Quarantine Blues

By Adéle Stowe, St Francis of Assisi parish, Sangre Grande

Isaiah 41:10 it says, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” This verse is my source of comfort during this quarantine situation in Trinidad and Tobago. One wouldn’t have expected our final day at school to be on the March 13. This unexpected change has affected a lot of students in our country, especially those writing CSEC and CAPE examinations. As a CAPE student myself, this has provided extra stress and demotivation considering the fluidity of exams, but, thanks to my faith in God, I can somewhat get through these tough times.

Since the premature ending of the school term, I was motivated to continue with my studies but as time goes along, I must admit this feeling has slowly disappeared. Despite still having classes for some subjects I couldn’t help but feel demotivated due to being unsure of when exams were going to take place along with anticipating if I will have to do online exams as it isn’t a personal preference of mine.

However, during this time of quarantine, since I have a lot of time on my hands, when I was not studying, to get myself out of this funk I was able to enjoy drawing and painting once again as I now had the time to do it and I didn’t have an inspiration block. This time has also given me the opportunity to improve my bread-making skills, clean an entire fish properly thanks to my mother and father and I was able to help my mother tend to her plants which provide a refreshing new experience for me as I have never done so before. I can safely say that I have become closer to my family during this time

Although this stay at home is frustrating and uncertainty lies before us, there is still positive in all of this. As teenagers, we all experienced heightened levels of demotivation, disrupted schedules and even our mental health has suffered due to this. We can use Isaiah 41:10 as our motivation and once we continue talking to God and praying to Him to guide us. He will be our strength to go through these trying times because as long as we keep our faith nothing is impossible with God.