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By Ashley Smyth
The Hokey-pokey ice cream was Mel Sloan’s first trial of freedom after coming out of quarantine in New Zealand last month.
the Oamaru Mail has been following the plight of the Palmerston-raised woman, who taught at Oamaru before heading abroad.
Miss Sloan was stranded in the UK earlier this year after she woke up one morning in June unable to move and suffering from leg cramps.
She was diagnosed with osteoarthritis at a young age and required emergency surgery in July to repair a compressed spinal cord, which threatened to paralyze her.
She had been living and teaching in England for the past eight years, and due to her health problems, she had isolated herself since March, when Covid-19 made its presence felt in the UK.
“I’m home. My God, what a trip,” he said.
After the surgery, Ms. Sloan said she felt better than in a long time. She spent August learning to walk again and September putting off all the opioid medications she had been taking.
“Now I am taking the fewest medications that I have taken in about nine years.
“And I’m back in the classroom, ready to teach. In July, I didn’t see myself teaching anymore.”
She appreciated how lucky she was to be back in New Zealand, despite having to leave the place she had come to love.
“I came home with beautiful weather, that calmed me down, and I’m with my family, and I’m grateful for that.”
Assimilation to normal life has been a gradual process, he said.
“I went to buy hokey pokey ice cream, and then I said to my friend, ‘Can we go home?’
“I was quite intimidated by the hustle and bustle, and there was no distancing, nothing.”
In England, Miss Sloan had been used to wearing a mask since March and admitted that crowded places still scared her a bit, “although New Zealand has done a phenomenal job of keeping [Covid-19] cornered “.
Miss Sloan had mixed feelings about leaving England. He was happy to be home, but sad to leave his “family from England” behind.
He said the difference between the situation in New Zealand and England was stark.
“It’s amazing. There is no evidence of Covid here, other than the fact that you see some strange place with hand sanitizer.
“Honestly, New Zealanders don’t really know what Covid is. It was horrible there, and it still is … Unemployment is unbelievable.”
English schools and teachers were making it particularly difficult during the pandemic, having to stay open during the second shutdown that began in November after a spike in Covid-19 cases.
Miss Sloan said that St Elizabeth’s, the Coventry school where she had worked, typically had eight teachers, but only two were still working, the rest “protecting” themselves at home for various reasons.
The demographics of the school community were challenging and the school had provided breakfast and lunch for its students. In the first confinement, which lasted 16 weeks from March to July, schools were closed and children were left without basic needs.
“Families were lucky enough to have food, much less internet and devices. So online learning. I think she had four children who were doing their job.
“So the government said, ‘well, the school is going to be open.’
Masks were not worn, because the students needed to read the teachers’ lips, and English was often not a first or even a second language. This also made communication with parents difficult.
“So they had so many barriers. They had no other option to keep the schools open. The only other problem now is that the teachers are getting sick and the government hadn’t thought of that.”
One memory that will stick with Miss Sloan from her time in the UK during the pandemic was the weekly applause in the streets for National Health Service (NHS) workers.
“They had this thing every Thursday where they would go out and clap on the NHS, and it was quite eerie … it was so deathly quiet, when you’re in a big city and there is no traffic, no trains, clapping. “.
