Daniel Faitaua, journalist. Photo / Jason Delaveau
Many New Zealanders have returned home this year. George Fenwick talks to six who, like him, have chosen to stay abroad.
Living in London is the blueprint for young New Zealanders embarking on their OEs. It's an obvious choice: the career opportunities are greater, there's no language barrier and the whole of Europe is right there on your doorstep. There are thousands of us here, with countless more arriving every year - that is, until March 2020, when Covid-19 locked the entire world in place.
Suddenly, London went quiet and New Zealanders were faced with an impossible decision: stay separated from their families during a global crisis or leave a city they'd spent months, if not years, building a life in. In the first few weeks of lockdown, I lost count of the number of friends who had seemingly teleported back to Aotearoa, leaving partners, houses and jobs behind. "I'm leaving tomorrow," read one text I received from a friend on March 22. "F*** this world, hope you stay safe."
Nine months later, meeting another New Zealander in London now feels like a novelty. The usual questions - "Where did you grow up? What school did you go to? Do you know Susan from Lower Hutt?" - have been replaced with: "Why are you still here?"
The answer is always different. Some faced joblessness and homelessness upon returning. Some couldn't afford the flights. Some tried to get home, only to have their flights cancelled and thousands of pounds flushed down the drain. Some stayed for love. Some don't know why they're still here. Through these six stories, I sought to understand what it now means to be a New Zealander in London, when home has never felt further away.
Sally, 26
Papakura-born
Sally had been working as a live-in nanny in London since early 2019 and loved it, until lockdown, of course, changed everything. With schools closed and the kids home all day, Sally was working harder than ever.
"I ran myself into the ground," she says. "I'd work my contracted hours but then, on the weekend, the mum and dad might say: 'We want to go for a walk. Is it okay if you stay with the children?' I didn't have anywhere to be, of course, because everything
was shut, so I was like, 'Okay.'"
While thankful she had full-time employment, Sally hit breaking-point. "All I could think was: 'Please open the schools, please open the schools.' I'll never forget this: I was in the kitchen and, on the radio, I heard Boris Johnson say that they weren't going to
open the schools until September, which at the time was three months away. I picked up my phone, called a travel agent and said, 'Book me a flight.' It was a knee-jerk reaction."
But that flight was cancelled, as were the next two she rebooked. She was now homeless and jobless, having handed in her notice, and she couldn't afford to keep booking flights. The day she was supposed to leave, in a moment of boredom and frustration, Sally turned
to Tinder. Within an hour, she was on a date with a graphic designer. They've now been together for four months.
"When Aunty Jacinda told Kiwis overseas to come home, everyone thought I was an idiot when I didn't get on the plane," she says. "And to be honest, I thought I was stupid as well. I was going through my savings like it was water. But I adore this guy so much. He's
been the one good thing."
With a new job in a school, Sally has mixed feelings about returning to New Zealand as the end of her visa approaches. As a Black New Zealander, moving to London made her reflect on the casual racism she had experienced her whole life back home. "I knew that I was a minority because everywhere I'd go (in New Zealand), I'd get stared at," she says. "But I didn't even know it affected me, because I'd always lived in New Zealand, so I didn't know what the alternative was. But then I came to London, and nobody would ask where I was
from and nobody would stare at me in the street.
"I love New Zealand so much, and I will defend it to the day I die," she continues. "But the thought of going back, I have so much anxiety about it. Everyone's gonna be staring at me in the street again and going into shops, everyone's going to ask, 'Oh, where
are you from?' then be confused when I say 'Papakura.' I haven't missed that."
Edith Scott, 26
Aucklander
After working at Auckland City Hospital for two years as a cardiac nurse, Edith moved to London, hoping to travel, meet more people and nurse in an international city. She happened to be back in New Zealand for a visit in March and returned to
London the day lockdown began.
"Everyone said: 'Don't go' but I said, 'No, I have to go, I'm not just going to hide in New Zealand,'" she says. "When I landed at Heathrow and got on the empty Piccadilly line - I've never seen anything like it. That's when I realised London is not the same London anymore."
The months that followed were brutal. Working in the UK's National Health Service (NHS), which was pushed to breaking-point, Edith saw the horror of Covid-19 first-hand. "Patients would come in and just deteriorate within minutes," she says. "That's when you knew it was Covid. You'd get a chest x-ray, and think, 'Holy f***.' They just looked awful, like a consolidation of speckles all over their lungs. One morning, one doctor came in and said, 'I signed nine death certificates this morning.' It was 11am. Everyone was just like, 'This is f***ing scary.'"
Edith cycled to work from Shoreditch to Kensington every day, an hour-long commute that became a cherished moment of stillness in her routine. "At one point it was around 800, 900 people dying a day," she says. "I remember riding home and I would just cry. I was thinking: 'So many people are going to die and we just can't really do anything about it. We just have to do what we can to make it as easy as we can for them.' And it was always just getting worse."
Edith felt lonely at times - two of her best friends were meant to join her in London this year - but she regularly spoke to her mum, a former nurse, for comfort. She was also fuelled by a sense of purpose and intends to work on intensive care units as the UK's
second wave hits. "I think I coped because I could do something to help," she says. "To see all my colleagues and talk to these patients - and know that I was helping - made a huge difference."
Patrick, 25
Wellingtonian
Patrick had only been living in London for four months when the pandemic struck. While he had a stable job, he felt a growing anxiety as London shut down around him. "There were so many unknowns," he says. "And lots of misinformation being spread, which was
concerning."
Patrick was faced with the decision of turning his back on an expensive visa he'd just started (UK working holiday visas cost more than $1600), or staying and working in an increasingly isolating city. "I spoke to my family and I'm sure they would have liked me to come home but they also understood why I would stay," he says. "New Zealand was going into winter, in lockdown and entering a recession. I'd be going home without a job ... I don't know when I'll see my friends or my family again and it's hard but you just have to make the best of it."
Patrick changed roles in July and is now working in strategy for a central London council, a job that feels particularly surreal at such a crucial moment in London's history. "Working for a council that's central-London focused, I'm privy to certain information about
the effects of the pandemic on a place that the world is watching right now. That's pretty unique."
From his office window, Patrick stares directly at the usually-mobbed Buckingham Palace, seeing London in a state of flux. "There are no tourists there," he says. "I was there a year prior with my parents and there were tourists everywhere, the sun shining down.
It's a totally different world that you just never thought you would see."
Josie, 28
Christchurch-born
Josie has been in London since 2016, working as a high school music teacher. The same week lockdown was announced, March had some other major news for Josie: she discovered she was pregnant.
With so many unknowns surrounding how Covid-19 affected humans, Josie went into panic mode. "Suddenly I'm reading that pregnant women are in a vulnerable category and that they don't know how this disease affects pregnant women," she says." I didn't even want to leave the house."
With her anxiety compounded by morning sickness, lockdown was "not an easy ride," she says. "I was definitely really down in the dumps. Some days, it was hard to tell whether I was just really fatigued because I was pregnant or I was fatigued because I was down
about the fact that we were just kind of stuck in this weird limbo."
The pregnancy has been isolating. "My partner couldn't come to any of the scans or the appointments," she says. "I didn't have a baby shower, we couldn't go out and shop for clothes and baby furniture and stuff together. And not being able to have that family support; I'm really lucky that my mum is actually going to come over for the birth but obviously that's a big sacrifice for her because she's going to have to pay for quarantine on the way back and flights are a lot more expensive."
Josie and her partner considered going home - but it wasn't feasible. They were locked into a contract with their apartment and her partner, who is Brazilian, would have had to jump through immigration hoops to live and work in New Zealand. "We just couldn't make
it work," she says. "My partner's really lucky that he's able to work from home and he's got job stability. He's a video game developer, so there's not a lot of work for him in New Zealand. We thought about it from every angle and we just thought, 'There's no way.'"
Daniel Faitaua, 44
Cantabrian
Daniel Faitaua arrived in London with his wife and three boys - age 14, 12 and 9 - in September 2019 to take up the coveted position of Europe correspondent for TVNZ. He hit the ground running. "As soon as I arrived, it was all about Brexit," he says, "then
it went into the UK general elections, then Prince Andrew decided to misbehave, then Meghan and Harry decided they'd had enough of the royals; and then Covid. It has been non-stop."
Covid-19 completely changed his job. As the virus spread uncontrollably in the UK, Daniel became a full-time health correspondent, reporting increasingly grave news for viewers back home. "New Zealand have done so well, they reacted immediately to the virus, whereas the UK have been behind the eight ball," he says. TVNZ were incredibly supportive. "Before the first whiff of a lockdown back in March, they said to us, 'Get on a plane, we're happy to bring you all home.' But we've had the big family discussion and we've all decided to ride it out."
Daniel says reporting on Covid-19 has been life-changing. "It puts your own life in perspective. You look at the death toll here in the UK and you just think: 'Life is precious.'"
That sentiment crystallised for Faitaua in March this year, when his brother died of cancer. With New Zealand's borders shut, Daniel had to watch the funeral from London over Zoom. "I don't think I've properly grieved the loss," he says. "I often think
he's still here, in my mind; that he's going to give me a call, or I'm going to get an email from him. But you have moments where you just break down in the shower, because there's Covid on top of it.
"Before we came, we spent time with him in Christchurch, just over a week in hospital. He said to me, 'Don't come back. Live your dream, and live it for me.' And so that's what I've been doing," he continues. "But 2020 - it's just been a brutal, depressing and tough
year. Sometimes you wish there was a reset button that you can just hit and start over again.
"I don't think you could prepare yourself to lose a sibling or anyone that you know. But I'm lucky that I've got my wife and my kids here, otherwise, things would be even harder emotionally and psychologically. They're sacrificing a lot to help me chase my dreams."
Nina Mingya Powles, 27
Wellingtonian
Writer Nina Mingya Powles met her British partner while she was living in Shanghai and studying Mandarin. Three years ago, she joined him in London. 2020 was already set to be a big year for Nina: in January, she published her debut essay collection Tiny
Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai, a personal exploration of the intersection of food, identity and culture.
Since the launch event in late February, the year has been tumultuous. She published a book of poetry in July but in October was made redundant from her day job at the National Poetry Library. The ups and downs leave her in "constant conflict" about living in London.
"I'm always thinking about going back," she says. "But I do think it takes a really long time to find a sense of community here and find some friends - and I do have that now. So at the same time, it was - and still is - a really difficult thing to consider leaving. I thought maybe if I lose my job, then that'd be the point where we should probably move home. But then I lost my job and we're still here."
Releasing two books in a pandemic, the second of which was promoted entirely online, has been eye-opening. "What surprised me was the number of people that would come to these events, more than you could really fit in a regular venue," she says. "The fact that people could join from anywhere in the country is amazing, because people who can't normally access these events have been saying for so long, 'You could just put it all online and it could all be accessible.' And suddenly, now that those of us who are not disabled are affected by the pandemic, everything is online."
Nina misses home, particularly the sea and Wellington's stunning harbour. But contemplating a return produces mixed emotions. "I catch myself sometimes feeling guilt, maybe, of having left," she says. "And I think maybe all of us would feel a nervousness about going back and trying to explain. Maybe some people went and had big plans, and then would feel scared about a 'failed OE', which is horrible, because there's no such thing."
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