Pakistan students remember helping to tackle outbreak

WUHAN — Calling Wuhan their “second home”, many Pakistani students answered their government’s call to stay in the central Chinese city during the 76-day lockdown, volunteering to help on campus, working on their theses and sharing experiences with their family and friends.

After Wuhan, the former epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, declared unprecedented traffic restrictions to contain the then rampaging epidemic on Jan 23, Taufiq Qureshi formed a team of 20 volunteers to help the Huazhong University of Science and Technology run the international students’ apartments, when the majority of the staff who had been on Spring Festival vacation could not return to Wuhan due to entry restrictions.

“There was only one attendant, and I could see that she was exhausted. Somebody should be there to help,” says the Pakistani PhD student in urban planning.

The team, which later increased to 54 members including 20 Pakistani students, helped distribute food, water and other essentials to each room and collect students’ daily health reports and requests. Qureshi, the team leader, started his day at 7:30 am and did not sleep until midnight.

Messages and calls overwhelmed him. “I kept my phone charging all the time, and I even took it to the toilet with me, something I never did before, because I was afraid I would miss a student’s message for help,” says Qureshi.

With the epidemic waning and the lockdown lifted in Wuhan, Qureshi now has some free time to play badminton and relax. “I finished my thesis before the outbreak. I am now preparing for my thesis defense. Hopefully, I can graduate this year,” says Qureshi, who is already a lecturer at a Pakistani university.

Huang Chao, director of the overseas students’ office, said the students’ apartments were sealed off during the lockdown, and the university provided three meals, masks and necessities to students on the campus every day. Student volunteers helped a lot with the service.

According to Hubei’s foreign affairs office, there are more than 1,000 Pakistani students in Wuhan, a megacity with many universities. As Pakistan expressed solidarity with China in the anti-virus battle, many Pakistani students also shared how they stood united with Wuhan during its difficult time.

“I love China, and I love Wuhan. The city is my second home, and I must help,” said another student volunteer, Miral Javed, who is in the final year of her master’s in food science at Huazhong Agricultural University.

For the past 80 days, Javed focused on volunteer work, including distributing food and necessities, in the morning. She usually spent her afternoon writing her thesis and would talk with her family in the evening.

“The university has adequate supplies of food and water. My family worried about me, so I always consoled them in video calls and told them I was doing fine here ... With the guidance and encouragement of my professor, I have almost finished my thesis,” says Javed, who is considering pursuing her PhD in Wuhan after graduation.

The decision to stay in Wuhan was not an easy one for some students, who had to struggle with worrying news from their hometowns, and sometimes even deaths of family members.

Mir Hassan, a PhD student of computer architecture at HUST, was visiting his friend at Wuhan University on Jan 22, a day before Wuhan’s lockdown came into effect, and was “trapped” in his friend’s apartment for 84 days. “The university provided food, masks and necessary equipment for me, as they did for their own students,” Hassan says.

When Hassan was quarantined there, his father died of a heart ailment in Pakistan. “I will carry regret for the rest of my life because I missed the funeral of my father,” says Hassan, who spent much of the time talking with friends and sleeping to reduce his stress levels.

“The Chinese government has already offered to support me in returning, but now the condition in Pakistan is critical, so our government has decided that we should stay here because it’s good for us,” says Hassan, adding that he will book tickets to go back as soon as the situation in Pakistan gets better.

“I will stay for one or two months to accompany my mother, then I’ll come back to finish my studies. Wuhan is my second home. It’s a hub for business and transportation. I also want to work here after graduation,” Hassan adds.

As the epidemic worsened in Pakistan, Pakistani students began to share their experiences and offer suggestions to their hometowns.

“We are like ambassadors to our own country, telling them about our experience here, how to tackle or to follow precautions and how to deal with distress and anxiety when people are held up at home,” says Qureshi, who shared his experience via a video meeting in March.

“We can learn from China, not only the medical measures, but also how to supply food for citizens during quarantine and how to manage isolation centers, and so on,” says Qureshi.