Our Mentors Have Been Acting Like Parents ——A narrative of a Tanzanian student in China on his life amid the COVID-19 epidemic

In October 2019, I went to China to study for Master’s Degree in Xiangya Nursing school of Central South University under the support of scholarship from the Ministry of Commerce, China. Before the start of the coronavirus epidemic we had a great time in class. But a great enemy of the nation called novel coronavirus pneumonia, or COVID-19 emerged. The start of the epidemic brought us huge disappointment accompanied by a lot of anxieties and fears. We realized that this situation was getting serious when we saw news showing that the number of people being affected was increasing every day; the government taking serious measures including building two special hospitals for COVID-19 patients, restricting movement of people, especially in Wuhan City and Hubei Province, the epicentre and source region of the epidemic, and suspending public transport in different parts of the country, in order to ensure that the epidemic does not affect larger number of people. For us, things changed when we were asked to go out with a mask on and only when we had serious needs could we go outside.

To be honest, this period has been frustrating and exhausting socially, emotionally and academically which was difficult to cope with. However, this has also given us an experience on how China is able to deal with these difficult situations. Not every nation could manage to do this. The Chinese Government seems so organized and focused on preventing further spread of the infection inside the country and around the world. This has been one of the biggest reasons that made us believe China will conquer the epidemic, which to some extent has reduced our anxieties. Furthermore, we have learnt that the Chinese people are very cooperative with the government in containing the epidemic. Most of them follow government’s instructions by staying at home and not visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival holiday.

Our Mentors Have Been Acting Like Parents ——A narrative of a Tanzanian student in China on his life amid the COVID-19 epidemic

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