Popayan

Having arrived very late, it was a slow morning getting up. I went to ask the hostel owner about hiking areas around Popayan. She looked very confused. Apparently that morning, the Colombian government decided to start enforcing new COVID rules. The border with Ecuador was closed, and there were many uncertainties about what could remain open.

I went back to my room to do a bit of work. That's when Maggie and I had a conversation over Hangout that would have a major impact on Embodia. We have been thinking about it for the last few weeks, but we fully decided to launch Telerehab on Embodia. Canada was going into full panic mode and clinics were about to shut down.

The next 72 hours, as the Colombian government was coming up with their decision that seemed to point to a total lockdown, Maggie and I went into an intense bender to build the Telerehab solution from scratch and launch it to support clinic owners in Canada.

I was coding for 16 hours a day, only stopping to grab food and jump on calls with Maggie to discuss updates. Maggie was constantly in touch with (understandably) panicked clinic owners, and once the Embodia solution started taking form, running multiple webinars per day to provide clinicians with the support they need to start relying heavily on a new tool that was never in their arsenal.

The owner of hostel where I was staying was also starting to get nervous. When someone sneezed or coughed, they were met with angry stares. She was constantly asking about my plans and it seemed very obvious that she wanted me to leave.

Morgan and I were supposed to meet in Medellin. He messaged me that he met a French girl, Bea, who was thinking of renting a villa close to Medellin to spend the lockdown, which was initially set to 2 weeks. They were looking for others to share the cost, so I decided I will try to join them.

Uncertainty was mounting every hour, so Morgan decided that it is best for him to fly back to France. Things were so busy at Embodia that I couldn't take an hour off during the day. So me flying to Canada or Lebanon was out of the question for the time being.

I got in touch with Bea, who was still trying to put together a large enough group to cover the cost of the villa. Colombia decided to go into full lockdown on March 20th at 8PM, and I got the final ok from Bea that the villa thing is happening on the 19th. So I took an overnight bus to Medellin on March 19th, where I met Bea.

We ended up being 8 people (3 from Colombia, 2 from France, 1 from Canada, 1 from the UK and I). At 6PM, 2 hours before the scheduled lockdown, we took a long (and very overpriced) cab ride to the villa in Santafe de Antioquia.