The Harrison Family: March 2020 - let the COVID 19 Crisis Begin

March was a crazy month for us as a Family, company and frankly the world. As we all know COVID started in China which is a major source of imported goods to Sakhalin - much of our food, medicine and crude is all transported through that area so even before we started with COVID cases we were in active emergency response mode dealing with logistical challenges. Sakhalin is also what we consider a non standard medical country so for all medical issues we send employees to South Korea or Japan. This was also of high concern for us as a family and as a business to make sure we could keep our employees and families safe. Given what was evolving around the world we also learned that anyone with COVID 19 would be unable to me moved to another country. In Russia kids over the age of 6 would be admitted to the hospital and would be unable to be accompanied with their families. For us this became a huge concern given the language challenges and the poor medical care - the thought of one of my kids in a Russian hospital alone was really a difficult thought. Anyone that was considered a potential COVID contact or suspected to have COVID was forced to go into a Russian Isolator (I have seen pictures - not quite the 4 seasons - think more hole in the ground bathrooms). We were determined to make sure none of our expats or family members ever would be forced to do that. We are lucky to live on a company owned and restricted compound, so we locked in - stocked up on supplies and closed the gates... we could enjoy the compound without external exposure

In the month of March, many things changed for us... the kids school closed and went to remote learning, all inbound flights into Russia were stopped. We run our business with rotators coming into country and working 28 days straight and then they leave and their back to back comes into cover. All those that were on the island at the time were stuck - we couldn't get replacements in so they had to stay for extended durations. We had to start working from home while trying to teach 2 kids in two different grades. Nanny's and housekeepers were no longer able to enter our compound so we were on our own trying to juggle everything. We had to close all our recreation facilities (gym, restaurant, tennis courts, etc...) here in the compound due to government restrictions. Justin and I as well of the rest of the leadership team were working around the clock getting minimal sleep trying to keep the lights on for the business and make sure we put processes and procedures in place to ensure all of our facilities were COVID free. This will go down as one of the craziest times in my life for sure.

Here are some pictures from the month and before we went into complete lockdown and isolation.

Me and my sweet girl

Well then there is this sweet boy

Justin giving the keynote sweet on Women's day - yes they have a holiday here to celebrate just being a woman

Me and the kids enjoying the slopes - before they were closed for COVID

End of ski season!

Carter had a run in with a tree - he was over confident and went off the paved trail

The snow is just beautiful

Snow Covered Trees

On the ski lift with the family and Mike who joined us for a day on the slopes

The crazy Temps!

This is the expat bus - We take this to work every day - its the worst bus ever - it is a Mercedes but does not fit the group we have. I will not miss these rides when I leave - notice the stadium seats in the back

Grown men - look how tight

Best part of the bus - the raised seat with the luggage rack - meet Mike - every-time the bus driver hit the breaks his head would hit the luggage rack

Before the craziness began - we held a trivia night as a fundraiser to support the kids school. It was a night filled with tough trivia (of course the teachers won), lots of good drinks, and then it followed with karaoke and an indoor fire

My Trivia team - we did ok but didn't win

This man in the middle is the rudest Scottish person I have ever encountered and had the craziest hair so we had to take a picture with him... I think he is yelling at Lilly as we are taking the picture

Me, Darragh and Claudia having fun during the after trivia party

We didn't win but Dave and I wanted to hold the trophy

The fire - we literally lit the restaurant on fire. This was a result of a portable cell phone battery that got soaked with Vodka when someone leaned on the table and it fell over. Night ended with fire department!

We were blessed with lots of toilet paper unlike our friends and family in the USA. We have every color and scent of toilet paper you can imagine!

The couple living in my house sent me this - Luca we miss him so much but so happy to see he is loving the new family and their baby

We had one huge snowfall in March

My little snow bunnies, the snow was raining down so hard - we needed umbrellas

Where is Carter?

There he is, silly kid

Can hardly keep your eyes open - its just coming down so hard

Snow filled family pic!

Snow is too deep to make snow angels

My crazy daughter climbing snow filled trees

Getting Pelted

I took Riley to get a pre COVID lockdown haircut. She really likes going to the hair salon. They are small but the stylists take a TON of time and are very detailed on your hair. She is always able to convince them to do stuff to her - this salon did her hair and while I was getting mine cut they painted her nails and then curled her hair at her request. Of course then they took tons of pictures of her. She is spoiled rotten!

The Cut

The Curls

Two Ladies on the way home with fresh new do's

Expat life and especially living on a compound is very different from living in the US. The entire neighborhood here becomes like a family. ON Friday nights we all get together and have dinner at the neighborhood restaurant. This was our last dinner - right before we had to close the restaurant due to COVID.

It was one of our Neighbor Rob's birthday...

My sweet girl

And the craziness begins.......

I laughed - when president Putin stopped flights - one of my employees Irina sent me the above picture of her sweet baby girl Liza with the best reaction to the craziness