I’m Yvan M., a student in the first class of the high school of Touboro, a commune north of Cameroon. Three months before the exam everyone was in full preparation. My friends and I had studied as a group, we spent each day practicing exam questions to better prepare for our exams. Then one day a friend came to announce that a ministerial note aimed at the momentary closure of institutions was communicated.

Everyone was saddened by this communication. Indeed our problem was not the closure of the school, but the dislocation of our study group. We got along well. We had better courage together and we had the assurance of our probable exam success.

The next day, I went back to the village. My parents live 35 km from the city. When I arrived, I was surprised to note that the village was mild, a little paradise. For us in the village, COVID-19 and the confinement were not our problems until one day when I returned from hunting, my father announced some bad news. My big brother who works in Douala had contracted the virus. I had to travel urgently the next day to provide moral support to his wife and children and to help monitor his condition. My brother was admitted to the Catholic Hospital.

After two months, his health came back to normal thanks to the treatment he had received. In early June, I went back to Touboro and found my friends strictly respecting the barrier measures, we continued our exam preparations. COVID-19 had delayed us in our exams but it was also advantageous because we had enough time to prepare for the exams. This hard work preparing for exams was crowned by the success of the whole team at the end of the year.