Fear strikes deep

I dropped out of school when I heard on the news that the number of people getting infected is increasing.  I got very scared, writes Endinako Cobothi, a Grade 7 learner at Mpame Junior Secondary School on the Wild Coast.

Life will not be the same again because many people lost their jobs.We are facing poverty, children at school lost a huge part of the syllabus, and the economy of the country has been affected.

This Covid-19 has affected my family because we live in fear.  But we try by all means to follow the instructions like washing hands after every 20 minutes. We also stayed at home during the lockdown time.  I live with my mom and my two sisters and two brothers.  We are a family of six members.

Rondavel life

During the lockdown we tried by all means to protect ourselves but we all live in  one rondavel.  We do everything in that rondavel.  We live there, cook there and sleep there.  We try to be safe all the time.  We wash our hands with sunlight soap  and water and my mom bought masks for us.

We all have masks now.  We wear our masks and follow all the instructions.

We use to sleep close together, but during this time, because of social distancing, we sleep apart.

So I would like to see our country go back to normal, and workers go back to work to lead a normal life again, and to see the economy improve again.

It might not be a hundred percent normal, but at least some things will be. For now though we must  continue following the rules such as wearing masks, keeping social distance and washing our hands regularly.

Scared at school

The schools opened for my grade in June.  I was very afraid to go back to school, but I decided to go.  The school was clean and we followed social distancing, sanitised our hands and when we arrived in the morning and had our temperatures checked.

But I dropped out of school when I heard on the news that the number of people getting infected is increasing.  I got very scared when I heard this and I decided to wait and see what happens. When when things go back to normal I will go back to school

We sometimes excercise playing netball and soccer, but still wear our masks during this time.

When all this is over, I will remember the relatives and friends that died because of Covid-19. So it all depends members of our community to help overcome Covid-19 – stopping attending meetings, churches, funerals and gatherings, and following instructions such as wearing masks, social distancing and staying at home.

We will recover after two years, hopefully by 2020 because this pandemic might take time to defeat.  After that we will be free. –  Endinako Cobothi, Grade 7, Mpame Junior Secondary School.

• This is a slightly edited and revised version of Endinako Cobothi’s entry to Roving Reporters, Life After Covid-19: The Future We Want story writing project. 

For adjudicators’ reference: Entrant 28_Endikano Cobothi