#covid fallout

[anexperimentallife]

Disabled, neurodivergent US couple and daughter caught in a bureaucratic and medical nightmare overseas

Summarizing the situation until now (new post because the old ones were getting bloated woth updates): We got pregnant in the Philippines at the beginning of what turned into a two-year national lockdown, with nearly expired visas--which has resulted in thousands of dollars in overstay fees, even though we COULDN'T leave.

Our daughter was born here during the pandemic, with complications requiring a C Section, and an error on her birth certificate kicked off an expensive year+-long struggle to get her paperwork corrected so she could be acknowledged as a US citizen--because even after travel restrictions were lifted, we could not take her with us if we left the country until her citizenship was confirmed and she had a passport. That meant MORE overstay fees, because there was no way we were leaving the country without her.

Many thousands of dollars in donations later, El's citizenship is at long last confirmed, and we finally have her passport, but the struggle is not over.

We now have to come up with an estimated 4,000-6,000 USD more for additional overstay fees (which are several times more than normal extension fees) for all the time it took to get this sorted, and another trip to Manila before any of us are allowed to leave the country. This is in addition to the 13K in debt we've racked up over this.

And the longer it takes, the more the fees add up.

My disability is our sole source of income, as Zoey is not allowed to work here.

While dealing with all of the above, I had covid twice, and with my existing health issues, it nearly killed me both times--I spent a month on an oxygen machine--and have developed other issues (heart, eyes, joints, and a persistent two-year infection that just finally got resolved after a surgery and industrial strength antibiotics) as a result of long covid. That's taken a huge chunk of the money already donated.

Once we get the funds together to pay off our overstay fees, we plan to take the cheapest tickets we can find.

@thesurestthing and I finally managed to get married (turns out Utah will do weddings over Zoom, even for non-residents). Now that we're married, other options may be open to us once the immediate crisis is resolved. But we have to get through this first.

If you can help or reblog, we'd appreciate it. Thank you, and thank you to everyone who has already kicked in or reblogged. We would not have made it this far without you.

PayPal donation link (lowest fees): https://href.li/?https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=AAPN4HRA9YLA4

ko-fi: https://href.li/?https://ko-fi.com/anexperimentallife

[ellemilady]

Hmm, okay, so I keep seeing discourse about “the labor shortage”, and there’s a few huge very simple explanations aside from unemployment and low pay.

First, and at least President Biden and Governor Beshear of Kentucky addressed this one: CHILDCARE. Daycares have closed, have limited capacity, and I’m sure need workers like everyone else. Low-paying retail jobs don’t exactly letcha bring your kids with you, nor pay a whole hell of a lot for professional child care.

Who else provides childcare for parents? GRANDPARENTS. You know, the demographic that suffered the highest death rate from the pandemic. Along with losing a precious member of their family, families have also lost in them the person who cared for their child while they worked.

Relatedly, another reason for the labor shortage?

The nearly 600,000 DEAD. Nearly six hundred thousand people in the United States literally do not exist anymore. They’re gone. That NO ONE has connected the dots and realized this would *also* impact the number of people available to work is just…astounding.

This is the thing that really gets me. We have ALL watched video after video in the past year of out-of-control assholes screaming, assaulting, spitting, coughing, and even so extremely, *murdering* low wage essential workers in retail and the service industry. Absolutely fucking NO ONE should be treated the way retail workers have been treated this past year. Every sanctimonious blowhard in politics and the media whinging that people need to take these jobs and get off unemployment would refuse to be treated the way retail workers are treated.

The SAME type of people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th have been terrorizing low wage retail workers for over 365 motherfucking days now.

It is absolutely unsurprising, and completely understandable, that many people have decided, FORGET THAT.