Editor’s note: We would like to thank Siyavuyisana Nakwa, Language and Writing Consultant at the Teaching and Learning Centre at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa for providing this collection of responses. To contact the author, please email TLC. If you would like to share your writing center’s experience during COVID-19, please submit via WLN.

Coronavirus, commonly called Covid-19, has caused a lot of disturbance not just in the institution or at workplaces but in the country as a whole. At first, (2019) when we some heard about the virus we took it so lightly (me included), I believe we most took it serious when it hit us here (South Africa) and numbers were accumulating. The country embarked on a lockdown at first it was for 21 days and we all thought this will soon pass but numbers of infected people kept on increasing thus led the president of South Africa to take a drastic decision of extending the lockdown. With the ongoing pandemic people started to lose their jobs, got retrenched, as students since we were sent home we were given zero-rated data to help us continue studying whilst we are at our homes.

For Language and Writing Advancement Programme tutors, this pandemic made it so difficult for us to carry on with our work as it is supposed to be done because sometimes we do face-to-face consultations. There are some students which for them to understand and grasp the content require face-to-face talk and that is not applicable, even in this zero-rated data we must come to a realization that not all students have smart phones. Talking about e-learning, okay “funded” students were given data for online learning, question is about those that are not funded, also with those that are funded some do not have phones nor laptops to access this online learning. University said it is going to give out laptops and they are going to hand them to “funded” students question is did they do that? NO. It is really hard to operate under this pandemic. Online learning will never work, as most of students will be left behind.

It is hard to assist students and as a team we are having a fear that most of students will fail due to this pandemic, not because they do not do the work but because of network, lack of literature and gadgets to do their learning and assessments. For me, it is difficult to concentrate, do schoolwork at home when I happen to get hold of network. As postgrad have pile of assessment to do too I cannot imagine the work of undergrads have and will after this even though maybe the academic calendar would be revised but it is going to be tough.

People are dying because of this virus. As I am from the remote areas it is somehow hard to adhere to those precautions set by the president as guided by the medical boards, we do not know social distancing here and you will find people walking around in numbers. We do adhere to some but there are those such as washing hands more often, washing hands often as clean water is not readily available. The available water we share with livestock We are at risk here though we  are trying to adhere and fight the spread of the virus but the virus is complicated and scientists are still learning more about its patterns. It is mainly affecting the elderly especially those with underlying medical conditions.

This pandemic changed many things not just to us at homes, as students or at our workplaces, but a change to the country as whole, a change to the whole world. After this pandemic, many things will not go back to normal. We are just looking at our future blurring in front of us hoping that we come up with useful strategies to deal with the new normal.