Returning Home Halfway Around The World

A First-Person Account by Petra Duran

Petra Duran is a junior on the women's golf team at Georgia State who hails from Barcelona, Spain. She along with her teammates and the 350 other Panther student-athletes saw their seasons come to a halt by the coronavirus pandemic almost two weeks ago. Now at home in Barcelona, Duran wrote this first-person account of what it has been like and what she hopes for the future.

Hello Panther Family. My name is Petra Duran and I'm an international student-athlete on the women's golf team, currently in my junior year. This past week has been kind of crazy. On Wednesday, March 11, I started receiving messages from my friends that they were being sent home by their coaches since all classes were being canceled and moved online. Also, at home in Spain, they had already started to act with safety procedures against COVID-19, but for some reason at Georgia State, nothing was happening just yet.

But on Thursday, March 12, things changed, and while we were at practice, Coach Ket made us stop and get all together because Coach Steward was on the phone with important announcements. Basically, the NCAA had canceled the championships and we were no longer able to practice or compete.

A few days passed after all my international friends had already left for their home countries, but I still didn't want to go home. Spain was in a lockdown and all golf courses had closed. As soon the Sun Belt Conference Championship was cancelled, we were also asked to leave the dorms as classes would be moved online in two weeks starting on March 30. I was very lucky as my teammate Courtney invited me to stay with her and we were able to practice for three days before we had our last team meeting on Tuesday.

Before walking into that meeting, I was still convinced that staying was the best idea, but then we were told that everything, including golf courses were also going to be closed in a matter of days. So, my idea completely changed. I texted my parents who also thought staying was the best option and told them the situation. While I was in that meeting, they got a message from the Spanish government asking all Spanish students in the United States to return to their homes. In less than five hours I had already packed everything, cleared my dorm, and had a flight for the following day.

It was scary and very stressful. I knew Spain was in a very bad situation but also knew that United States was behind and still had not experienced what was happening back home. My first flight was to Miami, Fla., and then to Barcelona. The second flight was nine hours long and even though I had gloves on and a mask. A few people were coughing, and you just didn't know where you could catch the virus.

But the worse part came when I landed as the airport was empty. At the same time, it was full of police officers. My dad came to pick me up but that same day our government instituted a new rule of only one person per car. When I saw my dad, we had to quickly say hello, spoke for a couple of minutes and I got in the car, and drove to our house on the beach. My dad took an Uber back home.

So, as of now, I am currently in quarantine with my sister who came from Michigan the day after me and won't be able to leave the house for at least 25 more days. I hope that things turn around quickly in Spain with the lockdown now in place and that things do not get worse for my friends back in the United States. We are taking things very seriously over here and I hope everyone will do the same back in Atlanta.

I also just really hope this goes by fast. We'll have to get used to online classes and a different study pattern. The one thing I ask is for everyone to follow the rules because if not, this will never end, and I want to get back to Georgia State and my teammates when the time is right.

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Players Mentioned

Petra Duran: 6' 0"; Junior

Players Mentioned

Petra Duran
: 6' 0"; Junior