Finding out suddenly about the school holidays due to Covid-19 made me so happy and excited that I didn’t realise the seriousness of the disease. That Sunday, my “Monday blues” turned into the joy of having no school.

In the beginning, I was the happiest person on earth. It was so peaceful, as suddenly the sounds of roaring engines of the vehicles and horns of the school buses had disappeared. It was a strange, but happy feeling.

A week later, I was getting instructions from my teachers and started doing online schooling from home, which was a very pleasant experience at first. My friends and I used to think about how fun it would be to be homeschooled and then those thoughts turned into reality.

My dad was at home as well. I had never experienced such holidays where everyone stays home, so it was all very different for me. Eventually, I developed a routine of waking up whenever I wanted, doing school work for a few hours and then I would have nothing to do, which got boring gradually.

Sterilising everything, including the doorknobs and handles, became a part of our routine, which is not interesting anymore. It has become a fearful obsession for my mother who is always asking if we sanitised or washed everything which comes in the house from the stores.

When I feel bored, my mother tries to show me the bright side of the lockdown by saying that the sun shines brighter than before, the sky is much bluer and the stars are brighter at night.

For me, while studying at home, there is no waiting for the weekends anymore. All days now seem the same. I’ve started missing my friends, the school assembly, basketball matches and all other activities at school. A 12-year-old girl whose life consisted of nothing but going to school, hanging out with friends after school or doing sports has now come to a standstill.

Do we really have to live with this virus for a lifetime, as my parents tell me to learn to live with it? I wonder, will I ever be able to get out of the door without fearing this virus and be close to my friends in the same way as before? How long will I have to wait for the world to become normal again? I wish to go back to my previous routine of going to school, having weekends, and summer and winter vacations.

For me, Covid-19 has turned everything upside down which is no more exciting. Now I want to go back to school which I used to hate before, and meet my friends and teachers as they all are a very important part of my life too. In fact I wish to have a vacation from home now.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 29th, 2020