Covid-19, popularly known as ‘Corona’ to the people of Nepal was one of the deadliest diseases which emerged from China and spread out over the world. It is a disease which slowly started as an epidemic and rapidly began spreading throughout the world, killing millions of people and changing the global world in an unexpected way. At the end of 2019, where Covid-19 had started making its debut in the global world, I was still an ignorant child of 11, studying in grade 5.
The news came in little bits and pieces in the mind of my younger self. First, it appeared to be a disease which was spreading rapidly in my neighboring country that my past self didn’t really pay much mind to. However, soon the world seemed to be slowly enveloped in the news of this new profound illness which was spreading like wildfire everywhere. That year, despite the various news related to the new disease, I still remained quite oblivious to the true horror of Covid-19, which I believe was quite relevant in other children of my country. As the virus had begun spreading during the end of the academic year of my country, we were given an opportunity to evacuate to our villages due to the month-long holidays provided by Nepali schools after the end of the semester. So, along with my family, I had returned back to my hometown located in a beautiful village in Sindhuli district.
I spent my holidays with boredom as I always had for the past 5 years. It wasn’t really unusual for my past self to spend long holidays after the school year ends but when it seemed as if the holiday was endless and that no news related to studies was provided for a month, I had finally begun to understand the weight that this new disease carried. Furthermore, at the time I was quite disconnected with my school friends and the school for that matter because there was no wi-fi in my hometown and my school app wasn’t as advanced as it is at present. Soon, I started paying attention to what the news said. Slowly, it seemed that everyone in Nepal was starting to understand this new terrifying disease which ended up killing thousands of people over the world in a single week. Then came the period of lockdown, a strange phenomenon and a word I had never heard before. My parents also started becoming aware of this disease and began lecturing me about this deadly disease. That was how, through my parents and the radio, I was able to understand this strange disease which seemed to carry the potential to change my life and the life of everyone on earth forever.
Covid-19 soon became a new form of fear in the eyes of many parents, including my own. With the worrying news of deaths of thousands of people being caused everyday by this mysterious disease, my parents began warning me and my other younger cousins about the preventive measures and effects caused by Covid-19. In this way, slowly Covid-19 began impacting my life. News about the causes of Covid-19 started being aired everywhere, from phone ringtones to televisions, everywhere Covid-19 seemed to be in the spotlight. After learning that this communicable disease could be spread by the smallest measures like sneezing or hugging, I soon became bounded inside the boundary of my house. Fear had increased among the villagers too and everyone had begun staying inside their homes. There used to be no meetings, no physical affections shared, no village talks being held and no people around the neighborhood. It was a time where everyone was holed up in their own homes, captive like prisoners from the fear of the pandemic.
It was after 3 months I believe, that my parents had received information related to my studies. Private schools had begun online classes as an alternative solution to the problem caused by the pandemic which was also a measure applied by my school. Due to this, my parents became forced to connect our house to the Internet just for the sake of my studies. “Online classes” was a strange term that was completely alien to me. It was something unknown and scary to my past self who had neglected her studies for the previous months. I had no idea for how long the classes had been going on for and how they operated. The first class I attended, lasted for only a minute, I couldn’t figure out how the class worked, where the class had reached, what we were studying and furthermore, I was overwhelmed by the sight of the new teacher of a new grade inside my phone whose voice I couldn’t hear. Thus, I hurriedly exited the classroom and decided to mentally prepare myself and start my classes from the next day.
Thankfully, I was able to quickly grasp the working of online classes after attending a couple more classes. At first, it was an interesting way to learn and I was happy to have received the opportunity to study despite the pandemic. However, the online classes didn’t seem to have any effect later on as I started to get bored and unable to focus inside the comfort of my house. The entire idea of having to stare into the screen with an uncomfortable position from the sofa distracted me from my motivation to study. On top of that, being unable to actively answer and interact with teachers as I used to in the class, a wall started to form between me and the teacher, which prevented from having the courage to speak up and answer their question. The positive aspects of online classes were that they enabled me to access information online and conduct researches. I was also able to increase my knowledge about technology and learnt the ways to use the internet to its best capability.
Along with development of my technological skills, there were also changes in my social life and emotional behavior. As the internet was the only place where news of the world could be found and where social interaction could take place, I began to learn the art of texting friends, chatting in video calls and reading comments on videos online. I also became significantly closer to my mother who has been living apart from me and my father due to her job in Sindhuli. We bonded together through many difficulties during the lockdown and when helping each other to do house chores. However, during the short time period where schools were open in 2020/2021, there was a vast gap among my best friends. That time I had come to a realization that I was drifting away from my group of friends while they significantly seemed to be closer than before. The pandemic also left me with sense of awkwardness in socialization and I couldn’t seem to get along with the ones I considered my best friends.
After Covid-19 ended mercifully at the last semester of grade 7, it left a powerful impact on my life, and the lives of everyone else. The world centered around Internet and online activities. Social medias like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok became a vital part of everybody’s lives. There was a technological revolution in the world and a revolution in my own world too. My own life had also significantly changed during the 2 years of pandemic which was the crucial stage of my life where I had ascended to becoming a teenager. There were changes in my habitual behaviors and hygiene as I had begun taking care of my health more and washing my hands more often than before. Although the pandemic left me with some problems of anxiety and lack of social skills, decrease in my communication skills, decrease in my confidence which were evident when I was in grade 8, it also taught me an important lesson about the importance of family and socialization for human beings. It also made me understand many complicated feelings of love, friendship and the fragility and strength of humans.
Therefore, despite the havoc and chaos it caused, Covid-19 pandemic also left a message for the world that nothing is more important than health and family, so we should learn to cherish and prioritize them because one never knows what tomorrow brings.
Dilasana Pakhrin, Grade 10
