make it to Amsterdam, while all other Brazilian would be refused at the gate. Fortunately, I was part of a repatriation program, so I was still able to go home to the Netherlands. Colder but familiarly warm!

That was quite a transition. Back to hotel mom and dad is nice but having you own place even more. That’s why I returned to my former room in the nicest student house of Eindhoven, Het Pilspaleis. Together with both professors involved, I try to twist the project in a way that I can work on it digitally. I do have several weeks of delay, but that could be overcome.

I can look back to an amazing month in Florianopolis. I experienced the warm hospitality, made new friends, enjoyed the beautiful nature and participated in carnival and all other kinds of adventures. I will definitely go back once again to see everybody and carefreely enjoy the “Ilha da magia”, Florianopolis!