The year is 2020 and the world is freaking out. The year unfolded in a downward spiral. As I’m writing this I’m currently in Brunei in the middle of March, which is very unusual because for the past 4 years around this time of the year, every single year, I would be in Istanbul worrying about my midsemester exams, which I actually still am, but seems like the semester isn’t happening and right now I’m still waiting for further clarification from the uni. I’m tucked away safely in a room at an isolation centre. It’s been 4 days since I’ve arrived. The current global situation will be written in the world history, and I want to pen this down for me to remember in the future. So this is my side of the story, of how COVID-19 is shutting the world down.

I heard about the outbreak in mid-January. It was my winter semester final exam, and I was due to leave for Malaysia to visit my husband right after my last paper. My mum had been nagging since the month before as she was concerned that I was gonna be alone for my journey to Kedah, where my husband was, from KLIA. The nagging was mostly because of my safety, but later on it became more worrying as the outbreak had significantly affected China. I just brushed it off as at that time as the outbreak was considerably local. So I flew off, spent a week in Malaysia and the remaining 3 weeks of my winter break in Brunei. During the last 2 weeks however, the outbreak had spread outside China and got its own name, COVID-19. My mum and sister already had their Singapore trip planned out before the first case in Singapore was announced, and at that time there was already 14-day quarantine advice going around.

I flew back to Istanbul in mid-February. My classes started on the 18th February, and things was already going downhill by that time. Suddenly the cases in Iran and South Korea spiked, and day after day other countries started reporting cases too. I remember when the first case in Greece was detected in Thessaloniki which is very close to the Greece-Turkey border I thought to myself that it wouldn’t be long until Turkey would also report their first case, too because all other surrounding countries were already affected. For the first 3 weeks after I came back to Istanbul things were fine. Life happened as usual but the anxiety was there.

I was still trying to get over my trip home. I missed my family so badly, especially Luna who was already outgrowing the baby phase, plus I didn’t get to spend much time with my husband whose return was rescheduled to two days before my flight. As the epidemic was getting worse and approaching us, deep down I wished I could go home. Then March 11th, the first case was reported in Turkey. Two days later, it was announced that schools and universities would be closed for one and three weeks respectively. That same night I called my mum, telling her I wanted to go home, but as it was only gonna be three weeks and if I were to go home, I’d have to be quarantined for 2 weeks, and not long after that we received email from the scholarship committee that we were not allowed to leave Turkey (note : I’m studying under Turkish Govt scholarship). So it was decided that I’d just stay in Istanbul.

I stayed at home during the first week of break. I only went out for groceries. I felt miserable and anxious because I wanted to go home but I couldn’t and the cases reported was literally doubling every day and I couldn’t help thinking what if I was actually exposed to the virus without me knowing because my daily routine involved going on the train. There was so many uncertainties. Then not long after the scholarship committee revoked the travel restriction and we were allowed to go home under several T&C and a few days later the embassy called to tell me that I could return home, flight fully sponsored by the government. I quickly took the offer, bugged the uni for a letter to prove that our classes would be conducted online (a T&C from embassy), which brought my stress level up because I got a call from the embassy on Thursday, and if I couldn’t get it by the next day I’d have to wait until Monday to sort it out and many flights were already cancelled by that time.

The embassy was kind enough to proceed getting my ticket before receiving the letter which I fortunately managed to get on Friday. I requested my flight to be on Sunday but as most flights were suspended the earliest I could go was on Tuesday (24th March), so I would be in Brunei by Wednesday (25th March). My journey would be Istanbul-Doha-Singapore-Brunei. Everything was settled, I could finally breathe and started packing up. I cleaned up my house, and gave the extra key to my friend on Saturday. I just dumped everything I needed to bring in one hand luggage and another slightly bigger one. I had ample time to chill, so that was what I was gonna do until the day of my flight.

Then on Sunday morning, I woke up to the news that Singapore banned all travelers from coming in including transit passengers.