26 Nov 2020

A senior teacher at Letsopa Junior Secondary School in Lobatse, Lekwalo Thobega has published a poetry book documenting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Botswana.

She wrote the book together with Happy Modisaotsile, who is also a senior teacher.

The book which is titled Corona Virus Episodes (BW), was published after the extreme social distancing lockdown. The 95 page book contains a total of 48 poems written in English language.

“This book is our poetic reflection and documentation of the effects of the Corona Virus on our respective societies, individuals and various sectors of the economy.

No one saw this pandemic coming and many things have changed because of it,” Thobega said in an interview.

Thobega, who is a Guidance and Counselling teacher, said she started working on the poems during the first lock-down in April.

She said she reflected on things which happened after the first case of corona virus was confirmed in Botswana. She said she looked at emotions of the whole nation including the workers, learners and leaders.

“I looked at how we took the whole pandemic thing from the personal, social, economic and spiritual point of view,” she said.

She said she then decided, together with Modisaotsile to write a book detailing what was happening because this pandemic is a historic thing.

She said the book would serve as one of the references to the coming generations on how COVID-19 affected the whole nation.

“People would be able to know by reading this book how coronavirus affected our lives negatively and how we responded to it as a nation.

They would also be able to read the positive lessons we learned from this pandemic,” she said.

Thobega said they chose to write the book in poetry form in order to arouse interest from pupils in poetic devices such as personification, repetition, simile and metaphors.   

The book has four sections and the first section contains poems that detail how COVID-19 affected people on personal basis, while the second section looks at how the pandemic affected people financially.

The third section explores how the pandemic affected people spiritually, while the fourth section looks at how the pandemic affected people socially.

“The pandemic affected people differently. Some people suffered health and emotional effects after contracting the virus. That’s the individual or personal effects.

There were also social effects. We saw a lot of social ills because of the lockdown. Some people lost their jobs and that caused a lot of stress, which they failed to cope with and ended up taking out their frustrations on family members,” she said.

Poems in the book such as Lost Job and Economic Game Change detail the economic hardships caused by the pandemic, while poems such as My Village Was A Red Zone, Corona Hits Botswana and MmaBoi detail the social effects of the pandemic.

She said the virus also had a serious spiritual effect on the society since the religious community was severely affected.

Thobega also explained that the book through poems such as Learner Against Odds and Anxiety of Learners details serious effects on the pupils and their education.

“The learners had high levels of anxiety, uncertainty and pressure because they lost a lot of time during lockdown. So, the teachers had to calm them down and reassure them. The teacher had to deal with a lot of challenges. ” she said. ENDS