Assalamu Alaikum. May Allah save and keep us as blessed as usual. I want to share my story about how COVID-19 impacted my life. Let me first introduce myself. My name is Maftuna, living in the Tashkent region of Uzbekistan.

My family is big. The eight members are my grandfather, grandmother, mother, brother, sister, sister-in-law, and my niece, and myself. Alhamdulillah nobody is infected with COVID-19 in my family even though my grandparents are old people and my mother and brother go out to work every day.

COVID-19 had both positive and negative sides in my life. I graduated from university before the beginning of the pandemic. It was hard for me to find an internship because I did not have experience before and I am from an ordinary family. I was not fluent in Russian, which is why other jobs also did not accept me. My mother was ill and she is the one who financially supported me before. My brother does not care what happens to me. I was alone in the world.

All jobs were closed when COVID-19 started and I was also not able to go to a Russian course; this was in order to save my family some money. That is why I sat at home to learn Russian and improve my background by watching a lot of foreign movies, series, and cartoons online. I wanted to commit suicide because I was very alone and felt abandoned. That is why I started to learn Sunni Islam which encourages people not to commit suicide. My mindset has changed so far; it has become hard to fool me with the usual tricks. However, after so many personal improvements I still could not apply to jobs in Tashkent, because I didn’t want to be infected with COVID-19 and become a reason to spread the virus among my family.

On the positive side, I started to work remotely for several companies in London, Singapore, and California which is a big achievement in my life. Education and quality of work are low in my country. That is why I feel the pandemic has changed my life for the positive because of the jobs I got from other countries.

If you are a believer, death is the beginning of a beautiful life. Because of this concept, the virus has resulted in a positive impact on my life. Not losing any members of my family is protection from Allah in my perspective.