In late March, I left the United States for home. The COVID-19 situation in Atlanta had forced SCAD to close its academic facilities. There was little point in staying, as things were only looking for the worse.
Thousands of other Vietnamese students around the world had the same thought.
A developing nation with health care infrastructure not ready for a pandemic to hit its population of 95 million, the government decided to close its borders and enforce a two-week quarantine on all who entered the country. Quarantine sites were often emptied-out college residence halls or military living quarters.
My flight was the second-to-last before the borders closed. I had two suitcases. For two weeks, I lived in a state college with three other women, our temperature taken twice a day, meals provided three times a day and COVID-19 tested twice in the duration of our stay.
It’s been a while, but these are my mementos of room 311.
