I have a relaxed Friday evening thanks to the positive energy brought about by the painless Covid-19 test that I had in the morning. I even decide to spend some time on the balcony to enjoy the evening breeze.
A few minutes later, a young woman joins me. She informs me that she is waiting for her friends. I am on the phone with my mum when she comes in, and as I talk, I can sense that she is trying to figure out what I am saying since I am conversing in Kiswahili.
Jennifer is a 32-year-old Nigerian. She tells me that she is an interior designer and hasn’t had any work since Covid-19 struck. And like the receptionist at my hotel, she doesn’t believe that the virus exists, at least not in this neighbourhood. She moved here from the island across to live with her uncle, in whose home she grew up. She considers the island the epicentre of Covid-19.
An affluent neighbourhood, the island is where most foreign travellers, who are thought to be carriers of the coronavirus, spend their holidays. Her argument almost makes sense.
The spread of Covid-19 around the island is a concern because when young people from the diaspora arrived, this is where they partied their way through the early days of the pandemic. Most of the initial cases in Nigeria can almost be traced back to the island.
In spite of the fact that Jennifer doesn’t really believe that Covid-19 is real, she still isn’t willing to take chances, plus she feared that she would soon run out of supplies, and when she did, she wanted to be in a familiar environment, where she could easily reach out to her childhood friends.
She regales me with stories of better days before Covid-19 when she was making good money from her business. I suspect that she was under pressure to offload what she is going through because I am a stranger to her, yet she was willing to share so much about herself with me. Everyone is going through a hard time as this virus rages.
My Covid-19 concerns, she insists, are unnecessary, since this neighbourhood is yet to report a case. She is convinced that nobody is infected here, and that I should, in fact, spend more time outdoors as there is a lot to see. She promises to take me to a place where local herbs are prepared — they will protect me against every imaginable infection, she assures me.
Of course, being a foreigner and fearing to sound judgmental, I nod and tell her that we can consider that the coming week, even though I have no intention of drinking any concoctions.
Her friends, who have booked two rooms here for the weekend, as I later find out from my receptionist friend, return, and she joins them.
A while later, Lanre informs me of the death of one of the young men in my local team here. He died this morning of symptoms similar to those of Covid-19, including chest pain and fever. It will probably never be confirmed what really killed him, because he is Muslim and will therefore have to be buried today.
It is a sad day for us. He was one of the best we had, and my heart is broken because he is just about my first-born son’s age, about 26 years.
I think about the young people in Kenya I have been reading about who have been flouting the rules meant to keep them safe as they party and my heart breaks. It is sad because we have a long journey ahead of us with this virus, and sadder because these young people are in denial over our situation.
Ms Ndinda is a research manager with Transform Research Africa Ltd. She is stranded in Nigeria, where she has been since March 21.
TOMORROW: It’s two days to June 19, the day of our rescheduled flight home. I am afraid to dwell on it following the cancellation of the flight that was to take me home on June 12.
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