How pandemic has changed Kenya’s social fabric

As Kenyans try to come to terms with the bizarre burial of a coronavirus victim and government agencies blame each other over the incident, the one thing that is clear is that the virus, which is wreaking havoc across the world, is changing our lives too.

In just a month since the first case of Covid-19 was reported, Kenyans have been forced to adapt in ways they have never before as their lives get increasingly threatened with a reality of being turned upside down.

From working from home and virtual church services to wearing masks, the list of how our traditions are changing keeps growing every day.

But the burial of a Kenya Ports Authority employee on Saturday night just hours after he was declared dead is perhaps the loudest indicator of how the traditions and lifestyle of a country can be changed in an instant.

Outrage over how the burial was conducted without giving family members a chance to show their last respects shows just how dear Kenyans value their cultures.

But from whatever is happening across the world and now in Kenya, we are living in extraordinary times where traditions don’t matter anymore.

Here are some of the ways the pandemic has changed Kenya’s social fabric so far:

Over the weekend, NTV news anchor Zainab Ismael and fellow journalist Faizal Ahmed tied the knot in a low-key ceremony that ordinarily would have attracted a lot of attention.

“We had already booked a venue and invited 200 guests but after Covid 19 hit the country, we reduced the number to just eight,” said Mr Ahmed.

Apart from photos of the newly-weds posted online by friends, the wedding failed to grab the attention of Kenyans on the same scale of nuptials involving famed journalists.

Wedding ceremonies, which in a typical African setting involve friends, family and relatives, have now been reduced to a gathering of no more than 15 persons.

All Saints Cathedral, for example, has announced a raft of measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus. In a statement to its congregants, the church advised those whose weddings were to take place in the next four weeks to cancel them.

At the Tea Room bus stop in downtown Nairobi, public service vehicles that have been banned from ferrying passengers in and out of the capital have since last week switched to transporting products like food. It is a survival technique that Mr Dairus Guchu says will enable them to survive the tough times.

“People cannot travel but they need food. We are just trying to survive,” he says. Public transport has been hit hard in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus. The national carrier Kenya Airways is also adapting to the changing times. The airline has decided to have some of its grounded passenger planes transport cargo.

“As we do things differently, we know that it is critical for essential goods to be transported. Some of our grounded passenger planes will complement the work of our cargo freighters in this way,” said the airline after one of its Dreamliners landed in Johannesburg, South Africa, with medical goods on Sunday.

Passenger air transport remains banned. And passengers travelling by road have been forced to wear masks and pay extra fare because vehicles are carrying fewer people.

The coronavirus has made it impossible for funeral crowds to gather, and for hugs to be exchanged. The bereaved must say farewell in new and unsettling ways.

 On Sunday, the country witnessed the most un-African send-off when health workers wearing protective gear shoved the body of a coronavirus victim into a shallow grave.

There was neither a priest in sight nor last rites as the man was hurriedly buried at 1am.

Yesterday, Muslim scholars announced that “those who die as a result of coronavirus will not be subjected to the ritual washing procedures (ghusl), to prevent possible infection and spread of the disease”.

Normal traditional mourning rites involve washing, shrouding and viewing of a body, followed by communal prayer in a mosque. Gatherings of more than 1,000 people are common.

Communal prayer is followed by burial and then condolences and mourning at the family’s home.

Unknown to many, the first term of the school calendar came to a silent end last Friday.

 A majority of public schools were unable to administer their end-of-term examinations and just a few private institutions tested their learners via digital platforms.

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has said that the pandemic might be here for months and so the reopening of schools for second term, which was scheduled to start on May 4, may not happen.

As it is now, learning institutions are likely to remain closed for the better part of the year, keeping more than 18 million learners at home if projections of how the coronavirus may spread come true.

Already, private schools have started feeling the pinch as they mainly depend on fees to pay teachers and other workers.

Meanwhile, without a clear plan on how digital learning will take place and no infrastructure in place, a majority of parents across the country have been forced to teach their children at home.

A lot of companies have asked some of their staff to work from home while others have reduced their employees in an effort to stay afloat.

While the concept of working from home seemed like a distant idea just a few weeks ago, it is now a reality. But as employees adapt to working from home, companies are devising methods of keeping them in check to make sure that work is done.

One of the ways that has become popular is video conferencing. “We are lucky to have started our digital transformation journey earlier,” says Timothy Oriedo, founder of data firm Predictive Analytics Lab.

However, the biggest challenge to Kenya’s work culture during the pandemic is that informal employment contributes 80 per cent of all jobs in the country. The sector employs nearly 15 million people compared to just 2.9 million who work in the formal sector. Workers in the informal sector are mostly vulnerable and have to report to work to earn a living.