By Luke Voogt
After spending an extra $10,000 to fly home from her honeymoon just before COVID-19 hit Australia, Caroline Ienari was well-qualified to illustrate a children’s book about the pandemic.
The Norlane graphic designer helped her Truganina sister-in-law Catherine Aguilar give life to ‘Panda Mick’, who navigates everyday obstacles amid COVID-19.
“I was pretty excited by the idea,” the 29-year-old said.
“I just saw it as a really good opportunity to work on something that would help parents and other members of the community.”
Her mortgage assessor sister-in-law wrote the book while home-schooling her children and coping with Melbourne’s stage four lockdown.
“She came up with it when she was trying to explain the pandemic to her youngest,” Caroline said.
Caroline faced her own COVID-19 trial after moving from Adelaide to Geelong to marry husband Michael.
The couple wanted to marry in Adelaide on either March 14 or 21 but chose the former because both their desired venues were available.
The choice allowed them to have 200 guests before the South Australian government introduced restrictions.
After a few nights in Singapore, the couple flew to the Maldives for their honeymoon.
“We basically had a private island to ourselves, which was amazing,” Caroline said.
But then the pandemonium began as travellers rushed to return home with borders closing across the world.
“We had to cut it two days short,” Caroline said.
“We ended up having to drop everything, pack up and leave.”
The couple waited at the Maldives’ crowded main airport for hours only to discover they could not fly through Singapore as planned.
Instead, they had to fork out a “ridiculous” $10,000 to return through Dubai.
“That was a large chunk of our wedding money down the toilet just to get home,” she said.
But thanks to the earlier wedding date, they “just scraped in” and Caroline admits things could have been much worse.
“We were right on the cusp of being able to fly back or not,” she said.
The couple returned on March 24 and were able to quarantine at home.
While graphic design work had been very sparse during the pandemic, especially with Melbourne in lockdown, Michael continued his work as an electrical fitter.
“There’s lots of other families that have had both parties affected,” Caroline said.
Caroline is a twin and considers her sister-in-law Catherine “like another twin because we talk to each other so much”.
Catherine wrote Panda Mick in a month and Caroline was thrilled when asked to illustrate the book.
“At first I had no idea what she was reading to me,” she said.
“It’s not just an ordinary kids’ story. We thought, ‘let’s be as proactive as possible with it while it’s relevant’.”
Previously, her work had been mostly corporate, apart from yearly birthday invitations for her nephews.
“It’s really different for my portfolio,” she said.
Catherine is also donating some of the profits to Foodbank Australia.
Every paperback copy sold will allow Foodbank to provide three meals and every hardcover sold will allow Foodbank to provide four meals to people in need.
Details: pandamick.com.au
