My home is known as a little country. It's so small that you usually get problem while trying to find it on a map. People say they never heard of it. They say people from my country cannot be what they want because they live in poor or because little country is underdeveloped. Well, I live in a beautiful country, with big lakes, long rivers, high mountains and strong people. But, in this twentieth year of twenty first century something changed and is still changing my view. This is the first time that someone came in my world, my environment, that I don't want to be friend with. This is the first time that someone came into my world, my city, and became that popular, but introduced itself just after killing so many people. Now it's around us. In our neighbourhood, our stores. It is all around us. In our air, knocks on our doors. That is our new passenger, it walks and it breathes. That passenger wants you, not your things. First time i heard how its' name, I thought it was a big joke. It got born in China. There are dead in China, there are surviving in China. It came to Italy and swam in the sea. Now it is in France and it tried their food. After while it drank coffee in Serbia, it flew over many countries and then. Corona virus is here. It was Tuesday, many portals, web sites, pages, news said that the next two weeks we have no school. To be honest, I was really happy because, the next day I would have math exam. In the first place, it wasn't that scary. The only problem I had was my brother. He was in Italy as a student and hung out with some people who had a flew at that time. On his birthday, he got a fever, high temperature, throat pain. My mom freaked out. My dad, who usually does not show his emotions, was really scared and dispirited. I have to brag that I also got a hug from him after a long time. One morning we got the call, brother does not have a virus. You can say you do not care because it is not close to you. You can try and maybe pray, there is nothing else what you can do. We are here, now we are in a fight, this passenger kills all day and night. Four months before my brother will come home, I had to decide what to do with the time that is given to me. Two weeks I was isolated, I was at home, just reading books and listening to some music. Of course I had online school, which was insane. Many times I had exams on my computer and I would be stressed out . Dad was going to work with mask and glows. Mom can get sick fast so, she did not go out. They were mostly scared about their son, even if he does not have a virus he is there and we are here. When school finished, I passed with great grades. My fitness coach has said that we should make a pause. I can not function without my trainings. With time, sunny days came and at least three times at week I went on six-kilometres-long trail with hills. I have my own workout routine, with my own list of songs.The passenger is still here, maybe could not buy a ticket to go home. Where is its' home, here is not its' place but, I think it does not know. Humans are still awake, we want to ask you to go, that is all we want to say. Huge windows in my apartment are really there for a reason. I exercise my eyes through them. I can see the main street, people with masks, kids, thirsty dogs and a lot of cars. One day I went with my dad to the store. We wanted to buy a bottle of oil. While we were waiting, there was a family with bags of two hundred kilos of flour. It was really strange but at least funny. We still have a lot of flour bags at home. Usually I am not drinking any juices, but somehow I stopped with sweets and bread. I read many books and have started with the music I listened before. Lyrics of their songs are amazing. I watched many films too, I am a huge filmochobic. Love for writing have never left me. Actually, during quarantine, I opened up my heart more and, even if I was in between „four walls“ my eyes saw more than before. I realised that I do not need to travel the world to see a miracle, I need to find one place, one person, one song or maybe one book to feel a miracle. Since I was ten I have been writing songs, but this year I started with English songs. Passenger still walks through our city, probably it likes it. Maybe melody should visit us and help. We need the real words to destroy it, not dog's yelp. So, my home is still known as a little country. I still have my name, my home and family. My eyes are with me too. My hands did not betray me, I write even more. Imagination is my best friend. I am truly sorry for everyone who lost someone in this time. . We can use this time to live, sometimes maybe smile. We can use this time to think, maybe stay on someone's side. This passenger does not want to go. I am pretty sure it stayed with us for too long, but we will outsmart it. We are persistent and strong.
I was a normal not-so-happy 19 year old girl with so much hope for a better future and I was quite excited because exams were drawing near (crazy right?)but I wasn't excited about the exams per say, it was more about the fact that after exams, I was supposed to be going for my six months industrial training and that was a good thing because I was going to make some money plus I love being in a work environment and I was looking forward to those six month of meeting new people, being away from home and school, being independent and the thought that after these glorious productive months, I was going to be entering my final year in school after all the delays I had faced due to interruptions caused by school riots and strikes and honestly, I was beginning to get anxious about everything. On the 18th day of March 2020, my world came crashing down right before my eyes. I am not exaggerating! Ok, first, in my school, we hardly ever have electricity or television time but that particular day, we had electricity and I went to my neighbour's house to watch television and catch up with what going on in the world and just then I tuned to CNN and I was met with the most horrible news I ever heard in my lifetime and that was the fast spreading mysterious disease from China, COVID-19. The news particularly said that countries were shutting down schools and worship centres and I knew at that point that this year was going to be the worst after all. On the 20th day of March, my country Nigeria, declared all schools and worship centres closed till further notice and my mum sent for me to come home immediately. This was how it all started. Now, I knew I was going to be at home for a while due to the pandemic so I had to come with a strategy to make my stay at home less traumatic. This was going to be me staying at home 24/7 with my mum. So my approach was to read a lot and just do my chores without being reminded, basically to avoid getting in trouble with my mum. It was going on well, me going about my chores and burying myself in books and my phone just basically avoiding her. Things were looking different in a good way for me; the house was over stocked with food so there was no need to go out. I broke up with my ex whom I dated for 5 years, thing is, I never really loved him and I've never even kissed him because he schools in a different state but he was so good to me and he was crazy about me for some reason I can't still understand so I felt I should date him. After breakup, I started talking to this new guy and he was so cool we were always texting and he recently graduated from my school so he asked me out and in the spur of the moment, I accepted two days after I broke up with my ex. Almost immediately after accepting, I started to feel unsure about my decision because I knew that I didn't love him and he was a good guy, I couldn't afford to hurt him but at the same time, this was the same situation with my ex. Just then, my other ex, (my first sex partner ever, the only guy I literally ever loved but fucked things up because I get scared every time I get too happy because I feel it'll end so soon and I'll be back to being sad and the I'd feel like a fool.) he somehow popped on my phone and we started talking and I realised that I might still have strong feelings for him plus my immediate ex was still begging me to take him back and my boss was also proposing a relationship. At this point, I had to be the most confused person alive considering the fact that I'm not a person that is used to display of emotions and all, so I was kind of just flowing with everyone. Then there was an incident where my neighbour was beating up his wife and everyone was just quiet ignoring but my mum went over to their house and started a fight with the man, he threatened her and they exchanged words. Well of course, through all this, my mum never had a reason to hit us or shout or any of that up until my sister told her that she was lagging behind on her online test and that set my mum off. She started cursing her and shouting at her and hitting her also and my sis, being under attack obviously went for defense but this aggravated the situation all the more and she became physical. Cutting off my sister's natural beautiful hair and my sis wanted to leave at that point, I had to intercede and beg both parties to act reasonably and the whole situation was pacified that day. But from then, it was clash after clash between both of them and I was the middle man which meant me taking most of the punches and once more, we're back to misery. My pandemic experience so far has been horrible and I really can't wait for all this to be over or for the world to end already.