In my life, I have never thought something like this would happen. The global pandemic caused by coronavirus is affecting everyone’s life in different ways, but we are all in this together. I am an international student coming from Vietnam and let’s see how this global pandemic has affected my life and my country.
First of all, I somehow have known that the university is going to convert everything to online form from the day that we received the news the classes were just going online for 2 weeks. I have planned that I would book my flight back home right after the school has released the news. However, I didn’t expect the news to come in the same week. Everything was happening so fast and I was panicking trying to figure the best way to cope with this issue.
About my feeling, I felt genuinely sad when all these things occurred as I have developed and maintained a good social life with all of my friends, and I didn’t think it will end so shortly for this semester. I would also have to say I have never thought that I have never missed going to class that much.
After the school released the news, I immediately called my parents to ask them what to do next. My parents were unsure because it is so dangerous to travel by plane now and a lot of people in Vietnam got the coronavirus because they got infected on the plane while traveling back home. My dad told me that I should stay at school until May, but I was so scared of the idea of coping with a deadly virus without my family in a foreign place that I eventually convinced them that I should go back home. Even if I got the virus, it is better to deal with it with your family beside you.
The next thing was I was on the airplane with a lot of protective gear such as face masks, plastic gloves, and of course hand sanitizers. I flew back home with two of my friends. On the day that I started flying back home, the Ministry of Health in my country set out a rule that everyone coming back from abroad has to go to quarantine camp for 14 days to make sure we are not having the disease. Right after I got out of the airplane, they immediately took our passports and asked us to wait to be delivered to quarantine camp. I was exhausted after three long flights and I had to wait for four more hours, but I was very happy that I have made it to Vietnam safely.
This is a government-funded quarantine camp, so everything here is free including food, electricity, and water. We arrived at the quarantine camp at 3 in the morning. I was so tired, but I had to take a shower and organized my stuff before going to bed. I stayed in a room with 8 Vietnamese people including my friend, 3 women coming from the United States, 2 women coming from the Philippines, and a mother and her child coming from Laos. We stayed in a room on the highest floor of a 19-story building, with 8 bunk beds and 2 private bathrooms. The view is great, but we had very slow or no service to access wifi or data at first. After that, we eventually got access to wifi, but it was still very slow.
Overall, the lifestyle that I had in the camp was very healthy. I slept early and woke up early. I woke up at 6:30 am almost every morning except for the first one because of jetlag. I ate lunch and dinner at the same time every day. The only thing I wished I could do was to go outside, walk around, and enjoy some fresh air, but because the place that we were staying at doesn’t have a playground, so we were asked to stay in our room only. I read more in the camp and I managed to finish 2 books there. I did try to stretch and exercise because my muscles became very stiff when I was just sitting and laying on my bed.
Staying with 8 strangers for 14 days was a unique experience. We were not talkative at first, but we started talking more and more as time went on. Staying right next to my bed was a woman coming back from the Philippines, and she would ask me and my friend to help her learn English every day. I genuinely enjoyed it because I love helping people and seeing her getting better at speaking English satisfied me. Four out of eight people in my room have got married. The next few day, we started talking about relationships, past relationships, marriage, and a bunch of other stuff. There was one day that we spent the whole day talking from the morning until the afternoon, and the time just whiled away like that. We were soon comfortable making jokes with each other. We tried to exercise in the room since we could not go outdoors. I was trying to do a dance workout with two people in our room. My favorite memory was that we even had a photo shoot that I was the makeup artist and one of the photographers. We were so creative in lighting that we used flash light from our phones and a comb to create the shadow. And now, when we have got out of the camp, we even have a group chat to keep in contact.
About my transition to online classes, it is relatively difficult. I am having 6 online classes. I was freaking out very much when I realized I have so much stuff due with all of my classes. Since I was having slow wifi, I contacted all of my professors via email explaining my situation and they all understood it and allowed me to have more time to finish my work. I am very grateful because I feel like it was overwhelming with the workload that I received from all of my classes. I still have a lot to catch up on even now when I’m at home.
The medical team came to each room twice a day every day to check our temperature. On the fourth day, we had to go through the first medical check where they will stick 2 long q-tips to the throat and the nose to check the substance. The second medical check happened on the last day where they would take my blood and test it.
Staying at quarantine camp was a very one-of-a-kind experience that I never thought I would have to go through. To be honest, I enjoyed it a lot and felt a little bit sad to leave the place and the people I have been with for 14 days even though the place lacks some necessities. I am staying at home now practicing my self-isolation and I wish I could stay as healthy as I was in the quarantine camp. Stay safe and healthy guys! We can go through this together!
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