Whatever Happens We Fought Hard to Win

Name: Oluwatobi Babalola
Sex: Male
Age: 28
Location: Accra, Ghana

I can’t say that I’m not scared of what is happening in the world right now, how this will change our lives and the world we live in forever. All through my adult life, I have never witnessed a pandemic; one that has taken more lives than I can count.

When I got to know about the novel coronavirus, I felt like China would be able to contain this because they already put in place measures to block the spread of the virus. The only way it would spread would be from asymptomatic patients.

I had the hope that people who are infected but not sick would not pass the virus to others. But these carriers were able to escape official documentation because they have mild flu symptoms. I have my doubts but these are the people who made it possible for the virus to spread far and wide. 

Today, the world has a common enemy in coronavirus and tracing for cases of contact to control the risk of spread is still very hard especially in Africa.

Life has changed for almost everyone. For me, I now work remotely. I go out in the morning to get food that will last till evening and stay indoors till the next day. I reach out to my family in Nigeria everyday to check up on them and remind them to take necessary precautions. I reach out to my friends too. There’s nothing more to do at this time than to be available for each other.

I’m here in our office apartment with my colleagues working and giving it our best shot because we hope there will be life after this. All we need to do now is stay safe and care for each other till this is over. How soon it will be over, we don’t know yet but we are hopeful! For now, the news is scary, the future is uncertain!

I don’t know if we will ever survive this trying time so I’m taking this moment to reflect on the events that have happened during the past few weeks. While I acknowledge this feeling of fear that this may be the end of many people living in the world today, I’ll allow myself to live in the moments, share love, and be kind while we allow this dark time to pass. I won’t let myself be consumed by the uncertainty of what might happen while I wait for the day they announced that coronavirus is over and we can all return back to our normal lives.